 However, Blair remained unconvinced of the case for electoral reform, and the commission's recommendations have never been passed into law.The plan to bring Liberal Democrats into the government continued, according to Ashdown's published diaries, but foundered on opposition from senior Labour ministers,said by Ashdown to have been led by then Chancellor, and later Labour Party leader and Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.As a result members of the Liberal Democrats at their Spring convention in Southport in March 1998 passed a resolution that "triple-locked" the party leader, requiring him or her to engage with both the parliamentary and federal Liberal Democrats before a formal coalition could be agreed.