MPs bottle out of sacking Brown
COWARDLY Labour MPs last night backed down from their threat to put Gordon Brown out of his – and our – misery.
They failed to oust the shattered Prime Minister from office – leaving the country to suffer the consequences of facing another year of a Government in total chaos.
Despite Labour’s worst election result of just 16 per cent in the Euro poll, Mr Brown survived the bungled revolt.
Loyalists rallied around him at a stormy, jam-packed, 90-minute meeting at Westminster last night yet rebels vowed to continue openly defying him and threatened yet another coup this autumn.
One described Labour’s trouncing and the election of two British National Party Euro MPs as a “disgrace and humiliation” for the Prime Minister.
Rebels insisted he was “on probation” until the Labour conference in September.
And last night, the Labour internal civil war intensified as two senior former ministers undermined his fight back by urging him to quit.
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Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke and ex-Transport Minister Stephen Byers shattered the Prime Minister’s latest attempt to stamp unity on his war-ravaged party.
Mr Clarke told the Prime Minister to his face to go “for the sake of the party”.
“Nobody knows what Labour stands for anymore and that’s the Prime Minister’s fault,” he told Mr Brown at a packed meeting of Labour MPs and peers in the House of Commons.
His brutal intervention was heard in “silence” in a packed Commons committee room.
Mr Byers went further by accusing Mr Brown of leading the Labour Party to “hum iliation and disgrace”.
In a scorching speech, he said: “For Labour to get 16 per cent of the national share of the vote is a disgrace and a humiliation.
“For Labour to come second in Wales to the Conservatives for the first time in 90 years is a humiliation.
For Labour to lose to the SNP in Scotland is a humiliation. And for Labour, for its failure to engage with the electorate and to allow in the BNP, is not just a humiliation but it is a disgrace.
“We need someone who can voice the concerns of the British people and who can identify with their needs, a leader who is decisive and not timid, who can inspire and take our country though these difficult times.
“And we need a leader who can win for Labour at the next General Election and not take us to a humiliating defeat. Gordon Brown is not that leader.”
Their double broadside capped another day of sensational mutiny and turmoil. Mr Brown was rocked by the resignation of yet another senior woman minister critical of his bullying leadership style.
Environment Minister Jane Kennedy accused the Prime Minister of “ruling by smear”.
Later, Mr Brown was forced to grovel to his MPs and peers at the meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
He admitted he had “weaknesses”, but pleaded with them to choose between “unity or defeat”. Mr Brown told the meeting: “I have my strengths and I have my weaknesses.
“I know there are some things I do well, some things not so well. I’ve learned that you need to keep learning all the time.”
The premier told his MPs he wanted to use all the “talents” in the party and act in a “more collective way”.
But he insisted: “You solve the problem not by walking away but by facing it and doing something about it.”
Mr Brown called on the party to learn the “lessons from the past” and not succumb to division.
“I’m not making a plea for unity. I am making an argument for unity,” he said.
He insisted there was no ideological divide in the party, adding: “There is not a resignation letter I have seen that mentions differences over policy.”
Referring to the economy, he said: “These are challenges you cannot duck and you cannot run away from.”
Mr Brown was buoyed up by support from Labour grandees Lord Kinnock and David Blunkett, who made impassioned speeches in his favour.
Loyal MPs burst into applause and table thumping as the meeting wore on in an attempt to intimidate the Mr Brown’s critics.
But many rebels left the meeting furious that Mr Brown will stagger on.
They had wanted to oust him and replace him with Home Secretary Alan Johnson.
Former transport minister Tom Harris said Mr Brown had to step down and did not believe he would lead the party into the next General Election.
“There are many people in the Labour Party, in the Government, in the Parliamentary Labour Party, who feel as I do about Gordon, who feel that his continued leadership will result in a Conservative government and if you genuinely believe that then you should say so.”
Senior backbencher Barry Sheerman also urged Mr Brown to quit.
New Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw said Mr Brown had given the speech of a lifetime.
Defence minister Quentin Davies said the contributions had been “overwhelmingly positive”.
Senior MPs Fiona MacTaggart, Meg Munn, Tom Harris, Siobhan McDonagh and Barry Sheerman, who called for a secret ballot of MPs to test the true level of support for Mr Brown, all spoke out against his leadership.
Tory leader David Cameron said the public will get ever more angry the longer Gordon Brown denies them a General Election.
Yet Mr Cameron warned against any complacency.
He said: “Just as Labour has lost the trust of the British people, I want the Conservative Party to work hard to win that trust.
“Just as Labour has failed, we have to work hard to show how we can succeed.”
Insiders described the showdown as one of the most dramatic Labour meetings seen at Westminster in a generation.
The stuffy committee room was so packed that a string of MPs and ministers could not squeeze in. Extra police officers were called in to keep order outside the committee room.
