Brown fires another rebel MP

Brown fires another rebel MP, this time it is Barry Gardiner

Monday, 15, Sep 2008 05:15

A third Labour MP has been fired in an attempt to kill off an embryonic rebellion against prime minister Gordon Brown.

Barry Gardiner, the prime minister's special envoy for forestry, was sacked today, Mr Brown's spokesman confirmed.

Mr Gardiner was one of the 12 MPs who wrote letters to party officials on Friday calling for party members to be given leadership nomination papers before the party conference next week.

In an article for the Sunday Times he said: "The public has stopped listening to Gordon Brown.

"He is not a popular prime minister, but he would continue to have my support if he showed sound judgment, international leadership and political vision.

"Instead we have vacillation, loss of international credibility and timorous political manoeuvres that the public cannot understand."

The sacking follows that of Siobhain McDonagh, junior whip, and Joan Ryan, vice chair, over the weekend.

Rebellious Labour MPs suffered a setback to plans to trigger a leadership contest today when the party's general secretary, Ray Collins, said he would not distribute the forms.

The relevant clause – slightly archaic in the eyes of some legal analysts – states "where there is no vacancy, nominations shall be sought each year prior to the annual session of the party conference".

But Mr Collins said the convention is different when the party is in power and that for the last 11 years forms have only been sent to individual MPs on request.

There is still considerable uncertainty whether potential rebels in the Cabinet are prepared to join a mutiny. The most likely scenario at present is that Gordon Brown will be given until the end of the party conference – or possibly the Glenrothes by-election – to show an improvement in his performance before Cabinet members take a stand.

Former foreign secretary Margaret Beckett stood up to the rebels, saying: "The British people will neither understand nor forgive a party that appears to be more concerned with its own internal disputes than with their very real problems."

Vernon Coaker, home office minister, also rounded against the rebels.

"My own view of this is we need to get behind the prime minister and support him in taking the difficult decisions he needs to take over the next few months," he said.

"The prime minister is up to the job."

Douglas Alexander, development secretary, admitted it is a "challenging time" for the Labour party but said he was "not convinced by the case" the rebels have made.

But the rebels have become more vocal in their pronouncements. Speaking on the BBC this afternoon, Graham Stringer, MP for Manchester Blackley and a prominent rebels, said his views had pervaded the whole of the Labour party.

"You only have to spend five minutes in a tea room in the House of Commons to realise the views I and other colleagues having been putting forward over the last few days are very representative.

"We are very representative of the parliamentary Labour party.

"The government has had a very bad 12 months, not just because of the global financial market but also because it has got a lot of decision wrong."

The rebels are hoping to challenge Mr Collins' decision at a meeting of Labour's National Executive Committee tomorrow, which Mr Brown will be attending.