Britain's Brown gears up for new fight

8 Jun 2009, 7:39 pm   -   Source: AAP
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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is clinging to power after European elections which saw his party suffer one of its worst defeats on record.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is clinging to power after European elections which saw his party suffer one of its worst defeats on record and historic gains for the far-right.

Brown's Labour Party was beaten into third place behind fringe anti-Europeans the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), leaving him fighting for his job days after 10 of his ministers resigned.

The biggest winners in the European polls were the British National Party (BNP), whose policies include an end to all immigration to Britain, which won its first two members of the European Parliament.

It is the first time a far-right party has ever scored a seat in parliamentary elections in Britain.

Although leading members of Brown's government took to the airwaves on Monday to insist he was still the best man for the job, he faces an angry reception at a meeting with backbench lawmakers from his party later on Monday.

"There has been turbulence undoubtedly but... our reaction needs to be and will be not to turn in on ourselves, not to be disunited," Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman told BBC radio.

"There is nobody better placed in terms of taking the economy forward than Gordon Brown."

With 63 out of 72 seats declared, the main opposition Conservatives had 28.6 per cent, UKIP 17.4 per cent and Labour 15.3 per cent, according to the BBC. The BNP was in sixth place nationally with 6.5 per cent of the vote.

In Wales, its historic industrial heartland, Labour failed to come top for the first time in any election since 1918, pushed into second place by the Conservatives.

Brown faced unprecedented pressure on his unpopular leadership on Friday when a wave of ministers resigned, including work and pensions secretary James Purnell, a leading moderniser, who called for his resignation in the wake of disastrous local election results.

Despite intense pressure, the killer blow against Brown failed to come over the weekend following a hasty reshuffle but the European election results are likely to lead to fresh pressure.

The situation could come to a head in the regular meeting of Labour MPs in parliament on Monday night.

Newspapers reported that Brown will try to buy off grumbling MPs with promises of a long-demanded inquiry into the war in Iraq and a pledge to shelve controversial plans to part-privatise state-owned postal service Royal Mail.

But many Labour members of parliament, already feeling bruised by public anger over a scandal about their expenses, are worried they could lose their seats at the next general election, which must be held by mid-2010.

Brown himself has pledged to soldier on.

"What would they (the public) think of us if ever we walked away from them at a time of need?.. We are sticking with them," he said on Sunday, adding that it was a "testing time for our whole country".

Former Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer renewed his call for Brown to be replaced as Labour leader in an article in the Times newspaper on Monday, saying he was unable to lead the fight to win back public support.

"It is so difficult for Gordon Brown, after 12 years as prime minister or chancellor (finance minister), to be a convincing agent of change," wrote Falconer, a former old flatmate of Brown's predecessor Tony Blair.

"My view is that the painful step of changing our leader, a leader who has given his life to the Labour Party and to public service, would be best for the party and the country."

In an editorial, the Times said the prime minister's position "could hardly be more precarious".

"Unity under Brown is now impossible. A paralysed government is terrible for the nation," it said, saying he must be replaced.

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