Brown resigns as Labour leader
Monday 10th May 2010, 9:00PM BST.
Gordon Brown this evening announced his resignation as Labour party leader. He also revealed that formal talks were beginning between his party and the Liberal Democrats to examine a possible Lib-Lab coalition to form the next government.
His announcement came outside Downing Street. Mr Brown said he was asking the Labour Party to call a leadership election in which he would play no part. He said he hoped the new leader would be in place in time for the autumn party conference.
He also said he was to press ahead with “formal discussions” with the Liberal Democrats after the request from Mr Clegg. In a statement in Downing Street, Mr Brown said: “The reason that we have a hung parliament is that no single party and no single leader was able to win the full support of the country. As leader of my party I must accept that as a judgment on me. I therefore intend to ask the Labour Party to set in train the processes needed for its own leadership election.”
“I would hope that it would be completed in time for the new leader to be in post by the time of the Labour Party conference. I will play no part in that contest, I will back no individual candidate.”
It came at the end of a day of high political drama, with the Tories having left power-sharing talks with the Liberal Democrats, declaring “further progress” had been made towards deciding if David Cameron could seal a deal to take him to Number 10.
Shadow foreign secretary William Hague, speaking after 90 minutes of negotiations at the Cabinet Office in Whitehall, said: “We have made further progress in our meeting with the Liberal Democrats this morning.
“We are now going to report back to David Cameron again, and have meetings with our parliamentary colleagues. The negotiating team are working really well together.”
The Lib Dems also said good progress had been made.
Earlier, Mr Clegg urged the British people to “bear with us”. He said: “I don’t think a prolonged period of uncertainty is a good thing. That’s why we want to arrive at a decision as soon as possible. But I hope people equally understand that it would be better to get the decision right rather than rushing into something which won’t stand the test of time.”
He added: “Throughout this process, we continue to be guided by our ambitions and objectives of bringing stability to the British economy.”
Prime Minister Gordon Brown this morning met Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, Schools Secretary Ed Balls and deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman at Number 10.
It had appeared, prior to this evening’s announcement, that Mr Brown had not given up hopes of retaining power after he held a secret meeting with Mr Clegg.
* For full reaction and analysis, don’t miss Tuesday’s Shropshire Star
Most Commented
- Shropshire Council will face £8m redundancy bill
- Clampdown on Shrewsbury chuggers
- Bishop's gay marriage views do nothing to support bible teachings
- Letter: Alcohol price plans annoy me
- Planners ordered to stay on Newport visit bus
- Letter: Angered by close encounter of the furred kind
- Letter: No sense in overseas job adverts
Shropshire Star on Twitter
Keep updated with the latest breaking news and content on our Twitter feed.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Shropshire Star and Express & Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
Entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new Shropshire Star app
Download the Shropshire Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
shropshirestar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
very dignified to fall on his sword, so before you all get in there and say good ridance i will say fair play he did pretty good in a crisis and did the right thing then and the right thing to go now, i think history will remember him much more favourably than current tory press does
lets hope this means there can be a lib lab pact now for the sake of the economy and society we must never let the thatcherite loony right back in
Report abuse
[no single party and no single leader was able to win the full support of the country]
This was despite the appalling blackening of Gordon Brown by the media, particularly the newspapers.
I wonder who their next victim will be now?
Report abuse
Good Riddance to him, and the disgraced Govt he led and was Chancellor during. Squandered Millions on wasted ineffective, public sector investment,now we all pay the price for his and the Labour Party vanity.
Lets hope they don’t sneak back in with the Liberals, and that they remain out of power for many many years.
Report abuse
‘Squandered Millions on wasted ineffective, public sector investment,now we all pay the price for his and the Labour Party vanity.’
Utter rubbish. Tell the people who don’t have to wait two years for a hip operation that the money was wasted, tell the children in smaller better equipped primary school classes that the money was wasted, tell the people who no longer have to go into hospital for minor operations but can instead have them done as minor outpatient procedures that all the money was wasted.
We’re paying the price for the excesses of Capitalism – find me a greedy banker who voted anything but Tory!
Report abuse
what about the thousands of new schools and hospitals ? Are they wasted investment? sure they are not returning a profit but that does not make them bad investment
Report abuse
‘Fred the shred’ for one!
Knighted by NuLabour
Report abuse
GET IN THERE!!!!
BYE BYE BROWN
Report abuse
a great statesman.
Report abuse
hahahahhhaha get out now
good riddance to bad rubbish
i loath the man, like all socialists, he just spends other peoples money and never earns it
bring on a cameron government and lets get cutting the taxes and the non jobs in the NHS
Report abuse
‘like all socialists, he just spends other peoples money and never earns it’
Well, at least he spent it on the NHS and schools.
Perhaps you’d like to remind us all on how the greedy capitalist bankers spent all the money we gave them?
Report abuse
Perhaps, Peter, you’d like to tell us how socialist (twice failed) Peter Mandelson can afford to wear a Patek Phillipe wristwatch costing tens of thousands of pounds?
Report abuse
Winja,
I think it’s probably stretching it a bit to call Peter Mandelson a socialist!
As for his watch, if he wants to waste his money on overpriced designer goods, then that’s up to him isn’t it?
Report abuse
Willy is your surname Wally by any chance?
Report abuse
why september?
The electorate gave Gordon their answer last Thursday Is his resignation to facilitate another LibLab pact to be led by an undefined Prime Minister? Perhaps another job for Lord Mandelson!!
Report abuse
We the electorate ellect a party not a pm .
His resignation is to facilitate another lablib pact to stay in power if it does not work milliband will come to the front later in the year and cameron will be uk’s shortest serving pm.
Report abuse
Good timing that gord anything to ruin the conservatives ruling this country again !
