DARWEN and Rossendale MP Janet Anderson has slammed Labour party bosses for denying the call for Gordon Brown to face a leadership contest.

Mrs Anderson was one of a number of Labour MPs who made the demand ahead of the party’s annual conference.

About a dozen MPs have so far spoken out against Mr Brown’s leadership since assistant whip Siobhain McDonagh broke ranks on Friday to demand a contest for the top job.

Mrs Anderson insisted she was not a rebel and was proud of the party’s achievements.

She said that in 16 years of being a Labour MP she had never voted against the Labour government.

But she said the time had come where ‘we have to do something’.

“We cannot go on ‘sleepwalking to oblivion’ as some colleagues have rightly said, but we are and we will if we do nothing to address the reasons why we have consistently been way behind in the polls for many months now,” Mrs Anderson said.

“That means a root and branch review of our policies and how we communicate them to the voters.

"And if that requires a change of leadership, so be it.

“As one commentator has said ‘the government’s purpose cannot be the personal survival of the Prime Minister’.”

Mrs Anderson claimed Labour party rules had not been followed.

She said there was an annual requirement to re-nominate the leader and deputy leader of the party, something which has not happened this year.

Mrs Anderson said: “Many Labour MPs and party members are frustrated at their lack of a voice when the government is clearly so unpopular with voters.

“In the words of one of my party officers, who has been active in the Labour Party for over 50 years ‘we have achieved so much, and now we have thrown it all away’.

“As the rumblings about Gordon Brown’s leadership have continued over the months, his supporters have repeatedly said critics should ‘put up or shut up’.

“Observing the party’s rules about the annual requirement to re-nominate the leader and deputy leader would obviously have met that charge and given the party the opportunity to have a voice.”

Fellow East Lancashire Labour MPs Greg Pope and Gordon Prentice have backed the call for a leadership contest.

But Blackburn MP Jack Straw said such a move was ‘not in the best interests of the country or the party’.