UK: Speaker facing revolt by MPs

Michael Martin's days as the Speaker of the House of Commons looked numbered last night as senior figures from the three main parties gave him once last chance to jump before he was pushed out of office.

In unprecedented scenes, the Speaker suffered the public humiliation of being told by MPs to quit because he had become an obstacle to cleaning up the political system after the scandal surrounding MPs' expenses.

Gordon Brown and David Cameron, while not calling publicly for Mr Martin to resign, moved closer to pulling the rug from beneath him - and making him the first Speaker to be forced out since 1695, when Sir John Trevor was removed for taking a £1,000 bribe.

Last night, Mr Martin's most trenchant critics predicted he would be ousted by the end of this week after he pointedly refused to announce a timetable for his departure as he gave a statement to MPs about the expenses controversy.

Today, a motion of no confidence in the Speaker will be formally published on the Commons agenda.

It has been signed by 18 backbenchers and others are expected to back it if he refuses to bow to the growing pressure to quit.

Douglas Carswell, the Tory MP for Harwich, who tabled the motion, asked: "When will Members be allowed to choose a new Speaker with the moral authority to clean up Westminster and the legitimacy to lift this House out of the mire?"

David Winnick, the veteran Labour MP for Walsall North, told Mr Martin: "It would be very useful to the reputation of this House - and I say this with reluctance, but I say it all the same - if you gave some indication of your own intention to retire. Your early retirement, Sir, would help the reputation of the House."

Although the motion has not yet been scheduled for debate, ministers believe they will have to find time for it if the Speaker digs in his heels.

That might not happen until next month because the MPs begin their Whitsun recess on Thursday.

The crisis of confidence in Mr Martin, who led attempts to keep details of MPs' expenses secret, erupted spectacularly when he made clear he would not discuss his retirement until after he tried to clean up the discredited system over which he has presided since 2000.

He called party leaders to talks today or tomorrow in an attempt to thrash out an agreement on reform of the expenses regime. He also apologised for rebuking his backbench critics in the Commons chamber a week ago.

But his more contrite tone failed to buy him more time.

There were gasps of disbelief as one MP after another broke with centuries of tradition by openly criticising the Speaker.

One Tory frontbencher said: "[He] is like an old Lancaster bomber, flying on with bits falling off all over the place."

Paul Flynn, the Labour MP for Newport West, added: "It's like showing the red card to the referee: it hasn't happened for 300 years but I feel like it's got to happen now. We've got a dead Speaker walking at the moment."

Sir Patrick Cormack, the Tory MP for South Staffordshire, compared the situation to the Commons debate in 1940 that led to Neville Chamberlain being replaced as prime minister by Winston Churchill.

"Could you reflect on that?" he asked Mr Martin.

Richard Shepherd, the long-serving Tory MP for Aldridge-Brownhills, said Britain was in the grip of a "constitutional crisis" and told the Speaker: "Many out there will not believe we are serious about the changes that are necessary as long as you are in the chair, and that is the terrible situation we are in."

The heated debate continued at a private meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party last night. Mr Brown faced calls to withdraw his support for the Speaker but Mr Martin was defended by other Labour MPs who believe the Glaswegian former sheet metal worker, 63, is being made a scapegoat for the expenses scandal and a victim of "class war" waged by Tory MPs.

Mr Brown refused to be drawn on the Speaker's future. Promising wider reforms, he said MPs could lose the right to decide the punishment for their colleagues who break the rules.

At present, complaints are investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner but sanctions are fixed by a committee of MPs.

Mr Cameron, who gave Tory constituency associations the green light to deselect MPs making excessive claims, called for an immediate general election.

He told a public meeting last night: "If the motion put down for no confidence in the Speaker attracts a large number of signatures then it has to be debated and one way or the other this issue has to be decided, but let's not pretend that replacing one speaker for another is going to solve the problem of the expenses system."

The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, the only party leader to call publicly for the Speaker to go, predicted he would face "death by a thousand cuts".

* A Labour MP has been accused of profiteering from the expenses system after claiming more than £10,000 to refurbish a flat before selling it. John Austin, the Labour MP for Erith and Thamesmead, made £30,000 when he sold the property before buying a new flat just 1.5 miles away, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph.

- INDEPENDENT