1983 Labour Leadership Election Without Kinnock

In June 1983, just before the Labour Leadership election Neil Kinnock was in a car accident, what if the accident had been worse and kicked him out of the contest, either through death or injury?

Who would win Labour Leadership without him?

The likely candidates are:

Roy Hattersley - Shadow Home Secretary

John Smith - Shadow Trade Secretary

Peter Shore - Shadow Chancellor

John Silkin - Shadow Defence Secretary

Tony Benn - (without seat)

Gerald Kauffman - Shadow Environment Secretary

Denis Healey - Deputy Leader, Shadow Foreign Secretary

Eric Heffer - Shadow Minister for Europe
 
Shore I assume. Won't be anyone from the right of the party anyway.

I agree, the other candidates of the Left don't have the popular support and the Right candidates are either too junior (Smith), missed their chance (Healey) or just don't have the support (Hattersley).
 
I agree, the other candidates of the Left don't have the popular support and the Right candidates are either too junior (Smith), missed their chance (Healey) or just don't have the support (Hattersley).

Wouldn't Kinnock's votes head Hattersley's way? And Smith was more experienced than Kinnock in cabinet.
 
I agree, the other candidates of the Left don't have the popular support and the Right candidates are either too junior (Smith), missed their chance (Healey) or just don't have the support (Hattersley).

It is more the fact that the TU block vote is still in operation at this point, and that represents a massive block, if you'll excuse the play on words, to the leadership from anyone from the right. (The Healey-Foot contest was run on the old MP-only basis) The union bosses are not going to go for someone from the right, they're going to go with someone who represents lowest ideological common denominator, and that's going to have to be someone from the left. That probably means Shore, but Heffer is a longer possibility I guess. I don't see Silkin getting any traction.
 
Kinnock was of the Tribune Left, voting for Foot as leader but stuck with Healey during Benn's challenge, Roy Hattersley gained the victory for Deputy Leadership because he was facing Michael Meacher who was of the far left. Facing down against Peter Shore, who lost most of his support base to Kinnock, would have been a much more difficult task and I don't think Hattersley had the "pull" to convince the electoral college, of which trade unions and constituencies had a strong domination of the electoral college at the time.
 
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Kinnock was of the Tribune Left, voting for Foot as leader but stuck with Healey during Benn's challenge, Roy Hattersley gained the victory for Deputy Leadership because he was facing Michael Meacher who was of the far left. Facing down against Peter Shore, who lost most of his support base to Kinnock, would have been a much more difficult task and I don't think Hattersley had the "pull" to convince the electoral college, which had a strong domination of the electoral college at the time.

So if Shore is leader, how would he do?

Better or worse than Kinnock? Not really an expert on him but I understand he was greatly feared by the Tory Party.
 
It is more the fact that the TU block vote is still in operation at this point, and that represents a massive block, if you'll excuse the play on words, to the leadership from anyone from the right.

That's not true at all - the TU block vote was what gave Healey the deputy leadership over Benn. It's the constituencies that were solidly left-wing at that point (and pretty much every point until the witch-hunts in the late 80s and early 90s), not the unions.
 
That's not true at all - the TU block vote was what gave Healey the deputy leadership over Benn. It's the constituencies that were solidly left-wing at that point (and pretty much every point until the witch-hunts in the late 80s and early 90s), not the unions.

The fact that (some of) the unions were prepared to keep someone like Wedgie out of the deputy leadership doesn't make them bastions of the right. They might not have been as left-leaning as the activists, but that doesn't mean they would bolt for a right-winger in this period. The days when the leadership relied on the right-wing unions to batter conference were long gone. A lot of the choices over the last few years which had lead Labour to the point it was at by '83 were ones supported by the unions.
 
So if Shore is leader, how would he do?

Better or worse than Kinnock? Not really an expert on him but I understand he was greatly feared by the Tory Party.

Can't see him doing much better. Even if he pursues the same course of reform as Kinnock it's going to be one or two more elections before Labour really had a chance and with a hostile press I don't see him doing much better electorally.

On the other hand it's pretty easy for him to do worse if he refuses to address the problems being caused by the far left elements in the party. As I say Labour probably can't win for a couple of more cycles but it needs to reverse the loss of votes to the SDP ASAP.
 
The fact that (some of) the unions were prepared to keep someone like Wedgie out of the deputy leadership doesn't make them bastions of the right.

Preferring a man they had vocally scorned for keeping the wage freeze and causing the Winter of Discontent. The biggest unions were still controlled by leaders who were aligned with the right on most issues - their support for Foot (and Kinnock) such as it was, was entirely conditional on keeping the party together and Benn out (and on the reciprocal support for Healey and then Hattersley as deputy).

They might not have been as left-leaning as the activists, but that doesn't mean they would bolt for a right-winger in this period.

That's not an untrue statement, but it is a million miles from the idea that they would be a "massive block [...] to the leadership from anyone from the right". They'd certainly support a right-winger over Benn or Heffer, even at the risk of splitting the party. The question is whether Shore can be the compromise candidate that Kinnock was - and that's key here, Kinnock was not elected leader as the candidate of the left of the party (which was itself split); he was elected as the candidate of the soft left, centre and (remaining, post-split) right of the party.
 
