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Brown acts to sack third rebel MP

15/09/2008

Gordon Brown has sacked a third Labour MP over a potential rebellion against his leadership of the party.

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.

Vernon Coaker, home office minister, said: "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.

"The prime minister is up to the job."

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.