alternatehistory.com
Dave Prentis (2014-)
When Labour lost its second election in a row in 2010, it was felt they needed a break with their past image of grey bureaucrats who cared more about holding power than they did making policy. They needed a firebrand, a genuine left-winger who could enthuse the people once again and pave the way for the triumphant return to Number 10 that everyone knew was coming. So they turned to John McDonnell.
Eighteen months later, McDonnell's leadership had left the party divided and facing a polling disaster. The government had started winning by-elections, and Labour spent more time on internal quarrels than they did opposing the Alliance. It was now felt they needed someone who embodied the exact opposite qualities from the ones McDonnell had been associated with.
So they turned to Dave Prentis, the General Secretary of NALGO. Prentis had the credentials to please both wings of the party – for the left, he was a longstanding, successful union leader with a broad Yorkshire accent, and for the right, he had strong credentials for industrial harmony, cooperating with the state to secure economic prosperity. More than everything else, in his union positions he'd taken a technocratic bent, keeping well outside the internal conflicts of the TUC and the Labour Party. His leadership bid was somewhat damaged by not being an MP, but immediately upon his election a member for East London stood down, triggering a by-election that Prentis comfortably won.
Prentis was not a particularly skilled debater, but much like Henry Plumb before him, gained a reputation as an underdog when compared with Cameron's Eton-Oxford education. Labour's election campaign in 2014 played heavily on these differences, with one notable PPB featuring Prentis touring the places of his childhood in working-class Leeds. Overall the campaign was significantly more positive than the 2010 one, though it was still criticised internally for “accepting the Cameronite consensus” by refusing to take stands on private welfare or pledge the reversal of Alliance tax cuts. Party strategists had set a target voteshare of 35%, a figure that would've meant conceding defeat as late as ten years prior, and even this was not reached. However, the National collapse and British Democrat surge still left him at the head of the largest party by some margin, and after some negotiations he ended up forming a coalition government with the Greens (the first Labour-led coalition since Ramsay MacDonald).
In some alternate universe, this might've been a great reforming government, elected as it was on the promise of reducing Britain's unemployment level to be the lowest in Europe by 2020. However, as the parliamentary situation stood, such was not going to happen. The government had the direct backing of less than forty percent of the Commons. They sought the backing of the Socialist Left, conceding several policy points including an independent inquiry into private welfare, but this still did not win them a majority. Fortunately, this would not normally be a problem, as the Alliance was even weaker, and the British Democrats wouldn't work with them or vote with them on the budget – the hope was that they'd abstain just as they'd done the Alliance budgets. This hope was not to be, in spite of the fact that the Alliance agreed to match Labour's integration spending level in order to prevent the British Democrats from siding with them. The very first budget was defeated in the Commons, and within months of the General Election, Britain faced a government crisis.
However, as things stood there was very little appetite for early elections from either the government or the Alliance. The National Party was still in disarray after Cameron's sudden departure, and with the British Democrats continuing their poll surge it was looking unlikely that they'd stand to gain from fresh elections. Chloe Smith, who was more or less the de facto leader of the Alliance as leader of its second-largest party, negotiated a deal with Prentis whereby the Alliance parties would abstain on supply and confidence for the next four years, effectively giving consent to Labour rule. However, when those four years were up, an election would be held, and if the Alliance were the biggest bloc then, Labour would have to reciprocate. Under these rules, Labour were able to pass a budget, and the governance of Britain carried on as usual.
However, the year and a half elapsed since has seen unprecedented upheavals, from the refugee crisis to the heightening tensions between the West and Russia, to the explosion of the British homeless population (largely EU migrants), and the British Democrats continue to surge in the polls. The Liberals, facing irrelevance, have rebranded themselves the “Liberal People's Party”, a move that kept them in the headlines but ultimately had little effect on their poll ratings. The Greens have hit a slump, brought on by their perceived powerlessness as Labour's junior coalition partner, and in their place the Socialist Left under Corbyn's leadership have risen to become the dominant force of the “plural” left. Fuelled by the bitterness that prompted her to leave the Socialist Left while still its leader, Diane Abbott has founded a “Rainbow Alliance” campaigning on issues of racial equality, a platform that wins her plenty of attention but ultimately not much support outside the major cities. Iris Robinson, the new Ulster Unionist leader, is pledging “No Surrender to Labour”, likely meaning her party will refuse to adhere to the agreement and vote down the next Labour budget, and the new National leader seems to be sympathetic to the idea.
It remains to be seen whether Prentis and his government will even last until the hypothetical 2018 General Election, or whether he'll stumble and fall on a budget vote before then as the right increasingly comes to realise that the allure of power may be worth shedding some righteous indignation and making a deal with the British Democrats. A line of Labour Prime Ministers, from treacherous Ramsay Mac to beloved Attlee, to long-serving Wilson, to firebrand Benn, to reformer Dobson, to power-broker Prescott, look down from the walls of Number 10. How long before Prentis joins them, and will he do so at a time of his choosing or in ignominious defeat at the hands of his enemies? Time, alone, will tell.
