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So I’m thinking about an ATL where the Iraq War doesn’t happen and Blair’s cabinet doesn’t have all their time, credibility, and capital sucked up by that.
Blair seemed to want pretty bad IOTL to get into the Eurozone but Gordon Brown of course didn’t. Is it possible he could have gotten them in? My thinking is that he reshuffles the cabinet and makes Brown Home Secretary (fulfilling the deal that may or may not have been made to give Brown lots of domestic policy authority, but in a different way). He puts in a pro-euro person at the Exchequer who gives a pro-joining verdict on the Five Tests. Blair said if that happened, they’d have a referendum on joining the Eurozone. This seems to me to be the real stumbling block. The earlier parts are easy enough, but British opinion polling towards the Euro has historically been pretty negative at the best of times. Is there any way Blair could get away with joining without a referendum, or any way such a referendum could be won? Could Britain have joined?