Social Rehabilitation Minister Dale Butler denies there is a whispering campaign within the PLP against Premier Ewart Brown.

Two PLP MPs told yesterday’s Royal Gazette that supporters were turning on Dr. Brown after recent controversies which has seen him threaten to suspend relations with the Governor and launch a libel action against the press.

The hunt for the missing Bermuda Housing Corporation documents has also seen Auditor General spend 24 hours in a Police cell and Government launching legal action to stop the media from publishing more revelations.

One MP claimed the dissent had reached Cabinet level with some believing Dr. Brown had become a liability.

However Mr. Butler said plotters had the ideal opportunity to strike with the Premier off Island this week but there had been no specific or even vague talk of a coup.

He told The Royal Gazette: “I have been in a variety of PLP meetings from little branch meetings up to Central Committee but it’s not come up.

“No one has mentioned a single thing. Not even the question: ‘Are we guys going to deal with it?’

“It is innocent until proven guilty — as simple as that. There’s been the ‘unethical’ bit out there for a long time.”

PLP supporter Eva Hodgson said she still backed Ewart Brown but she urged supporters to demand more of their leaders rather than keep switching them. She said: “Black people are generally not taking responsibility for the leaders they have — expressing themselves to their leaders to pressure them to be better than they are.

“The talk about leadership change is certainly not the answer.”

Describing herself as a supporter of Dr. Brown she said he was at least tackling the race issue but could improve in other areas.

The probe into the Bermuda Housing Corporation scandal, which at one time had eleven people in its sights, led to one conviction with prosecutors saying some targeted by the probe were guilty of bad ethics but not lawbreaking under Bermuda’s 100-year-old corruption law.

Dr. Hodgson said: “We also need to put pressure on our Government and the PLP to bring in more legislation.”

She claimed some UBP politicians had steered Government contracts towards their own businesses during their time in power and had seen no need to change the law then but the PLP needed to show the way with legislation to stop politicians pressuring civil servants out of self interest. “Ewart Brown has done a lot better. He’s maybe over-confident but he’s been prepared to make decisions unlike previous leaders who weren’t prepared to do anything.”

But she called on Dr. Brown to be more consultative in his approach and do more for those on the margins of society.