WI Thatcher Survives 1990, Loses 1992

How would the 1990's be different if Thatcher had survived the leadership challenge in 1990, and stays on as PM until the next election? I imagine Labour, under Kinnock, would win the next election in 1992; we can also assume they win the next one, meaning they remain in power for at least the rest of the decade.

How would British politics, and Britain herself, be changed? What sort of prime minister would Kinnock be? What about world politics? (We can assume, for the sake of simplicity, that Clinton is still elected US President in 1992.*) But for example, would the First Gulf War be affected if the Iron Lady were Bush's ally instead of Major? What about the Maastricht Treaty? Or how the west handled things like the end of the Cold War, or the wars in the Balkans?

*Though I do have ideas on changes to congressional elections for the general TL

Well, Kinnock would probably have been an awful Prime Minister which is at least in part why the tories remained in office so long. If John Smith had been Labour leader at the time he would probably have won and made a better Prime Minister than Major did. It was Smith's heart attack that opened the door to Blair. So with no John Major and a couple of years of Blair before the next election he's probably not going to shine as brightly as he did in otl. As Thatcher was a staunch supporter of action against Saddam there's probably no change there. Bush Senior was Reagan's vice president so the relationship between them would be established by then.
Also, Thatcher would have been legitemately voted out of office by the people, rather than the underhand stab in the back and betrayal that happened. Love her or loathe her, the way Margaret Thatcher was removed from office was disgraceful and a black day for British politics.

The Knight said:

Well, Kinnock would probably have been an awful Prime Minister...

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Care to elaborate? The more details, the better. (Mind you, for purposes of OP, I prefer him to stay in power for the rest of the decade, so if you have any thoughts about what he'd do -- or fail to do -- during that time, don't hesitate to tell.)

If the PoD is Thatcher defeating Heseltine in the first round then I think there are major butterflies for the Tories themselves. You can see among parts of the Tory Right and in UKIP that there's practically a Dolchstosslegende that if Thatcher hadn't been ousted she would have vetoed Maastricht strangling the EU at birth, everyone would have learned to love the Poll Tax and she would have beaten Kinnock and gone on and on. In truth she had lost the plot by the middle of her third term and had become an electoral liability. So if she is the one who leads the Party to defeat then her aura of an Invincible Boadicea is destroyed, I think Maastricht would still have happened, Thatcher was more pragmatic on Europe than her modern acolytes realise and I think she would have obtained roughly the same deal as Major.

Labour still has a major electoral mountain to climb in 1992 so its most likely a narrow majority or a coalition with the LD's, if the economy has gone as IOTL then you've still got the pressures that led to Black Wednesday are still there, Labour with John Smith at the Treasury is probably even more committed to the ERM. He would probably have done exactly the same as Lamont with probably the same outcome, the result in terms of the Government's credibility is about the same, its honeymoon will be over and the press will be merciless. Another potentially significant butterfly is that Nigel Farage decided to go into politics because of the events of Black Wednesday, if its a Labour Government does he still do that? If not then if UKIP still exists ITTL it may still be a fringe party.

I don't know enough about how Labours foreign policy would have developed but Northern Ireland could have gone very differently. Kinnock's Secretary of State would probably have been Kevin McNamara, a close friend of John Hume, a big supporter of Labour's traditional policy of Irish Unity by Consent and a real bogeyman for Unionists. Paisley would have had a field day with him in Hillsborough Castle, the 1994 ceasefire probably still happens if Britain is more inclined to the Nationalists but I can see the Unionists being even more intransigent than IOTL which raises the prospects of it collapsing earlier and any eventual deal taking longer to agree.

