UK’s Brown survives ouster, must win back voters
LONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has survived a plot to force his ouster — but faced a harder task Tuesday: persuading the public he can haul Britain out of recession and reform a tainted political system.
The British leader has wooed doubters within his Labour Party ranks by admitting some of his failings.
“I have my strengths and I have my weaknesses, I know I need to improve,” Brown told a private meeting of Labour’s 350 lawmakers Monday, according to an account supplied by his office.
Now Brown hopes to win over voters with plans to create jobs, improve public services and modernize Britain’s centuries-old Parliament.
Brown’s office said policy ideas will be rolled out over the coming weeks, and that Brown would deliver on a repeated promise to hold an inquiry into mistakes made over the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Treasury chief Alistair Darling said the government must now focus on winning public support, after Brown’s Labour was punished in European Parliament and local assembly elections last week.
“We have to make sure that we work hard to rebuild people’s trust,” Darling told reporters at a meeting of European finance ministers in Luxembourg. “One of the best ways of doing that is getting on with the job.”
Brown’s Cabinet, newly reshuffled, will meet Friday to discuss a new domestic agenda. “This is about how we move to the next stage, building on what we have already achieved and what we have done,” Brown’s spokesman Michael Ellam said.
More than a dozen Cabinet members resigned last week — some saying Brown also should quit following his timid response to a scandal over lawmakers’ excessive expenses claims.
Though the scandal implicated all three of the Britain’s main parties, voters last week punished Brown’s Labour Party most severely. Labour finished third place nationally in the EU assembly vote — and won its lowest share of the vote since 1910.
Most Labour lawmakers refused to back the party dissidents calling for Brown’s resignation, as many apparently decided that forcing a new leadership contest could damage the party further before general elections, expected next year.
Labour legislators said they were impressed by Brown’s candor during Monday’s party meeting. Stephen Ladyman said that, if Brown made better attempts to explain domestic policy, he could win the same acclaim at home that he has received from overseas for his handling of the global economic crisis.
“Why is it that he’s recognized as a great world leader in every country except this one?” Ladyman told the BBC. “He needs to reconnect with the public.”
Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell said Brown would call for national elections in May.
Brown’s Labour is seen as almost certain to lose to the opposition Conservatives.
Analysts said Brown was likely hoping the economy would improve next year and help revive his political fortunes.
“I think Brown is convinced that, by eight to nine months time, the economy might show signs of improving and that he will be over the worst of the crisis,” said Pete Dorey, a political scientist at the University of Cardiff. “He wants to say ‘I got Britain out of recession, now back me’.”
Associated Press Writer Aoife White in Luxembourg contributed to this report
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