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LONDON - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown faces the prospect of more ministers resigning in protest over his leadership after a junior MP quit yesterday.
After David Cairns, the Scotland Office minister, became the first member of the Government to quit over Brown's performance, another said: "There are
a number of ministers who have cautiously looked at the situation and say they are very uncomfortable with it. It's been in my mind whether I should step down and, if so, when."
Some ministers are privately accusing Brown of using the financial crisis to to "buy" himself a few more months in his job. One described the policy presentation as "awful" and another said it was the most uncomfortable Cabinet session he had ever attended.
Cairns' decision overshadowed an attempt by Brown to shift the spotlight on to policy after the Cabinet approved a "vision statement" to be launched at Labour's annual conference next week.
It includes plans to give child care greater priority in order to boost social mobility and reduce crime and antisocial behaviour and a pledge to reform the "funding and provision" of care for the elderly.
There are growing fears that the Manchester party conference will now be dominated by Brown's survival prospects. His allies are bracing themselves for further resignations by ministers. One aide said the Prime Minister was in his "death throes" and they were waiting "until the time is right".
The second minister, speaking anonymously, said the dozen Labour MPs who want Brown to face a leadership contest were not isolated.
"What we have seen so far is the tip of the iceberg. Brown's people are making out it is a small group of disgruntled former ministers who are making trouble. They are actually party loyalists who believe we can't go on with Gordon Brown."
The junior minister added that it was "a matter of when, rather than if" there was a move to force Brown out.
"We can't sleepwalk into 2010. If we wait until then we will be slaughtered. People just aren't listening to him. There's a great deal of frustration that when Gordon reaches one milestone for his survival, another one appears."
Cairns voiced similar criticisms about the rebels' treatment in a resignation letter sent after Des Browne, the Defence Secretary and Secretary of State for Scotland, failed to talk him out of quitting.
He said: "Our response as a Government has been to suggest that these were the actions of a tiny number of disaffected people who ... are part of some larger plot and are entirely unrepresentative of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Although it had not been my intention to resign, I have reluctantly concluded that it is the only honourable course of action left open."
Brown replied: "I believe it is vital that we as a Government, and as a country, stand together in the face of these difficult times and concentrate all our efforts on helping the British people to come through them."
At yesterday's Cabinet session, some ministers argued that Labour would be foolish to oust someone with Brown's experience during a global financial crisis. One said: "We have at the helm the person who knows more about the economic realities than ... any other leader."
The threat of a "vote of no confidence" in Brown was lifted when Labour's national executive committee rejected calls for nomination forms for a leadership election to be issued to MPs.
DAVID CAIRNS
* David Cairns is a Labour loyalist and a former Catholic priest.
* He is the first former priest to become an MP after the repeal of a law prohibiting ordained clergy from sitting in the Commons.
* The law change was promoted by his friend Siobhain McDonagh, sacked as a junior whip last week after she called for a leadership contest.
* Cairns, 42, MP for Inverclyde, was made Minister of State in the Scotland Office last year.
* He defended Gordon Brown's leadership after the disastrous Glasgow East byelection in July.
* Colleagues said he had been in a state of "wretched anguish" as he agonised on whether to resign.
- INDEPENDENT