The minimum wage and Scottish Devolution happen a few years earlier, given how close the 1997 Welsh referendum was I wouldn't offer odds on how an earlier one might have gone. As for the Tories, Heseltine is still loathed by the rank and file so in an interesting reversal of fate it could well be John Major who succeeds Thatcher. It obviously depends on how big the loss in 1992 is and how the Kinnock government performs but with Thatcher's spell broken, and the blame for any Black Wednesday elsewhere, the Party may not be the undisciplined rabble it was for the 1990's and it probably won't lurch to the Right as much as develop the extreme Europhobia it has. There also probably won't be the same deluge of Tory sleaze stories as the media won't be as focused on the Tories. Winning in 1996/97 may be too much of an ask but at the subsequent election I think they'll have a big chance.

The Oncoming Storm said:

Labour still has a major electoral mountain to climb in 1992 so its most likely a narrow majority or a coalition with the LD's, if the economy has gone as IOTL then you've still got the pressures that led to Black Wednesday are still there, Labour with John Smith at the Treasury is probably even more committed to the ERM. He would probably have done exactly the same as Lamont with probably the same outcome,

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Agree with the rest but this is deeply questionable. Smith and Kinnock both believed that the pound was over-valued in the ERM and would have taken steps to right that, steps which Lamont, with his blustering incompetence, overlooked. (He basically told the president of the Bundesbank 'Do what I tell you and cut German interest rates'.) It's perfectly possible that Labour achieves a reallignment and stays in a very relaxed ERM; a slow descent out of it - or rather, a slow descent into essential irrelevance for the ERM, which is what we saw IOTL after the crash - rather than the big boom we saw IOTL. It's one of the continuing fallacies in these threads that Black Wednesday *has to happen* under Labour. It doesn't. It didn't even have to happen under the Tories.

Labour would have more difficulty getting devolution through in 1992 than 1997. For one, party policy hadn't crystallised around the use of referendums - it was just expected a Labour government would legislate for it. So you would have a big parliamentary battle over it, should Kinnock et al choose to go down that route. If they do go down the parliamentary route, Scottish devolution obviously has much better chances than Welsh, which IMO would probably encounter stiff opposition.

V-J said:

Smith and Kinnock both believed that the pound was over-valued in the ERM and would have taken steps to right that, steps which Lamont, with his blustering incompetence, overlooked. (He basically told the president of the Bundesbank 'Do what I tell you and cut German interest rates'.) It's perfectly possible that Labour achieves a revaluation and stays in a very relaxed ERM; a slow descent out of it - or rather, a slow descent into essential irrelevance for the ERM, which is what we saw IOTL after the crash - rather than the big boom we saw IOTL. It's one of the continuing fallacies in these threads that Black Wednesday *has to happen* under Labour. It doesn't. It didn't even have to happen under the Tories.

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Good points, though Smith will still have only four months to change the course of these events -- I imagine either way the matter of breaking this to the British public is going to be somewhat delicate. Either way, it seems that if Labour is going to call an election 1994-96 (to finish out the decade), then a big part of their prospects depend on how they handle the fallout of Black Wednesday and the larger Europe question, yes?

With regards to Northern Ireland, how much worse are we talking? Does no 1994-96 ceasefire (and I'm guessing no 1998 Good Friday Agreement) mean the Troubles not only don't end this decade, but could be as bad or worse in the 90's as they were in the 80's? A Scottish Act coming five years earlier is an interesting side note.

John Fredrick Parker said:

Good points, though Smith will still have only four months to change the course of these events

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That's assuming that Black Wednesday happens on cue of OTL, which it wouldn't. (The trigger was the President of the Bundesbank expressing uncertainty over peripheral currencies in the ERM; something which was probably not discouraged by Lamont's earlier behaviour) Smith and Kinnock would also have a honeymoon in Europe, similar to that which Blair had IOTL in his early years. Europe would be ready to cut them a little slack after Thatcher at Maastricht.

As said, there's no assurance a Black Wednesday happens ITTL.

If it does still happen, Labour's prospects greatly diminish at the next election; if not, then they probably get re-elected IMO. Although a lot depends on who is elected Tory leader.