Report abuse
more like he got out rather than be forced out
history repeating itself as it does
but i think a black day for british politics
the day democracy died in britain(the polling
day fiasco) the effects of which will be felt for years to come
Report abuse
Hardly sensational, other than in the eyes of the Star. It’s been pretty obvious that he would go since last week – the timing was the only matter in question.
It will now be interesting to see if the Tories are so dug in that they won’t form a gevernment with the Lib Dems, and instead Labour and the Lib Dems form an alliance.
They seem to have far fewer political differences than the alternative Lib Dem + Tory alliance, and if combined would represent more of the public than a stand-alone minority Tory administration would. In the end whichever group takes power, it’ll most likely be an unstable regime, so we can all look forward to another election, possibly on a PR basis, before too long.
Report abuse
this is the loony lefty labour lot who wrecked our economy with their over taxation, and too much regualtation and red tape, especially eu regulation, we must not allow them to be in power still, we need to bring in the conservatives so we can get back to the good old days
Report abuse
Asif,
Perhaps you could enlighten us with some specific examples of the EU regulation you object to?
Report abuse
He hasn’t resigned, he has said he ‘will’ resign after the conference in September at which he intends to ‘bow’ out in a blaze of glory, his political legacy assured after having secured another term for a Labour dominated Lib/Lab government. Now whether you think this is honourable and good for the country or not is another matter. Fact is…he ain’t shifting.
Report abuse
Brickmanship by Brown and Labour to try and woe the Liberal Democrats.
What confidence would the country have on a Government led by the parties who came second and a poor third? None!
Report abuse
If Cameron gets the key his dalliance with the lib’s will be short and cleggs career would be over.If we have a lab/lib pact okay we may get another election in 12 months however we will have had milliband in charge . If history wants to see the shortest serving PM look at Cameron if he gets the key to number 10.
The majority of UK voters did not want a Tory guv. The majority are aware what they are all about and the majority are decent caring hardworking people and fair.
A true Tory thanked the working class Tory and the so called middle class Tory for (being dumb enough) their vote now if they come to power prepare to become their victim.
Report abuse
his legacy will be all the new schools and hospitals that got rebuilt
Report abuse
it was never right to let him in without an election, expecially as he’s scottish, we must have a fairer system in the future in this country, no more lords and ladies and wigs and silly pariliamentary language and no more unelected PM’s
Report abuse
What wrong with the Scots? I get my oats every morning without fail!
I heard William Hague insult the Irish this morning. Bodes well for his new role as our new foreign secretary.
Report abuse
Not a lover of the man, but a very dignified exit – History will judge him, not the newspapers of today
Report abuse
britain owes a debt of gratitude to a great chancellor of the exchequer, a great prime minister and statesman and a true socialist. many may not recognise this yet, but when we appreciate what he did for world poverty,africa in particular, world banking, home banking etc. the man was a giant amongst giants, but it will take a few years for his detractors to appreciate a great politician.
Report abuse
actually if you think of the crisis he faced in his tenure, economic, foot and mouth, flooding, terror, snow storms etc, i think he did a damn good job
Report abuse
Snow storms?? This country slid to an embarrassing halt after a centimetre! And still does. And remind me when the Foot & Mouth happened with Brown in power, I must have missed a day.
Report abuse
‘And remind me when the Foot & Mouth happened with Brown in power, I must have missed a day.’
Apparently you did – here’s a reminder:
Gordon Brown became Prime Minister on 27th June 2007. On the 3rd of August 2007, he cut short a holiday to chair an emergency meeting on the foot and mouth crisis.
This was the second outbreak of foot and mouth – the first, and more major outbreak in recent years was in 2001 when Tony Blair was in charge.
Report abuse
dignified to the end RESPECT
Report abuse
You are being pedantic bigbeast.
dawley lass is correct that these are some of many serious issues dealt with by the Labour Party who were in government at those times.
Report abuse
Someone a few weeks ago worked out that the same number of days since the birth of Jesus Christ would be needed to pay off our national debt at a rate of X number of million pounds per day. Can we get our minds around that? Go over this slowly and start counting.
That is the legacy of Brown and Labour and it say’s all that we need to know about the sorry state of our country when some people who purport to be intelligent support this cretinous bunch. They have wrecked our country just in case anyone thinks that they did well. All the hospitals, schools etc were built on borrowed money which now has to be paid back at ruinous rates and the interest on our national debt is the equivalent of the annual education budget in this country. Then we also have the illegal war in Iraq, the questionable war in Afghanistan etc but to the uninitiated into the world of commonsense, these are all tremendous achievements for which Brown, Blair and Labour should be praised. A Labour voter to me is an object of derision, they cannot have a sense of right and wrong and pride in this country of ours and in my reckoning they figure about 10 degrees lower than the BNP.
And, just in case anyone has forgotten, in the election, Labour lost almost 100 seats – the most on record. The Tories needed a swing of over 8% to get a single seat majority (ie 326) an almost impossible task – that is illustrative of the blatant swing of electorate rigging by Labour.
Again, it falls to the Tories to get this country out of the mess that it is in and it is those that will pay the price at the next election and so the whole sorry shambles goes on. Labour should be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Report abuse
“And, just in case anyone has forgotten, in the election, Labour lost almost 100 seats – the most on record. The Tories needed a swing of over 8% to get a single seat majority (ie 326) an almost impossible task – that is illustrative of the blatant swing of electorate rigging by Labour.”
Quite, Stuart. Gerrymandering at its most obvious and self serving.
Report abuse
good riddance to the socialist we have all paid enough tax now and want to have a good decade without any more social engineering and politically correct drival, lets get on with making businesses grow, create wealth and cutting tax and red tape, i remember the 80s a wonderful decade of laissez faire, thats what we need again, no more socialism
Report abuse