No Deal, Tony - a Brown/Blair leadership contest in 1994?

What if Mandelson's planned deal between Blair and Brown in an Italian restaurant goes wrong? What if Brown takes more umbrage than in OTL and angrily decides to openly challenge Blair in the election after Smith's death? Assuming nothing else changes, we'd have these three on the ballot:

Tony Blair
Gordon Brown
Margaret Beckett

What happens next? Was Brown (for a long time seen as the obvious successor to Smith) strong enough to win a leadership campaign over Blair? Would any other candidates enter now the race didn't look so 'sewn up'? And if Brown wins, would his platform be New Labour with Tony by his side or more of John Smith and Kinnock's Old Labour with a moderate twist? Or something entirely different?

Lots of questions, the answers to which I am not sure about at all. I can take a shot in the dark and say that Brown would probably lead a more left wing Labour to power in 1997 (possibly with Blair as Foreign Sec to sideline him while keeping him happy and Robin Cook as Chancellor). But this PoD surely very diverse and full of options. Knock yourselves out.
 
Speaking somewhat cynically, I'm tempted to say that having just been provided with first hand evidence of just how awful Brown is at running a competitive election then Blair still wins. It may also be noticed this isn't a new development - Brown only came 13th in the Shadow Cabinet elections in 1996, after all.

The key change would be that Blair would be in a much stronger position than Brown in this ATL even if he still appoints Brown as Chancellor following the 1997, and without a Granita Pact will feel much less beholden to Brown and more tempted to dump him when he starts playing obstructive. Perhaps Blair backs Field over Brown on welfare reform this time round? If Brown does go to the back benches then the resultant sulk would make Ted Heath look like a ray of sunshine.

The other key change would be without Brown undermining him Blair probably lasts all the way to the 2010 election. I don't see him winning though - the fairy dust will have long since worn off and Blair will be looking old and tired next to Cameron and Clegg (assuming they still win their respective elections - Cameron probably would but Clegg might well lose to Huhne or AN Other), and the boil of Iraq, etc. will not have been lanced by Blair's departure.

If Blair goes after 2010, then who will replace him? Who better than the I-told-you-so-candidate, untainted by the failures of the latter Blair years - step forward Gordon Brown! Your party needs you...
 
Speaking somewhat cynically, I'm tempted to say that having just been provided with first hand evidence of just how awful Brown is at running a competitive election then Blair still wins. It may also be noticed this isn't a new development - Brown only came 13th in the Shadow Cabinet elections in 1996, after all.

The key change would be that Blair would be in a much stronger position than Brown in this ATL even if he still appoints Brown as Chancellor following the 1997, and without a Granita Pact will feel much less beholden to Brown and more tempted to dump him when he starts playing obstructive. Perhaps Blair backs Field over Brown on welfare reform this time round? If Brown does go to the back benches then the resultant sulk would make Ted Heath look like a ray of sunshine.

The other key change would be without Brown undermining him Blair probably lasts all the way to the 2010 election. I don't see him winning though - the fairy dust will have long since worn off and Blair will be looking old and tired next to Cameron and Clegg (assuming they still win their respective elections - Cameron probably would but Clegg might well lose to Huhne or AN Other), and the boil of Iraq, etc. will not have been lanced by Blair's departure.

If Blair goes after 2010, then who will replace him? Who better than the I-told-you-so-candidate, untainted by the failures of the latter Blair years - step forward Gordon Brown! Your party needs you...

While I agree with you that Blair could still win, it would be by a far narrower margin simply due to having a real alternative to Blair (because, lets face it, Becket and Prescott didn't really have a real chance). One thing that could count in Brown's favour would be his association with Smith. The latter was very popular after his death and Brown, being very close to his mentor in terms of personality and political stance, could be seen as being a "safe pair of hands" in a way that could make Blair seem a far more risky choice.

If Brown does win, Blair would perhaps have a shot at the Deputy Leadership (assuming he goes for it, unlike in OTL) which would see a reverse of the normal relationship. If Iraq still happens, I can't see Brown supporting it in the way that Blair did, that would help Labour out the third election of the period, but given that Brown lacks Tony's charisma, Labour could still lose simply out of being seen as a tired, two-term government. If that happens, Blair could perhaps be young enough to have a shot of the post-election leadership.
 
I agree with RPW@Cy that Blair will still probably win (I'm just not convinced that Brown is a likeable enough person when compared to Blair) and actually, it'll put him in a stronger position.

Brown will probably look more like the heir apparent than he did in OTL, but they'll be less sniping and plotting from Number 11; unlike in OTL, he has been tested once before, and been found wanting. Mandelson might have a happier time of things; I gather that Brown was a significant player in the eventual downfall of PM, so maybe he holds together longer, maybe Foreign Secretary in 2001?