John Fredrick Parker said:

(to finish out the decade),

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You've wrote this strange phrase twice so far, and I'm not sure what you mean by it.

John Fredrick Parker said:

With regards to Northern Ireland, how much worse are we talking? Does no 1994-96 ceasefire (and I'm guessing no 1998 Good Friday Agreement) mean the Troubles not only don't end this decade, but could be as bad or worse in the 90's as they were in the 80's?

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Labour would almost certainly still be able to bring about an IRA ceasefire, there's not going to be any return to the eighties, still less the seventies.

British Rail will probably continue down its 1980s path of "sectorisation", rather than being privatised ITTL. Unless the Tories privatise it after they get back into power, that is.

As a broader issue: will the Coalition forces push on to Baghdad in 1991 ITTL, with Thatcher at the helm? Saddam being toppled in the early 1990s will obviously have some pretty serious butterflies for the Middle East.

What'll the economic and social policies of a Kinnock-led Government be? I'm going to assume it'll be a Lab/Lib coalition, as I really just can't picture Neil Kinnock winning enough votes to climb the post-1980s mountain to a majority. Which bits of the Thatcher legacy are going to be reversed under a leftier-than-Blair Labour Government?

I really would be interested to see such a TL done properly, complete with global butterflies, but I certainly don't have the skills or the time. Maybe someday...

V-J said:

Agree with the rest but this is deeply questionable. Smith and Kinnock both believed that the pound was over-valued in the ERM and would have taken steps to right that,

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Labour 1992 Manifesto said:

"To curb inflation Labour will maintain the value of the pound within the European Exchange Rate Mechanism."

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Unless you think they were lying when they wrote their 1992 manifesto for the general election, then your assertion is contradicted by their own words.

The idea that black Wednesday would be less likely under a neophyte government desperate to shore up it's economic credibility is - well, an opinion I suppose. The British and German economies were moving in different directions too rapidly for any political fix to save the pound's role in the ERM. And yes, it would be unfair to blame Labour for the whole mess - but politics isn't fair, and after Black Wednesday every Conservative PPB until the next election would practically write itself - "We spent 13 years fixing the economy, it took Labour less than six months to wreck it again." Kinnock would be a one term PM in this scenario.

John Fredrick Parker said:

Care to elaborate? The more details, the better. (Mind you, for purposes of OP, I prefer him to stay in power for the rest of the decade, so if you have any thoughts about what he'd do -- or fail to do -- during that time, don't hesitate to tell.)

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Kinnock was a bit of a compromise leader between the warring left and right factions of the party. I don't think he would have been an effective Prime Minister. Think of a left leaning John Major. Major often tried to reassert his authority over his government, yet never quite managed to do so. I'm not sure Kinnock would have handled a crisis well. I may be wrong and people who know him better are welcome to tell me so but my impression of him was that he could lead a party but wouldn't be able to govern well.
I don't know how well he would have got on with the Americans though, or how his pacifist tendencies would have affected the Balkans.
On the other hand he wouldn't have inflicted the chaos on Britain's rail system that Major did, so he may have been a bit better than Major was.

RPW@Cy said:

Unless you think they were lying when they wrote their 1992 manifesto for the general election, then your assertion is contradicted by their own words.

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They were being extremely economical with the truth, yes. Goodness, when did parties do that in their manifestos and public statesments? Pro-tip: actually investigating the historical record is always a better way of gaining understanding than googling or using Wikipedia. I know that's a fairly revolutionary notion around here, but there you go.

Here's the facts: Neil Kinnock and his economic advisory group, which included John Eatwell, Meghnad Desai, and Andrew Graham, were all agreed that the pound was overvalued, and Neil Kinnock was determined to pursue realignment of the pound. This was not public knowledge (John Smith didn't even know of it) because of the obvious potential to spook the markets and open the charge of Labour as the party of devaluation. Once a Labour government was in office, however, realignment negotiations would have began fairly promptly. I can give you sources for all this if you wish.

