Brown will be ousted in months, critics say

Gordon Brown's critics predicted he would be ousted within two months as Labour descended into bitter infighting yesterday.

Charles Clarke cast a long shadow over Mr Brown's attempted relaunch by calling on the Cabinet to stage a mutiny against him if he failed to revive Labour's fortunes soon.

But Brown allies hit back by warning Labour MPs that they would be "turkeys voting for Christmas" if the Prime Minister was forced out, saying that an incoming leader would have to call an early general election.

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The former home secretary admitted the Cabinet was not yet ready to oust Mr Brown – but believed it would move against him if he failed to show an early improvement. "I think many in the Cabinet share the view we are in great difficulty and [are] doubtful about our capacity to get out of it," he said.

Mr Clarke said the two scenarios were for Mr Brown to significantly improve the Government's performance or to "stand down with honour" if that did not happen within weeks or months. But Brown allies dismissed the idea that he would leave voluntarily. A Cabinet loyalist told The Independent: "People who want Gordon to go should ask themselves whether they want an early general election, and what the party's prospects would be. We couldn't change prime ministers a second time without calling an election. The pressure would be unstoppable."

Opponents of Mr Brown hit back, saying any incoming prime minister would have some months to show the voters what kind of leader he or she would be before calling an election.

Brown critics claimed there was a growing consensus for a concerted move to push him out of Downing Street "sooner rather than later" after the weekend warning by Alistair Darling that Britain faced "arguably the worst" economic crisis for 60 years.

They said that, before the Chancellor's remarks, many Labour backbenchers wanted to delay a decision on Mr Brown's future until after local and Euro-pean elections next June in the hope that the economy would have picked up by then. "This week, MPs are saying if the economy is still going to be bad next year, we might as well bring the leadership issue to a head now," said one critic.

Although no Labour MP backed Mr Clarke publicly, another former cabinet minister insisted: "He has put on the record what a lot of MPs believe. At some stage, that had to be done."

But Mr Clarke suffered a backlash from Brown allies, who accused him of trying to sabotage the Government's fightback. Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said: "It's not the first time Charles has made those kind of comments. I think it's Charles being Charles." Tony Lloyd, chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, insisted the "overwhelming majority" of Labour MPs backed Mr Brown.

The debate over his future eclipsed an attempt by Mr Brown to paint a more upbeat picture of the economy than his Chancellor. He told the Scottish CBI in Glasgow last night: "While never complacent about our economic prospects, I am also cautiously optimistic about the long-term resilience and underlying strengths of the British economy because at root our economy today is better placed to weather any global storm than it was in the Seventies, Eighties or early Nineties."

The Prime Minister said Government would respond with "vision, courage and steadfastness to address the new insecurities that hard-pressed, hard-working British families face."