UK confident of saving many Vauxhall jobs-Brown

LONDON, June 1 (Reuters) - Britain is confident it can save many jobs at UK carmaker Vauxhall after its parent company General Motors Corp (GM.N) filed for bankruptcy protection, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday.

More than 4,700 GM jobs are under threat at Vauxhall's factories in Ellesmere Port, northwest England, and Luton, north of London, after the third largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Union leaders have accused the British government of failing to do enough to secure jobs at Vauxhall and allowing their fate to be decided by talks in Germany over GM's entire European operations.

Seeking to allay those fears, Brown said he and his Business Secretary Peter Mandelson were working hard to avoid job losses at Vauxhall's two UK plants.

"We are determined to save as many of the Vauxhall jobs as possible," Brown told Sky News in an interview. "We are confident that we can save a large number of jobs."

"We believe that they are viable...we have got a very strong case to (put to) potential new owners about the importance of the British operations."

A deal was struck on Saturday between GM, the U.S. government and Canadian auto parts group Magna MGa.TO to save GM's European unit. Like its parent, GM Europe had suffered acutely from the worldwide economic slowdown.

Derek Simpson, general secretary of the Unite union, said he feared the new owners might think it would be "easier, cheaper and quicker" to cut British jobs rather than at other European plants.

"That is the great worry - that the German plants will be saved and that just puts more pressure on everywhere else, obviously including the UK," he told the BBC. (Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by David Cowell)