sat on the Labour Party front bench as Environment, Housing and Local Government Spokesperson. Around this time, Gilmore voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system. Labour Party leader Following Pat Rabbitte's resignation as party leader in August 2007, Gilmore announced his candidacy for the leadership. He received support from senior figures such as Michael D. Higgins, Ruairi Quinn, Willie Penrose, Liz McManus and Emmet Stagg, and did not have to contest a ballot, being formally confirmed as leader on 6 September, after being the only declared candidate. He became the tenth leader of the Labour Party. From early on in his Leadership Gilmore insisted that Labour should aspire to lead the next Government and set about building Labour as a third option for voters. At the 2009 local elections, the Labour Party added to its total of council seats, with 132 seats won (a gain of 43) and by July 2010 had gained an additional six seats from councillors joining the party since the election. On Dublin City Council, the party was again the largest party, but now with more seats than the two other main parties combined. At the 2009 European Parliament election held on the same day, the Labour Party increased its number of seats from 1 to 3, retaining the seat of Proinsias De Rossa in the Dublin constituency, while gaining seats in the East constituency with Nessa Childers, and in the South constituency with Alan Kelly. Initially Gilmore was in favour of the 2008 first Lisbon Treaty referendum. When it was lost, he declared that the "Lisbon Treaty is dead". According to a wikileaks cable dated 23 July 2008 and released in 2011, he told the US Ambassador privately that he would support a second referendum. The Ambassador reported that: "He explained his public posture of opposition to a second referendum as 'politically necessary' for the time being". In 2009, the Lisbon Treaty proposal was passed by the Twenty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland. In September 2009, at the Labour Parliamentary Party Meeting in Waterford, Gilmore categorically ruled out a coalition with Fianna Fáil after the next general election, reiterating what he had said in earlier interviews. In his leader's address to the 2010 Labour Party