BREAKING: Gordon Brown Resigns

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who yesterday said he would step down by September, has upped the timetable and will resign effective today. He is also resigning his post in Parliament and says he is leaving politics entirely. Aides were seen today removing luggage from No. 10 Downing Street. This afternoon Queen Elizabeth arrived at Buckingham Palace to formally accept Brown's resignation in person, as tradition dictates. Britain's three dominant parties continue to struggle to form a coalition government.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Announces Plan To Resign By September

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced his intent to resign today after last week's election failed to produce a majority party.

Brown's startling news conference upped the ante in talks between the Conservatives, who won the most seats in Thursday's election but not a majority in Parliament, and the Liberal Democrats, whose third-place finish still leaves them kingmakers. Almost immediately, the Tories rushed out to announce they would offer the Liberal Democrats a referendum on electoral reform — their key demand in the talks — in a last-ditch bid to secure their loyalty. The Conservatives have been reluctant to accept such reform because they fear it would freeze them out of power. The new voting system proposed by both the Conservatives and Labour would bring a major change, but is not as sweeping as a plan put forward in the Liberal Democrat election platform. Brown said the Labour Party, which lost more than 90 seats in the election, would begin a leadership contest to replace him while he focused on talks aimed at breaking Britain's election deadlock. "As leader of my party I must accept that as a judgment on me," Brown said, referring to Labour's poor showing in the election.

Britain's Parliament Is Hung

But not in the good way. With no majority won in yesterday's election, a coalition government will have to be created.

David Cameron has reached out to the Liberal Democrats in an effort to form a government - after the UK general election resulted in a hung parliament. The Tory leader, whose party won most seats but was short of a majority, said he wanted to make a "big open and comprehensive offer" to the Lib Dems. BBC political editor Nick Robinson said it could include Lib Dems in cabinet. Labour leader Gordon Brown has already stressed his party's "common ground" with the third biggest party. The Tories are expected to get 305 seats, just short of the 326 needed for an outright majority. Labour are expected to end with 255 MPs and the Lib Dems 61. Past practice under Britain's unwritten constitution sees the sitting prime minister in a hung parliament having the right to make the first attempt at forming a ruling coalition.

RELATED: Northern Ireland Prime Minister Peter Robinson, the husband of the boy-fucking cougar and anti-gay Iris Robinson, lost his seat in Parliament. His loss was quite unexpected. Robinson had been expect to help craft Parliament's coalition.

BRITAIN: Wife Of PM Appears At Gay Club To "Celebrate LGBT Achievements"

Sarah Brown, wife of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, made an appearance at the popular Duckie party at London's Vauxhall Tavern on Saturday night to "celebrate LGBT achievements" since the Labour Party took power in 1997.

The Duckie event, held at the Royal Vauxhaul Tavern is one of the main arty gay club nights in London and is hosted by lesbian comedian Amy Lame. Mrs Brown was there in the final weekend before the general election, which current polling suggests her husband is to lose. She and the Labour Party have made particular effort to appeal to the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) community. Last July, she took part in the London gay pride march, after her husband hosted an intimate reception at 10 Downing Street. She was there officially there to mark 13 years to the day that New Labour won the 1997 general election and began the journey that would eventually lead to an equal age of consent and gays serving in the military.

Sarah Brown had tweeted her attendance at the club several hours earlier in the day. While at Duckie, she pulled the ticket for that night's raffle. The winning patron's ticket? Number 10. However, that omen is unlikely to prove true. Labour is currently polling in third place. The election is Thursday.
(Tipped by JMG reader Gareth. Photo credit: Pink News)

British Prime Minister And Wife Send Congratulations To Activist David Mixner

On Monday, gay activist and former Clinton White House adviser David Mixner was honored in NYC by the Point Foundation. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife couldn't attend (volcano!) but sent the below message.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Expresses Gratitude To Gay Soldiers

In stark contrast to the situation in America, last night British Prime Minister Gordon Brown thanked his nation's openly serving gay soldiers in a ceremony celebrating the contributions of LGBT people to Britain.

Brown told guests at 10 Downing Street, including a number of gay servicemembers, that there was a “debt of gratitude we can never fully repay”. He said that the pride they felt was “nothing compared to the pride we feel in them”. Mr Brown cited the current struggle in the US to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which bans gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, saying he knew debate on the issue continued. In 2009, for the first LGBT reception at Downing Street, Mr Brown said that the ban on gay marriage in California was “unacceptable”. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the British military allowing out gay soldiers. Mr Brown said: “I promise you that no one need walk the road to equality alone again.” He also listed the achievements made for gay equality in the last ten years, such as gay adoption and fertility rights for lesbians, saying people had warned these things could not be done.

Gordon Brown Apologizes To Alan Turing

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued a posthumous apology to Alan Turing, the brilliant World War II code-breaker and computer scientist who killed himself after being convicted of the "crime" of homosexuality. Turing's decoding of the Nazi's "enigma machine" is credited as one of single-most crucial factors in ending the war.

I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain's fight against the darkness of dictatorship: that of code-breaker Alan Turing. Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of the Second World War could have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely.

In 1952, he was convicted of "gross indecency" – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later. [snip] It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe's history and not Europe's present. So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work, I am very proud to say: we're sorry. You deserved so much better.

Turing is considered by some to be the "father of computer science." More about him here.

British PM Bans Gay Activist Peter Tatchell From Downing Street Pride Event

The world's most famous gay activist, Peter Tatchell, claims that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown barred him from a gay Pride celebration at 10 Downing Street because of Tatchell's criticisms of the government on LGBT rights issues.

In a statement, Tatchell said: "I have been campaigning for LGBT human rights for 40 years. I was one of the group of people who helped organise Britain's first gay pride parade in 1972″. Calling many of those invited "tame apologists for Labour", Tatchell said the same "selective invitation criteria" was applied when Gordon Brown hosted a Downing Street reception for LGBT campaigners back in March. "An insider tipped me off that my name had been removed from the invite list, at Gordon Brown's personal request. He was apparently still angry that I had heckled him over his government's erosion of civil liberties, when he opened the Taking Liberties exhibition at the British Library late last year," he said.

Prime Minister Brown has turned down an invitation to march in this Saturday's gay Pride event in London, citing "security considerations."