London - History was made in the British parliament Tuesday when its Speaker was forced to resign over an escalating expenses scandal while Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged reforms that would make parliament "fit for the 21st century.""Westminster can no longer operate like a gentlemen's club which makes up its own rules...which is its own judge and jury," said Brown, promising to change "centuries of history" to make parliament more transparent.
His comments came just hours after Speaker Michael Martin, 63, announced that he would resign from the post on June 21 to enable the election of a successor as parliamentary president the next day.
"In order that unity can be maintained, I have decided that I will relinquish the office of Speaker...," said Martin, who has been in the post since 1999.
He is the first Speaker to step down from the traditional post in more than 300 years, and will also give up his seat as Labour member of parliament (MP) for Glasgow North-East, triggering a by-election.
Pressure on Martin, seen as the symbolic figurehead of the corruption scandal that has engulfed all political parties, had grown inexorably over the past few days, culminating in a threatened no-confidence motion vote against him in parliament.
As head of the fees office, which authorized the expenses claims submitted by MPs, Martin had been seen as condoning some of the dubious practices employed by MPs, while also having resisted greater transparency in the system.
The announcement of his early resignation, far ahead of the next general election due by June, 2010, came after a cabinet meeting Tuesday, fuelling speculation that Brown had also decided that the Speaker must go.
After a meeting of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee (NEC), and a separate discussion with leaders of all the main parties, Brown said that rules on expenses would be tightened and the regulation of expenses would be switched to an independent body.
He said an independent panel would scrutinize the expenses claimed by every Labour MP over the past four years and, if they were found to have broken the rules, action would be taken.
Members would also no longer set their own pay, Brown said.
The NEC had agreed that Labour MPs who were found to have defied the rules on their expenses would not be allowed to stand for election again as a Labour Party candidate, Brown said.
The system had to be "cleaned up fast" so that the British people could again "have trust and pride" in their parliament, said Brown.
Politicians of all the main political parties, including Brown and top cabinet members, have been tarnished by the scandal, exposed by the serialization of detailed expenses receipts by the Daily Telegraph newspaper over the past two weeks.
Claims under the so-called second home allowance system ranged from such mundane items as light bulbs and bath plugs to the re-classification of property in order to sell it on at a profit, the publication has shown.
While some MPs Tuesday regretted that Martin had been made a "scapegoat," others said his resignation could only be the beginning of a process of radical reform that would "flush out corruption" in the House of Commons.
However, there were clear signs Tuesday that the turbulence caused by the scandal is unlikely to die down.
Voters across the country have been angered by the "greed" and "misconduct" of their MPs as opinion poll show a slide in support for the main parties.
The opposition Conservatives have urged Brown to call an immediate general election to "clear up the mess."
While Brown, whose Labour Party is at an historic low of 22 per cent in the opinion polls, is likely to try to resist such calls, he is clearly aware of the wide ramifications of the expenses row.
