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Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown with cabinet members - Source: Reuters -
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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will unveil plans for
cleaning up parliament, whose authority has been hurt by an
expenses scandal, and try to regain the initiative after fervent
speculation over his future.
Brown, who has for now stamped out calls to quit in the wake
of disastrous European elections and several ministerial
resignations, wants to restore public trust in parliament after a
scandal which has scarred all political parties.
"What we have to do now is to take action in order to modernise
parliament to make it more transparent and make it more
accountable," Brown's spokesman said.
Brown's new proposals seem aimed at defusing calls by Scottish and
Welsh nationalists for an early national election as the only way
to clean up parliament in the wake of the scandal over politicians'
expense claims.
A motion calling for the dissolution of parliament, tabled by the
two nationalist parties, will be debated by legislators on
Wednesday. Brown's Labour Party should be able to muster its
63-seat majority to defeat the motion.
Brown is expected to reopen the debate on electoral reform, look at
ways to make the unelected upper house of parliament, the House of
Lords, more representative and seek to legislate for an independent
regulator of parliament.
Voting reform
The BBC reported that Brown would include proposals on reforming
Britain's "first past the post" voting system with an "alternative
vote" method, enabling people to list their preferred candidates in
order instead of voting for just one.
This would be put to voters in a referendum before it was
implemented.
It will take some time to come to any conclusion about how best to
change Britain's political system, especially given a wide range of
views across parliament, but Brown is keen to see some results
before the next election, due by June 2010.
Labour fared poorly in last week's European elections. With its
worst performance in a national vote since 1910, it slipped into
third place behind the main opposition Conservatives and the
anti-European Union UK Independence Party.
Polls point to a big Conservative win in the next British election
and Brown needs to win back support within his party as well as
among voters by showing he has the policies to shape Britain's
future after 12 years of Labour rule.
He is also banking on a turnaround in the economy to improve his
and Labour's fortunes.
Disclosures about taxpayer-funded expenses claims by members of
parliament, ranging from porn films to moat cleaning and mortgages
that had already been paid off, have forced policymakers to put
reform at the top of the agenda.
The scandal has been blamed for a low turnout in the European
elections and for progress made last week by marginal parties
including the far-right British National Party, which won its first
seats in the European parliament.
In vowing to push on with his premiership, Brown said he would
throw all his efforts into cleaning up parliament as well as fixing
Britain's recession-hit economy.
"The priority issue where we do need to move quickly is action to
clean up parliament and introducing the independent regulator of
parliament, ending the days of self-regulation of parliament," the
spokesman said.
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