British Labour MP calls for leadership contest

British prime minister Gordon Brown was plunged into a new crisis tonight as one of his ministers broke ranks to demand a leadership contest.

Junior whip Siobhain McDonagh, until now a loyal Labour MP, became the first member of the UK government to call for a challenge.

A number of other MPs, including at least two former ministers, are also asking for leadership nomination papers ahead of this month’s annual conference.

Ms McDonagh insisted a “huge number” of her colleagues in the parliamentary party also wanted the leadership issue out in the open.

Refusing to criticise the Prime Minister directly, she made clear she was among a small minority of Labour MPs who had not supported his election as party leader last summer.

The numbers involved in the current move – said by Labour officials to be in “single figures” – are well short of the 71 Labour MPs required to trigger a leadership election.

But the involvement of a minister who has a relatively safe seat and is not known for speaking out of turn has sent tremors through the party.

It also brings to an end a short period of relative security Brown has enjoyed after summer speculation over his leadership has quietened down over the last couple of weeks.

Tomorrow, a series of former ministers will warn the prime minister he needs to find a “convincing new narrative” if Labour is to weather the current storms.

The developments come as Mr Brown prepares to face Labour delegates at the party’s conference in Manchester next weekend.

Ms McDonagh was replaced tonight as an assistant whip, although Downing Street insisted she had not been fired.

However, she seemed to be unaware she was without her government job until informed by broadcasters interviewing her outside the House of Commons.

The Mitcham and Morden MP, sister of Labour’s former general secretary Margaret McDonagh, claimed that somebody had leaked her private request for the leadership nomination papers.

However it appeared to be part of a coordinated move against the prime minister as she was able to confirm two other MPs involved as former ministers Joan Ryan and George Howarth.

She added that she did not want to disclose the names of the other MPs calling for a contest at this stage.

Ms McDonagh suggested she was just one of many MPs wanting a leadership election.

“I think that there are huge numbers of MPs, party members, people in the street who want this debate and this discussion,” she said.

“I think Gordon Brown is a really good man who has the best of intentions.

“I just think that being prime minister is a shockingly hard job.”

“We need a leadership election, I think anybody who wants to stand, should stand. We should have a discussion about what direction the party should be going in.

“These are discussions that happen all the time at Westminster and it’s about time that we allowed party members and people involved in the Labour Party and the wider community in on that debate.”

Ms McDonagh declined to name who she would like to see installed as Labour leader.

Other Labour MPs came out in response to her remarks to insist that her views were that of a minority.

Andy Love, the Labour MP for Edmonton, said: “This is not a view that’s coming over to me. I’ve not spoken to everybody in the Labour Party but it’s certainly not a prevalent view.

“She’s trying to say there is a major challenge out there waiting to happen. It isn’t true.”

But Opposition parties seized on the developments as evidence that Labour was tearing itself apart.

Tory frontbencher Chris Grayling said the British government was in “disarray”.

“The Labour Party is quite clearly degenerating into a state of civil war,” he said.

“For a prime minister to have one of his own whips calling for a leadership contest is unprecedented.”

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg’s chief of staff, Danny Alexander, added: “This is just the latest example of a government falling apart at the seams.

“Gordon Brown keeps on producing half-baked proposals in an attempt to save his job, only to be sabotaged by his own party.

“Labour MPs are so busy fighting amongst themselves that they can no longer govern properly.”