The biggest unions were still controlled by leaders who were aligned with the right on most issues

Not remotely. How do you think the various changes to the structure of the party and its policies were effected in this period? Those changes which pushed a good deal of the right out of the party? They may have been political pragmatists over an issue like the 1981 deputy leadership election, but this does not make them aligned with the right policy-wise or factionally.

That's not an untrue statement, but it is a million miles from the idea that they would be a "massive block [...] to the leadership from anyone from the right".

Not at all, not at all. Someone from the right would not have passed muster with the unions; they were the ones who got the ball rolling with Kinnock's candidacy. Your hypothetical of a straight clash between the hard-left and right is by its nature an extreme polarisation and therefore moot; there were always going to be soft left candidates to adopt who could unite the party in a way neither the hard left or right could.
 
Not remotely. How do you think the various changes to the structure of the party and its policies were effected in this period? Those changes which pushed a good deal of the right out of the party? They may have been political pragmatists over an issue like the 1981 deputy leadership election, but this does not make them aligned with the right policy-wise or factionally.

Those changes were not pushed by the unions, they were pushed by the left across the party. The one change that the unions did throw themselves into was the electoral college for leadership elections - not out of any left/right ideology but for purely selfish reasons (to give themselves more influence). But there was a clear political difference between those right-wingers who left and those who stayed: those who left had long wanted to break the link with the unions (and David Owen reportedly still refuses to re-join Labour for that reason alone).

Is extending the election of leaders beyond the parliamentary factions of parties, a uniquely left-wing position?

Not at all, not at all. Someone from the right would not have passed muster with the unions; they were the ones who got the ball rolling with Kinnock's candidacy. Your hypothetical of a straight clash between the hard-left and right is by its nature an extreme polarisation and therefore moot; there were always going to be soft left candidates to adopt who could unite the party in a way neither the hard left or right could.

So if not Kinnock, then who? I really can't see Shore doing it, and the unions are going to have the same objection to him that they had to all "middle-class intellectuals" (the same thing that made them distrust Hattersley, though less because of his own background and more because he'd embraced roles as first Crosland's protege and then Jenkins' vicar-on-Earth). Doubly-so for Silkin. Robin Cook, then?

But there was someone from the right of the party who would have passed muster with the unions, and indeed with the soft left: John Smith.
 
Roy Hattersley - A firm right-winger wasn't going to win the leadership in '83. May have done better without Kinnock in the race though.

John Smith - Somewhat inexperienced back then. A softer right-winger who could be tolerated by the left. Possible dark horse.

Peter Shore - Factionally similar to Kinnock (EEC aside). Perhaps never had much personal appeal though. Also he already did badly in the 1980 contest.

John Silkin - Was never much of a high-profile figure.

Tony Benn - I doubt it with him out of parliament. This isn't Canada. :p

Gerald Kauffman - About as right-wing as they came in those days for a Labour shadow cabinet minister. Little chance of becoming leader.

Denis Healey - There was surely a general sentiment by then that his leadership hopes had gone. Still, he would've had a better chance than Hattersley and Kaufman.

Eric Heffer - Staunch hard left-winger but he lacked the visibility of Benn.
 
Is extending the election of leaders beyond the parliamentary factions of parties, a uniquely left-wing position?

In this period? Pretty much. The starting position of the right was that they wanted the election to remain with the PLP, and then when this became an unviable position, which it soon did for obvious reasons, create a pure OMOV system. The left did not want a pure OMOV system, as they were interested in furthering the power of the constituency activists and the unions, which were correctly seen to be highly sympathetic to the left. The right believed the same about the PLP and the membership more broadly. Tony Benn rhapsodically praised the outcome of the Wembley Conference, where the unions voted themselves a larger portion of the electoral college than had been proposed and agreed on by the leadership, as "marvellous".

I think you're strongly overstating the case in depicting SDPers as proto-New Labourite outriders who had "long" wanted to break the link with the unions, btw.

So if not Kinnock, then who? I really can't see Shore doing it, and the unions are going to have the same objection to him that they had to all "middle-class intellectuals" (the same thing that made them distrust Hattersley, though less because of his own background and more because he'd embraced roles as first Crosland's protege and then Jenkins' vicar-on-Earth). Doubly-so for Silkin. Robin Cook, then?

But there was someone from the right of the party who would have passed muster with the unions, and indeed with the soft left: John Smith.

I don't see why Shore can't do it, in the abscence of better candidates. He's probably the only senior candidate who could appeal cross-party. (He didn't have the left cred he did under Wilson by this point, but factional heritage counted for a lot in Labour) Crucially, it wouldn't be a blowout like Kinnock, though. I can see Heffer doing an awful lot better here than IOTL. He could perfectly concievably win if he manages to win over the unions early, over Shore.

I don't see Hattersley standing aside for Smith, even assuming Smith would be prepared to stand against Hattersley, which he almost certainly wouldn't. (He was Hattersley's campaign manager, and 100% behind the more senior man's candidacy) Although he was always comfortable towards the unions, this was before his long stint in shadow economic portfolios through the eighties, so he would have been more of an unknown quantity than he was when he ran for leader in OTL; and by that point of course, the hard left was dead and the soft left no longer factionally in the ascendancy in the party. I don't see his candidacy being viable at this point.
 
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