WI John Smith dies in 1988? OTL, he had a heart attack just after the Labour Party conference and took three months off politics to recover. Lets say he dies as he did after his second attack in 1994. Where does this leave the Labour Party? In OTL, Gordon Brown became Shadow Chancellor until Smith returned, so persumably this happens here as well.
Persumably Labour still loses in '92 and Kinnock resigns afterward, so who would replace him? Gordon Brown seems a possibility, in OTL he considered running but decided against it, and I can see him beating anyone else. Any idea how a Brownite Labour Party in 1992 would pan out?
Well, assuming Labour loses in '92, a 1997 victory is going to be almost impossible to avoid; but a majority of 179 seems unlikely with the dour Gordon Brown in charge; I think Labour would have a majority of between 90 and 130 seats; still hugely powerful, but not crushing the Tories as utterly as in 1997 and 2001.
Without a Blair figure, Labour is unlikely to become "New Labour", which, arguably, it didn't need to either. While Brown is not stupid enough to move back to the Left, nor is he going to move as far to the Centre, even Centre Right as Blair did. I would expect a Brown Government to re-nationalise the railways soon after entering office, and using the term "Socialist" a lot more.
After that, I'm not sure what would happen. I'd guess Labour wins the 2001 general election by a healthy margin, if not a landslide, but this could be affected by the Fuel Crisis of 2000, when they actually fell behind the Tories. This also depends on what the Conservative Party is doing at the time. Paradoxically, if they elect a more competent leader (I'm thinking Ken Clarke) they are more likely to suffer, due to Clarke's Europhilila.
And finally, I think Iraq is unlikely. Dare I say it... Britain might actually be better off under a slightly more Left wing Labour Party!


