Brown survives mutiny with pledge to improve
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Daily News with wires
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Haziran 10, 2009 00:00
LONDON-The embattled British PMseeks to draw a line through his most tumultuous week since taking office after surviving an attempt by rebel MPs to force him out. Despite a historic defeat in the European Parliament elections, his key allies back Brown, who vows to improve his lackluster leadership
Prime Minister Gordon Brown will remain at the helm of Britain’s ruling Labour Party after beating back a rebellion by members unhappy over its worst-ever defeat in voting for the European Parliament.
A smiling Brown gathered his newly reshuffled cabinet yesterday for its first weekly meeting after confronting dissidents at a two-hour closed-door meeting in Parliament in London late Monday. Brown won the support of most Labour lawmakers by promising to make unspecified changes to his leadership style and agenda, said six who attended.
But while he has defused an attempted rebellion this time, he remains vulnerable and could face renewed calls to go from party critics fearing a poll wipeout in general elections due within a year, commentators say. The wounds inflicted may be reopened if the Labour’s poll ratings don’t improve or if Brown presses ahead with controversial plans to clamp down on welfare benefits and sell a stake in the postal service.
"The sharks are no longer circling, but they haven’t gone away," Ivor Gaber, a professor of political campaigning at City University in London told Bloomberg. "At the moment, he is still the most likely person to lead Labour into the next election. But it is by no means certain."
The pound rose for a second day, gaining as much as 0.8 percent to $1.6176, as Brown’s political survival added to a survey showing the UK housing market is "stabilizing."
"I know I need to improve," Brown told the meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, or PLP, according to his spokesman. He shrugged off calls for his resignation, saying, "You solve the problem not by walking away but by doing something about it." Key cabinet colleagues rallied round Brown after Monday night's meeting, insisting he is the best man to help the country recover from economic crisis.
"The Labour Party does not want a new leader, there is no vacancy, there is no challenger," Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who had been tipped as a possible challenger to Brown last year, told the BBC.
MPs said afterwards that Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair in Downing Street nearly two years ago, gave a strong performance, notably pledging to change his leadership style to act in a "more collective way," according to a report by Agence France-Presse.
Few details emerged from the meeting of concessions Brown was reportedly considering on plans to part-privatize the Royal Mail postal service, which have been strongly opposed by many Labour MPs.
Humiliating defeat
Labour was beaten into third place in last Thursday's European elections, behind the main opposition Conservatives and the once fringe anti-Europeans the UK Independence Party, or UKIP, in a humiliating defeat for the ruling party. The elections also saw the far-right British National Party, or BNP, win its first two seats in the European Parliament, a victory described as "shameful" by critics. They also plunged in local polls held on the same day.
Newspaper commentators said Brown had won a reprieve, with the Guardian headlining "Brown's Great Escape" and the Daily Mail saying "Brown lives to fight another day", but they said this was unlikely to last.
The Financial Times reported that rebels still hoped to replace Brown with a more voter-friendly leader before the next general election, which is due by June 2010, with Home Secretary Alan Johnson the favorite for the job.
Today, lawmakers vote on a motion proposed by opposition parties calling on Brown to hold a general election immediately instead of waiting until the deadline a year from now. If a handful of Labour lawmakers rebel or neglect to show up, Brown, who has a 63-seat majority, could lose the vote. Former ministers Charles Clarke, Stephen Byers and Fiona Mactaggart Monday joined a list of 19 MPs saying Brown should step down after the party finished third in elections for the European Parliament.
The Conservatives led by David Cameron are currently well ahead in opinion polls, while 52 percent of voters want Brown to resign immediately, a ComRes/BBC poll of 1,001 adults released Monday said.
A poll in the Independent said Johnson would be the best alternative to Brown in electoral terms, potentially putting the Tories six seats short of a majority in the House of Commons.
Former PMBlair, reportedly forced out by a coup by Brown's followers after years of acrimony, good-naturedly declined to answer a question about on his successor's travails. "I don't mind you asking it as long as you don't mind me not answering it," he said at an event in London, launching an initiative to boost ties between young people of different faiths.
A smiling Brown gathered his newly reshuffled cabinet yesterday for its first weekly meeting after confronting dissidents at a two-hour closed-door meeting in Parliament in London late Monday. Brown won the support of most Labour lawmakers by promising to make unspecified changes to his leadership style and agenda, said six who attended.
But while he has defused an attempted rebellion this time, he remains vulnerable and could face renewed calls to go from party critics fearing a poll wipeout in general elections due within a year, commentators say. The wounds inflicted may be reopened if the Labour’s poll ratings don’t improve or if Brown presses ahead with controversial plans to clamp down on welfare benefits and sell a stake in the postal service.
"The sharks are no longer circling, but they haven’t gone away," Ivor Gaber, a professor of political campaigning at City University in London told Bloomberg. "At the moment, he is still the most likely person to lead Labour into the next election. But it is by no means certain."
The pound rose for a second day, gaining as much as 0.8 percent to $1.6176, as Brown’s political survival added to a survey showing the UK housing market is "stabilizing."
"I know I need to improve," Brown told the meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, or PLP, according to his spokesman. He shrugged off calls for his resignation, saying, "You solve the problem not by walking away but by doing something about it." Key cabinet colleagues rallied round Brown after Monday night's meeting, insisting he is the best man to help the country recover from economic crisis.
"The Labour Party does not want a new leader, there is no vacancy, there is no challenger," Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who had been tipped as a possible challenger to Brown last year, told the BBC.
MPs said afterwards that Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair in Downing Street nearly two years ago, gave a strong performance, notably pledging to change his leadership style to act in a "more collective way," according to a report by Agence France-Presse.
Few details emerged from the meeting of concessions Brown was reportedly considering on plans to part-privatize the Royal Mail postal service, which have been strongly opposed by many Labour MPs.
Humiliating defeat
Labour was beaten into third place in last Thursday's European elections, behind the main opposition Conservatives and the once fringe anti-Europeans the UK Independence Party, or UKIP, in a humiliating defeat for the ruling party. The elections also saw the far-right British National Party, or BNP, win its first two seats in the European Parliament, a victory described as "shameful" by critics. They also plunged in local polls held on the same day.
Newspaper commentators said Brown had won a reprieve, with the Guardian headlining "Brown's Great Escape" and the Daily Mail saying "Brown lives to fight another day", but they said this was unlikely to last.
The Financial Times reported that rebels still hoped to replace Brown with a more voter-friendly leader before the next general election, which is due by June 2010, with Home Secretary Alan Johnson the favorite for the job.
Today, lawmakers vote on a motion proposed by opposition parties calling on Brown to hold a general election immediately instead of waiting until the deadline a year from now. If a handful of Labour lawmakers rebel or neglect to show up, Brown, who has a 63-seat majority, could lose the vote. Former ministers Charles Clarke, Stephen Byers and Fiona Mactaggart Monday joined a list of 19 MPs saying Brown should step down after the party finished third in elections for the European Parliament.
The Conservatives led by David Cameron are currently well ahead in opinion polls, while 52 percent of voters want Brown to resign immediately, a ComRes/BBC poll of 1,001 adults released Monday said.
A poll in the Independent said Johnson would be the best alternative to Brown in electoral terms, potentially putting the Tories six seats short of a majority in the House of Commons.
Former PMBlair, reportedly forced out by a coup by Brown's followers after years of acrimony, good-naturedly declined to answer a question about on his successor's travails. "I don't mind you asking it as long as you don't mind me not answering it," he said at an event in London, launching an initiative to boost ties between young people of different faiths.