The question is not whether Labour was more economically literate on this issue than the Tories, it's whether Labour's attempt to change the settings would have been successful. It may not have been. A failure may not be of Black Wednesday proportions, but even a simple devaluation would greatly damage Labour.

You mention that John Smith didn't know about what Kinnock was doing, does that mean that he himself had believed that realigning the pound was needed or was he more on the fence about it?

Blackadder mk 2 said:

You mention that John Smith didn't know about what Kinnock was doing, does that mean that he himself had believed that realigning the pound was needed or was he more on the fence about it?

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I think it was simply due to the very bad relations between Kinnock and Smith at that time, and an example of Kinnock's unilateral policy-making on the hoof. Kinnock's self-stated reason is that it was done to maintain Smith's own credibility, which is obviously bizarre. A cynic would say Kinnock was trying to emphasise his authority in advance of government by undermining Smith on economic policy.

V-J said:

I think it was simply due to the very bad relations between Kinnock and Smith at that time, and an example of Kinnock's unilateral policy-making on the hoof. Kinnock's self-stated reason is that it was done to maintain Smith's own credibility, which is obviously bizarre. A cynic would say Kinnock was trying to emphasise his authority in advance of government by undermining Smith on economic policy.

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So we could see an argument break out over whether to realign the pound or not. I'd think that John Smith wouldn't want to be the Chancellor who made Labour devalue the pound for a third time, though he could also be convinced that it's the right choice. Again, are there any sources that describe Smith's attitude to realigning the pound?

Basileus Giorgios said:

As a broader issue: will the Coalition forces push on to Baghdad in 1991 ITTL, with Thatcher at the helm? Saddam being toppled in the early 1990s will obviously have some pretty serious butterflies for the Middle East.

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This is a very intriguing possibility; still, wouldn't Bush still be alliance leader here? How, exactly, does the Prime Minister of Great Britain expand the Coalition's objectives to include regime change?

V-J said:

You've wrote this strange phrase twice so far, and I'm not sure what you mean by it.

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Sorry, I mean govern for the rest of the 1990's (at least); which as I see it, means getting re-elected and beginning a full five year term in the mid-90's.

Blackadder mk 2 said:

So we could see an argument break out over whether to realign the pound or not. I'd think that John Smith wouldn't want to be the Chancellor who made Labour devalue the pound for a third time, though he could also be convinced that it's the right choice. Again, are there any sources that describe Smith's attitude to realigning the pound?

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Smith supported a realignment against the DM, but was much more cautious on an old-school unilateral devaluation.

He would, however, have been utterly and justifiably furious about having the realignment plan sprung on him, simply at the principle of the thing. He wouldn't object to it as a policy, though.

V-J said:

They were being extremely economical with the truth, yes. Goodness, when did parties do that in their manifestos and public statesments? Pro-tip: actually investigating the historical record is always a better way of gaining understanding than googling or using Wikipedia. I know that's a fairly revolutionary notion around here, but there you go.

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Way to win friends and influence people, dude. For the record, I don't need to google it - I'm old enough to remember it first hand. Labour weren't just going through the motions, they were much keener on it than the Conservatives.

Here's the facts: Neil Kinnock and his economic advisory group, which included John Eatwell, Meghnad Desai, and Andrew Graham, were all agreed that the pound was overvalued, and Neil Kinnock was determined to pursue realignment of the pound. This was not public knowledge (John Smith didn't even know of it)

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John Smith was the Shadow Chancellor! You can't run an economic policy like that.

because of the obvious potential to spook the markets and open the charge of Labour as the party of devaluation. Once a Labour government was in office, however, realignment negotiations would have began fairly promptly. I can give you sources for all this if you wish.

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Sources that predate Black Wednesday - like, y'know, THE ELECTION MANIFESTO - would be nice. Otherwise - forget about it. Hindsight is wonderful, but worthless. Especially from people you opened your post by freely admitting to be capable of lying shamelessly (sorry, being "extremely economical with the truth").