I think Blair might go earlier, perhaps in 2003/4, since the resultant leadership election will look less "pre-ordained" and there's a fair chance Brown won't get it.

So who succeeds Blair if not Brown? Mandelson is out of the question; even if he survives the government, he's just too hated amongst the Labour Party. Alan Milburn? Charles Clarke? John Reid? Impossible to say really.
 
Brown would not have won if he had run. That's why he didn't. All the momentum was swinging away from him and he was in a very very poor position within the party in 1994, because he had spent the last two years reigning in spending commitments and shreding the shadow budget, which had not endearded him to the party. By contrast Blair had not been stuck into policy making in the same way as shadow home secretary, so could pose as fresh, untainted by internal wrangling and more of a unity figure.

Beckett probably wouldn't run if Brown had because her and Brown were close (relatively speaking) at that point. So she would have probably run as Brown's running mate in opposition to Prescott, who was seen to be favoured by the Blair camp. If she focuses on keeping the deputy leadership she could probably retain it.

So you would have a leader and a deputy leader who hadn't supported each other, Brown pissed off, brooding and briefing against Blair in the way he would begin with with relish after 2003 in OTL. Which is precisely what the Blair camp wanted to avoid.
 
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Brown would not have won if he had run. That's why he didn't. All the momentum was swinging away from him and he was in a very very poor position within the party in 1994, because he had spent the last two years reigning in spending commitments and shreding the shadow budget, which had not endearded him to the party. By contrast Blair had not been stuck into policy making in the same way as shadow home secretary, so could pose as fresh, untainted by internal wrangling and more of a unity figure.

Beckett probably wouldn't run if Brown had because her and Brown were close (relatively speaking) at that point. So she would have probably run as Brown's running mate in opposition to Prescott, who was seen to be favoured by the Blair camp. If she focuses on keeping the deputy leadership she could probably retain it.

So you would have a leader and a deputy leader who hadn't supported each other, Brown pissed off, brooding and briefing against Blair in the way he would begin with with relish after 2003 in OTL. Which is precisely what the Blair camp wanted to avoid.

Yes, that is my gut instinct as well, I was just musing on a possible Brown victory. Of course, if Brown doesn't totally humiliate himself, then he would still really have to have a Shadow Cabinet role and I doubt that Blair could think that it would be worthwhile demoting him either. Of course, the Prime Minister could sack him fairly soon after the election (the Frank Field debarcle is perhaps too soon, but it would be easy to get rid of him over the euro). If that happens, I think that we could see real parallels between Brown and Lamont.
 

Thande

Donor
Broadly agree with what's been said: Brown couldn't beat Blair. However, you can bet that Brown would proceed to go behind Blair's back after losing and keep poisoning the party with his brooding bitterness, probably leading to New Labour gaffes and perceived division in the election campaign. I would guess that while Labour still easily wins the 1997 election, it's not by the landslide it did in OTL, with some of the voters who flocked to them hesitating and more uncertain, the whole brave-new-world image tarnished by the lack of unity. Say a majority of 60-80 rather than 179 as OTL.
 
Brown can be very impressive in set piece speeches, and even in direct debates, even if he hasnt the instincts to perform well in front of cameras. I think he might have been a serious challenge to Blair if Brown managed a couple of good speeches to, say, sympathetic union conferences. Assuming Becket dropped out and Brown had a personal following of a third of the MPs who voted for Blair, Brown could have matched Blair in the PLP vote. I cant see Brown doing well enough with the unions or constituencies to actually win, though.

Assuming Brown did, somehow, win... would this also mean Becket beats Prescott for Deputy?

Despite Brown's relatively poor showing in 2010, he would presumably still trounce Major in '97, even if not to the same degree as Blair.

Then what? no mega-department-of-no-importance for Prescott, but Blair for the foreign office and cook for Chancellor seems plausible. Becket or Straw for Home Secretary? Presumably Mandleson remains as a right wing, backbench MP...
 
I really couldn't say how different a Brown 97 government would be. A lot of it would come down, I imagine, to whether he adopted the New Labour ideas, but one should remember that much of the right-wing economic policy of that movement came from none other than Brown himself as Chancellor.

In a broader sense, I don't see a Brown victory butterflying the wilderness of the Tory party out of existence, so I think he'd win again in 2001 as easily as Blair did. The question then is whether he would cosy up to Bush as readily as Blair - I'm inclined to say he would not. Where that leaves Britain with regards to Iraq is another matter. At the risk of turning this into a Brownwank, could a non-Iraq involved Labour win under Brown or a Brownite successor (a fast-tracked and more popular Ed Balls? Ed Miliband?) win in 2009/10?
 
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