LONDON, ENGLAND - Voting began Thursday in Britain for European parliament and local authority elections, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour government braced for a battering.

Britain's 72 seats in the European Parliament are up for grabs, while voters in various part of England will also choose 2,318 local councillors and three elected mayors.

Polls which opened at 7 am will close at 10 pm (2100 GMT). The local election results are expected Friday, but the results of the European elections are not due to be published until Sunday, in line with other EU member states.

In power since 1997, the Labour government is taking the brunt of public anger over revelations about cross-party abuse of expenses by members of the House of Commons, just as Britain weathers its worst recession in decades.

Opinion polls suggest Labour could finish in third place.

Brown is struggling to assert his authority amid resignations and an alleged backbench plot to oust him. Four government ministers, including two members of his cabinet, have quit in the past two days.

Communities Secretary Hazel Blears, who faced criticism over her expenses, resigned on Wednesday, and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she would step down at the next cabinet reshuffle, expected within days.

After two junior ministers quit as well, David Cameron, leader of the main opposition Conservatives, declared Wednesday: 'The government is collapsing before our eyes.'

Newspapers reported Thursday that an email was being circulated to Labour MPs to sign, calling for Brown - who succeeded Tony Blair in June 2007 - to step aside so that a new leader can fight the next general election, due within a year.

Addressed to the prime minister, the email highlights his 'enormous contribution to this country and to the Labour Party, and this is very widely acknowledged'.

'However... in the current political situation, you can best serve the Labour Party and the country by stepping down as party leader and prime minister, and so allowing the party to choose a new leader to take us into the next general election.'

Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, a former EU trade commissioner whose domestic career was resurrected last October by old enemy Brown, urged his colleagues not to sign the letter.

'British politics is in a bad old state, nobody is happy and it's affecting all the parties,' he told the BBC, admitting that lawmakers were in a 'grumbly mood'.

'Don't please, through your actions, make it any worse for the Labour Party than for the other parties who have all got to come to grips with this crisis affecting British politics.'

Cameron's Conservatives have been leading Labour in opinion polls for months, and although it has also been damaged by the expenses scandal, it is expected to emerge from the European polls with the largest share of the vote.

Political analysts are also predicting an increase in support for fringe parties such as the eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the far-right British National Party (BNP).

A YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph newspaper published Thurday suggests that among people certain to vote, just 16 percent will back Labour, behind the Conservatives' 26 percent and UKIP's 18 percent.

The Liberal Democrats, the third largest party in parliament, were on 15 percent, according to the poll of 4,014 people carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The survey also found the Green Party commanded 10 percent support and the BNP five percent - which under the proportional representation system could be enough to hand them their first European Parliament lawmaker.