Meeting helps Brown quieten rebels
Updated on 08 June 2009
Despite Labour's worst election showing for nearly 100 years, Gordon Brown manages to head off a rebellion at a crisis meeting of the parliamentary Labour party.
It was a chance for his critics to try to force a leadership contest after the party's worst election results for almost 100 years.
The Labour party had been expecting a bloody nose at the polls. In the end it was a massacre, as the party suffered its worst electoral showing since 1910 and slumped to third place.
Behind not only the Conservatives, who won a 27 per cent share of the vote, but the UK Independence party as well, who picked up a 16.5 per cent share.
Labour dropped to 15 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats fourth on 13 per cent , followed by the Greens and the British National party. Other parties, including the SNP and Plaid Cymru, polled 11 per cent.
Those results meant the Conservatives now have 25 MEPs and Ukip 13, the same number as Labour. The Liberal Democrats have 11, the Greens keep their two, while the BNP gains two.
The SNP also has two MEPs and Plaid Cymru one.
With turnout of just 35 per cent, Labour suffered particularly badly in its heartlands. The party was beaten into second place in Wales by the Conservatives for the first time since 1918, while in Scotland Labour was overtaken by the SNP for the first time in a European election.
The Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, and the president of YouGov opinion pollsters, Peter Kellner speaks to Channel 4 News about Labour's political crisis.
