British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s battle to prevent a challenge to his leadership may end up in the courts, it emerged on Monday.
If the ruling Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) refuses to send out nomination papers to rebel members of parliament (MPs) who want to force the prime minister into a contest, the party may be vulnerable to a legal fight.
Rebels say they themselves would not take the issue to the courts, but claimed two previous party general secretaries — Margaret McDonagh and Peter Watt — had been given legal advice in the past that nomination forms must be sent out if members of the parliamentary party ask for them.
The 12 rebels who wrote seeking nomination forms last week are understood to have received informal advice some time ago from the former lord chancellor, Lord Falconer.
“The leadership claim this rule has not been used in the past few years, but since when has a law become no longer lawful because it has not been used? If they refuse a leadership contest, people will ask ‘what has Brown got to be afraid of,’” South London MP Siobhain McDonagh said on Monday.
She claimed to have been inundated by support, including from parliamentary candidates, since being forced to reveal that she believed Brown should allow a leadership contest.
Another former minister, Gisela Stuart, joined the revolt on Monday night, saying that when Brown came to power Labour MPs were humming Things Can Only Get Better, the theme song used for the party’s triumphant election campaign in 1997.
“Today it’s more likely ... to be ‘surely it can’t get much worse.’ It became clear that not only had we failed to renew ourselves with fresh ideas, we also seem to have lost the knack to tell a good story,” Stuart said.
At its meeting yesterday the NEC was expected to back the view of the current general-secretary, Ray Collins, that a challenge against a serving Labour prime minister can only be accepted if it is sought by 71 Labour MPs and the party conference.
Leftwingers, including NEC member-elect Peter Kenyon, believe annual nominations should be allowed, but admit the rules are ambiguous. However, David Evans, a former assistant general secretary, said the rules were “crystal clear” that the papers had to be issued.
The legal arguments came as Downing Street waited to see if any government member or parliamentary private secretary would quit the government ahead of the party conference in Manchester next week.
Brown was expected to try to show he has a full agenda to take Labour forward when he discusses his plans at a Cabinet meeting yesterday.
In weekend background briefings some Cabinet members said that their patience with Brown’s leadership was running thin.
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