LONDON (AFP) — Prime Minister Gordon Brown lashed out at the former shadow home secretary Friday, calling his resignation over the recent 42-day detention vote "a stunt that has become a farce".
Brown's harsh words follow the shock resignation Thursday of top Tory David Davis over the government's widely-opposed plans to hold suspected extremists for up to six weeks.
Davis, who quit to force a by-election on the issue in his Haltemprice and Howden constituency, vowed to fight the "monstrosity of a law that was passed" and what he said was the increasingly intrusive power of the state over the individual.
The smaller opposition Liberal Democrats, Davis's most likely challengers in the by-election, already said they would not put up a candidate against him.
Labour, however, has not yet confirmed whether the party will field a candidate to run against Davis.
Davis told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "If it comes to it and they don't run, I will think that's just another piece of cowardice by Gordon Brown."
But Brown hit back, saying at a press conference in Downing Street that he believes "everyone now recognises that this is a stunt that has become a farce and has revealed the deep divisions of the party."
He added: "We don't know whether Mr Davis is going to be a Conservative or an independent Conservative.
"All that we do know is that at the first test of their policy on the essential issue of national security, the Conservative Party are totally divided on the 42-day proposal."
Brown scraped victory by nine votes in parliament Wednesday for his plan to increase pre-charge detention limits for suspected extremists from 28 days to 42, but only with the help of the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.
Thirty-six Labour members of parliament rebelled amid a clamour of opposition from civil rights groups to senior prosecutors and claims that Brown had consigned ancient ideas of liberty and democracy to history.
Tory leader David Cameron described the decision by his former opponent for the party's top job as "courageous" and pledged his support. Shadow attorney general Dominic Grieve was appointed in Davis's place as the party's home affairs spokesman.
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