WI: Brown challenged in 2009?

What if James Purnell rather than resigning as Work and Pensions Secretary and calling for Gordon Brown to resign as PM, outright challenged him for the leadership? Could he spark a Thatcher style coup against Brown? Would he win the leadership or act as a stalking horse candidate?

Who would succeed a defeated Brown and what would the outcome be?
 
What if James Purnell rather than resigning as Work and Pensions Secretary and calling for Gordon Brown to resign as PM, outright challenged him for the leadership? Could he spark a Thatcher style coup against Brown? Would he win the leadership or act as a stalking horse candidate?

Who would succeed a defeated Brown and what would the outcome be?

The Labour Party has rules which mean it is effectively impossible to remove a sitting PM through direct channels. You can't just trigger a contest with a challenge. That's why all the Brown coup attempts involved trying to smear him into resigning without a contest.
 
The only way you could get a Brown resignation in 2009 is if Purnell was joined by more big-name ministers like David Miliband, Jack Straw, Alan Johnson and maybe even Peter Mandelson in a "you go or we go" threat. The potential media backlash of such a move would probably force Brown to go in favour of David Miliband, probably in a race against Ed Balls or some other Brownite along with the standard far-left candidate, leading to six months of PM Miliband running the country until the election where Labour either gains a tiny majority or just a few seats off a majority.
 
The only way you could get a Brown resignation in 2009 is if Purnell was joined by more big-name ministers like David Miliband, Jack Straw, Alan Johnson and maybe even Peter Mandelson in a "you go or we go" threat. The potential media backlash of such a move would probably force Brown to go in favour of David Miliband, probably in a race against Ed Balls or some other Brownite along with the standard far-left candidate, leading to six months of PM Miliband running the country until the election where Labour either gains a tiny majority or just a few seats off a majority.

This is the hardest thing to construct. There just wasn't the bottle in all of those people individually to go ahead and do it.

And Mandelson didn't want to win in 2010, I'm firmly of that belief.
 
Why do you think that? A certainty that David would inherit the crown and Mandelson could have remained in power behind the scenes?

His behaviour, the campaign (look at what we ran in 2010 and ask yourself why Peter '1997' Mandelson didn't at any point go 'OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE, let me handle this') and what you said combined with a genuine belief (shared by many in the party) that it'd be better for Labour to have a period of renewal in opposition.
 
This is the hardest thing to construct. There just wasn't the bottle in all of those people individually to go ahead and do it.

And Mandelson didn't want to win in 2010, I'm firmly of that belief.

If Labour does even worse in the polls, one poll in May/June 2009 showed them at 18% with the LibDems so maybe a few weeks of third place could do the trick, they decide to do it as a group. Peer pressure could substitute the steel.
 
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