The question is not whether Labour was more economically literate on this issue than the Tories, it's whether Labour's attempt to change the settings would have been successful. It may not have been. A failure may not be of Black Wednesday proportions, but even a simple devaluation would greatly damage Labour.

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True. I actually think it would have been worse though - they would have been so desperate to preserve their economic credibility and avoid yet another devaluation that they wouldn't have cut and run even as early as Lamont did.

VJ: Kinnock knew the pound was overvalued prior to Black Wednesday, and very well may have prevented it had Labour been elected.
RPW: Labour's election manifesto clearly they would not devalue the pound, period.
VJ: Labour wasn't being truthful in this document, period.
Me (thinking): That makes sense; any politician (US, UK, or anywhere probably) says "I will devalue our currency", they're going to get crucified in the press. Hell, UIAM, didn't the conservative press try to pin Kinnock as a devaluer anyway?
VJ (continuing): The fact is, Kinnock had agreed the pound was being overvalued in a meeting, but told no one at the time, not even the shadow chancellor. I can offer sources, if you like.
RPW: If it wasn't public before Black Wednesday, than the source isn't reliable. Period.
Me: Wait, but... VJ's saying they were lying about their policy. How's anyone supposed to prove or disprove this allegation if you're only going to reject any evidence from essentially anytime after the election? (BW itself being four months after.)

V-J said:

Smith supported a realignment against the DM, but was much more cautious on an old-school unilateral devaluation.

He would, however, have been utterly and justifiably furious about having the realignment plan sprung on him, simply at the principle of the thing. He wouldn't object to it as a policy, though.

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Can I ask your source for the Labour devaluation plan? As you say, it's better to consult primary sources rather than google, but I've not come across that factoid before.

John Fredrick Parker said:

VJ: Kinnock knew the pound was overvalued prior to Black Wednesday, and very well may have prevented it had Labour been elected.
RPW: Labour's election manifesto clearly they would not devalue the pound, period.
VJ: Labour wasn't being truthful in this document, period.
Me (thinking): That makes sense; any politician (US, UK, or anywhere probably) says "I will devalue our currency", they're going to get crucified in the press. Hell, UIAM, didn't the conservative press try to pin Kinnock as a devaluer anyway?

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Call me naive if you wish, but I don't believe politicians lie anything like as often as we like to believe - hide stuff? Imply one thing while saying another? Engage in misdirection? Of course. But flat out, deliberately, say one thing when they mean to do the opposite in a document as important and high profile as an election manifesto? No, I don't buy it. Especially when, as here, you could so easily avoid lying by changing just one word (swap "value" for "membership" in the manifesto quote will do).

VJ

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(continuing): The fact is, Kinnock had agreed the pound was being overvalued in a meeting, but told no one at the time, not even the shadow chancellor. I can offer sources, if you like.
RPW: If it wasn't public before Black Wednesday, than the source isn't reliable. Period.
Me: Wait, but... VJ's saying they were lying about their policy. How's anyone supposed to prove or disprove this allegation if you're only going to reject any evidence from essentially anytime after the election? (BW itself being four months after.)

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If the only reason for rejecting what they publicly said is that they said afterwards they were lying, then yes - the statements of admitted liars should be discounted.

After all, which scenario is more probable - that they shared in the economic consensus of the time, or privately disagreed with it - so privately in fact they didn't even tell their own Shadow Chancellor, never mind the people writing the manifesto?

They're politicians. Of course afterwards they're not going to say - "Sh**! We were even wronger than everyone else!" No, they're going to say "Of course we saw this coming all along, we even had a top secret plan that would have prevented it from happening. What's that you say? Evidence? Sorry - but it was so top secret we couldn't put anything in writing. Couldn't run the risk of the media getting hold of it and smearing us as wanting to devalue the economy." you can choose to believe this if you want...