British Labour Party’s woes continue

Herald Reporter (01/07/08)

BRITISH Premier Gordon Brown’s woes continue to mount ahead of the Labour Party’s national conference set for September following the resignation of Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander and Glasgow East MP David Marshall last week.

Alexander quit her post when she was suspended from parliament for breaking rules regarding declaring donations to her leadership campaign.

The resignation, coming shortly before a crucial by-election in Scotland, which the Labour Party lost, has been described as a "symptom of a deeper Labour malaise."

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the paper’s Scottish Editor, Alan Cochrane, said the resignation comes after David Marshal, another Labour MP for Glasgow East, quit his post.

"Her (Alexander) going is symptomatic of a deep-seated malaise in this Labour heartland and is demonstrated by the fact that the party is terrified of losing a 13 000 majority.

"Scottish Labour has been sinking into a slough of complacency, jobs-for-the-boys and near corruption for decades. And with the cream of its talent opting to stay at Westminster, Labour has been increasingly torn."

The Labour Party has reached its lowest ebb under the leadership of Brown who took over the reins from Tony Blair who stepped down in June last year.

The party under the leadership of Brown, who is in his current position without a mandate, continues to lose its grip in the country’s political field. In May this year, Brown led the party to its worst-ever loss in local authority elections in 50 years when it lost 163 councillors in six council elections while the opposition Conservatives gained eight councils and 146 councillors. Brown admitted personal responsibility for Labour’s disastrous election results.

In an opinion poll during the same month, a majority of supporters said they would want Brown to step down to salvage the party from sinking into oblivion.

The party has also continued to lose elections ahead of what could be a turbulent national conference set for Manchester in September and Brown’s supporters were reportedly busy trying to shore up support "among his disenchanted MPs." Brown also marked his first year as British Prime Minister with a humiliating fifth place in a by-election last week.





Labour ministers blamed the defeat to voter dissatisfaction on the effects of external pressures.

However, the latest resignations and problems that have hit the party in Scotland highlighted wider problems within the Labour party with analysts saying the "decay from within (Labour party) is characteristic of the decline of the New Labour project" under the leadership of Brown.