When Labour lost its second election in a row in 2010, it was felt they needed a break with their past image of grey bureaucrats who cared more about holding power than they did making policy. They needed a firebrand, a genuine left-winger who could enthuse the people once again and pave the way for the triumphant return to Number 10 that everyone knew was coming. So they turned to John McDonnell.
Eighteen months later, McDonnell's leadership had left the party divided and facing a polling disaster. The government had started winning by-elections, and Labour spent more time on internal quarrels than they did opposing the Alliance. It was now felt they needed someone who embodied the exact opposite qualities from the ones McDonnell had been associated with.
So they turned to Dave Prentis, the General Secretary of NALGO. Prentis had the credentials to please both wings of the party – for the left, he was a longstanding, successful union leader with a broad Yorkshire accent, and for the right, he had strong credentials for industrial harmony, cooperating with the state to secure economic prosperity. More than everything else, in his union positions he'd taken a technocratic bent, keeping well outside the internal conflicts of the TUC and the Labour Party. His leadership bid was somewhat damaged by not being an MP, but immediately upon his election a member for East London stood down, triggering a by-election that Prentis comfortably won.
Prentis was not a particularly skilled debater, but much like Henry Plumb before him, gained a reputation as an underdog when compared with Cameron's Eton-Oxford education. Labour's election campaign in 2014 played heavily on these differences, with one notable PPB featuring Prentis touring the places of his childhood in working-class Leeds. Overall the campaign was significantly more positive than the 2010 one, though it was still criticised internally for “accepting the Cameronite consensus” by refusing to take stands on private welfare or pledge the reversal of Alliance tax cuts. Party strategists had set a target voteshare of 35%, a figure that would've meant conceding defeat as late as ten years prior, and even this was not reached. However, the National collapse and British Democrat surge still left him at the head of the largest party by some margin, and after some negotiations he ended up forming a coalition government with the Greens (the first Labour-led coalition since Ramsay MacDonald).
In some alternate universe, this might've been a great reforming government, elected as it was on the promise of reducing Britain's unemployment level to be the lowest in Europe by 2020. However, as the parliamentary situation stood, such was not going to happen. The government had the direct backing of less than forty percent of the Commons. They sought the backing of the Socialist Left, conceding several policy points including an independent inquiry into private welfare, but this still did not win them a majority. Fortunately, this would not normally be a problem, as the Alliance was even weaker, and the British Democrats wouldn't work with them or vote with them on the budget – the hope was that they'd abstain just as they'd done the Alliance budgets. This hope was not to be, in spite of the fact that the Alliance agreed to match Labour's integration spending level in order to prevent the British Democrats from siding with them. The very first budget was defeated in the Commons, and within months of the General Election, Britain faced a government crisis.
However, as things stood there was very little appetite for early elections from either the government or the Alliance. The National Party was still in disarray after Cameron's sudden departure, and with the British Democrats continuing their poll surge it was looking unlikely that they'd stand to gain from fresh elections. Chloe Smith, who was more or less the de facto leader of the Alliance as leader of its second-largest party, negotiated a deal with Prentis whereby the Alliance parties would abstain on supply and confidence for the next four years, effectively giving consent to Labour rule. However, when those four years were up, an election would be held, and if the Alliance were the biggest bloc then, Labour would have to reciprocate. Under these rules, Labour were able to pass a budget, and the governance of Britain carried on as usual.
However, the year and a half elapsed since has seen unprecedented upheavals, from the refugee crisis to the heightening tensions between the West and Russia, to the explosion of the British homeless population (largely EU migrants), and the British Democrats continue to surge in the polls. The Liberals, facing irrelevance, have rebranded themselves the “Liberal People's Party”, a move that kept them in the headlines but ultimately had little effect on their poll ratings. The Greens have hit a slump, brought on by their perceived powerlessness as Labour's junior coalition partner, and in their place the Socialist Left under Corbyn's leadership have risen to become the dominant force of the “plural” left. Fuelled by the bitterness that prompted her to leave the Socialist Left while still its leader, Diane Abbott has founded a “Rainbow Alliance” campaigning on issues of racial equality, a platform that wins her plenty of attention but ultimately not much support outside the major cities. Iris Robinson, the new Ulster Unionist leader, is pledging “No Surrender to Labour”, likely meaning her party will refuse to adhere to the agreement and vote down the next Labour budget, and the new National leader seems to be sympathetic to the idea.
It remains to be seen whether Prentis and his government will even last until the hypothetical 2018 General Election, or whether he'll stumble and fall on a budget vote before then as the right increasingly comes to realise that the allure of power may be worth shedding some righteous indignation and making a deal with the British Democrats. A line of Labour Prime Ministers, from treacherous Ramsay Mac to beloved Attlee, to long-serving Wilson, to firebrand Benn, to reformer Dobson, to power-broker Prescott, look down from the walls of Number 10. How long before Prentis joins them, and will he do so at a time of his choosing or in ignominious defeat at the hands of his enemies? Time, alone, will tell.
- Utgard96
- Word Count: 1.1k