BRITISH PRIME minister Gordon Brown suffered a further setback last night when another one of his ministers, work and pensions secretary James Purnell, resigned.
There was shock and anger in 10 Downing Street as Mr Purnell made explicit the threat to Mr Brown's leadership in a letter to the prime minister published by the Timesand Sunnewspapers within minutes of the polls closing on the European and English local elections.
The shock decision by the high-flying Blairite posed an immediate challenge to other cabinet ministers – like his friend, foreign secretary David Miliband – to decide whether they can continue to serve in the Brown government.
Mr Purnell made clear that he was not seeking the leadership himself – while telling Mr Brown to “stand aside” to give the Labour Party “a fighting chance” in the general election.
The latest sensational development came amid speculation about Mr Brown’s ability to command his cabinet, with friends of chancellor Alistair Darling signalling that he might prefer to quit the government rather than leave the treasury in an imminent cabinet reshuffle.
In his regretful letter Mr Purnell told Mr Brown: “We both love the Labour Party. I have worked for it for 20 years and you for far longer. We know we owe it everything and it owes us nothing. I owe it to our party to say what I believe no matter how hard that may be. I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more not less likely.”
Mr Purnell continued: “The party was here long before us, and we want it to be here long after we have gone. We must do the right thing by it. We need to show that we are prepared to fight to be a credible government and have the courage to offer an alternative future. I am therefore calling on you to stand aside to give our party a fighting chance of winning.”
While clearly wanting colleagues to act now against the embattled prime minister, Mr Purnell, 39, said he was not a leadership candidate.
“My actions are my own considered view, nothing more. If the consensus is that you should continue, then I will support the government loyally from the backbenches. But I do believe this question now needs to be put.”
Shortly before news of Mr Purnell’s dramatic resignation, senior backbench MP Barry Sheerman said he wanted MPs to have a secret ballot on Mr Brown’s leadership, which he believed the prime minister would lose.
Mr Sheerman, who has been critical of Mr Brown’s handling of the Westminster expenses crisis, warned that unhappiness with him was now widespread. “If the prime minister doesn’t realise that across the party there is a disillusionment with the way the parliamentary party has been consulted, treated and valued,” Mr Sheerman said, “he is heading for trouble.”
Mr Brown’s capacity to command his cabinet was thrown into question by the pre-emptive resignation of communities secretary Hazel Blears on Wednesday.
Yesterday’s newspaper headlines, meanwhile, conveyed the growing sense that Mr Brown’s authority may be already lost after four ministerial resignations in the space of two days prompted Conservative leader David Cameron to suggest the government was “collapsing before our eyes”.
As government chief whip Nick Brown led efforts to “smoke out” the rebels, and as further details emerged of the “e-mail plot” to have 70 or more MPs ask Mr Brown to stand down, Peter Mandelson effectively confirmed the nervousness in Labour’s high command with an appeal to MPs to back the prime minister.
“I know there are Labour MPs who are in a very grumbly mood, but British politics is in a bad old state,” he told the BBC. “Nobody is happy and it is affecting all the parties.
“Don’t, please, through your actions, make it any worse for the Labour Party.”