LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s opposition Labour party must “pull together” after reports of serious internal discontent about its leader, Ed Miliband, or risk damaging its chances at a national election next year, the party’s campaign co-ordinator has warned.
The centre-left party has a narrow lead over Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives in opinion polls before the May 2015 election. But Miliband’s personal rating has sunk to its lowest ever level, raising doubts among supporters about whether he is capable of delivering an outright win.
Newspaper reports on Thursday said unnamed members of Miliband’s team feared that lawmakers in his own party were circulating a letter calling for him to resign. Miliband dismissed the reports as “nonsense.”
Derided by the media as socially awkward since he assumed the party’s leadership in 2010, Miliband, an Oxford-educated career politician, is seen by some in and around his party as an electoral liability rather than an asset.
Douglas Alexander, the party’s general election co-ordinator, called for unity after the plot whispers.
“He (Miliband) has got challenges but all of us have got challenges in every political party and everyone of us in the Labour party has to reflect the reality that divided parties lose elections,” Alexander told BBC TV on Thursday night.
“We have got a profound responsibility … to pull together to offer credible change in the face of these tough economic times and that’s exactly what we plan to do.”
Read more at Reuters
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