Cabinet ministers set Gordon Brown a two-month deadline Friday night to win back voters' trust or face a "orderly resignation," London-based media reported on Saturday.
Labor, reeling from defeat in the Glasgow East by-election, plunged into further disarray as MPs and union leaders called for a leadership challenge, according to The Times.
Senior ministers lined up to blame the loss of the party's 25thsafest seat on rises in the cost of living, while in private, a number are preparing to confront Brown this autumn if Labor's poll ratings do not improve to at least 30 percent.
Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivers a keynote speech during the Labour Party National Policy Forum in Coventry, central England July 25, 2008. One Cabinet minister said that Jack Straw, the justice secretary, would be asked to tell Mr Brown to go, if he refused, others were prepared to lead the coup.
Talks between cabinet ministers took place on the phone Friday to coordinate a response to the defeat, with renewed pressure being placed on the chief whip, Geoff Hoon, and Justice Secretary Straw to urge Brown to stand aside, a Guardian front-page story said.
"The onus is now on Brown to prove that he should stay," a source was quoted by Guardian as saying.
Labor's current poll rating averages 26 percent.
A poll published Friday night finds only 24 percent of voters intend to vote Labor, 22 points behind the Conservatives' 46 percent.
Glasgow East, lost to the Scottish National Party (SNP) on a 22-percent swing, is the latest and heaviest blow in an electoral pummeling in which Labor has lost 331 council seats, the London mayoralty and the Crewe & Nantwich by-election in the past three months.
Calls for a challenge came against the backdrop of clashes between ministers and union leaders at the three-day Warwick meeting to decide Labor's future policies.
The dwindling of individual donors willing to bankroll the party has left Labor, in dire financial straits, more dependent than ever on union funding, while efforts to attract wealthy new backers have had little success as evidence mounts that the party is heading for election defeat, The Times story said.
Source:Xinhua
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