WI: Miliband hung on?

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
As you all know (although a recap might be needed), Ed Miliband was Leader of the Labour Party from 2010-2015. Brother of David Miliband and the face of the One Nation Labour era, Miliband resigned as leader of Labour following the disastrous 2015 election and... well, you know what happened next.

My question is: What would have happened had Miliband held on? With a PoD following the election results, what could have happened to convince Ed Miliband to resist resignation and try to hold the Party together? Could he have won the inevitable leadership challenge, or, if he lost, who would have succeed him?

EDIT: Okay, so moving the PoD earlier to the campaign itself.
 
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Ed Milliband hanging on in a Michael Howard role, maybe into the next year, to let the party settle and have an internal debate etc, that's just about possible, but most likely only with differing electoral fortune at the GE.

Ed Milliband hanging on until he's deposed, thereby ruining his reputation - and it's notable that he's supposedly currently making 'jokes' about future political returns - and being a convenient scapegoat for any electoral failure in 2020, that's not going to happen, because Ed Milliband isn't an idiot.
 
If you want a PoD after the election results where he hangs on as leader permanently, I think that is ASB. It is also quite difficult to see him staying on for an interim period,he seemed fairly keen to get out of there after a defeat of that magnitude, and I cant see much happening between results and the morning after to change his mind. In fact, there was at least one seat that didnt declare until about midday, so technically he resigned during the results rather than after them.
He also wouldnt have seen much of a need to stay on to 'hold the party together' because at that point, the party wasnt particularly divided for a party that had just lost an election. When you look at what the party grandees and leadership candidates were saying in the first few weeks, they were saying almost exactly the same stuff. If anything, the party was too united in that regard, as the depressing lack of difference was what motivated the left of the party to put Corbyn up, and what made people want to vote for him. The rest of the party didnt see him as a threat, so they let him on the ballot.
So I dont think Miliband could really stay on if you didnt alter the results somehow so that he came far closer to power than he did in OTL. Even then, I think his lack of popularity with the public is going to be rightly attributed for Labour's defeat, and he would find that he would have to go. Maybe you could get him to stay on for another year or so whilst the autopsy is performed and policy is debated.
You could have a PoD where Harman stays on for a year as interim without altering the election results, as I know that many, including the left of the party, wanted a policy debate first. Maybe someone somehow manages to sell her on it first. After that, the left is contented and they do not put up a candidate, and in the abscence of that, the most left wing mainsteam candidate wins, likely Andy Burnham.
But to have Miliband stay on is probably a step too far.
 
In fact actually someone like Peter Mandelson could have invented the time machine and hopped back in time to the morning after the election and warn Ed of what will happen if he resigns.;)
Other than that, the timeframe for a PoD is so small that it is essentially impossible.
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Okay, extending the timeframe, what would have been the bar minimum that would have convinced Miliband to try and hang on?
 
Okay, extending the timeframe, what would have been the bar minimum that would have convinced Miliband to try and hang on?

That's an enormous question considering all the factors at work - personal, party, seats, vote share etc - but I think at a bare minimum Labour has to go forward in net seats, and measurably so, for him to have any kind of claim to stay on a permanent basis.

The obvious divergence would be in Scotland, but the SNP surge probably isn't as easy to butterfly, IMO, as people on here would like to believe.
 
Okay, extending the timeframe, what would have been the bar minimum that would have convinced Miliband to try and hang on?
Labour would need to do significantly better than they did in OTL. Scotland is probably the best place for that PoD. You could either have the referendum, but the Better Together side, and Ed Miliband himself, make far less of a cock up of it. The Yes side actually move backward in the polls, and experiences a humiliating defeat which discredits them badly, and the SNP are looking to defend their remaining seats in 2015 rather than take all of Scotland.
But that is difficult to see, so I think it would be easier just to not have that referendum at all, and change the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections, which resulted in a majority for the SNP, so that there is no claim for a referendum in the first place. I am an outsider to Scottish politics, so I dont know what particular factors led the SNP to win there, other than the collapse of the Lib Dem vote it would appear. Perhaps Miliband makes a better first impression on the Scottish public, or Scottish Labour opts for a more popular leader.Or you could go even further back, and change the voting system to be more proportionate when Labour were setting the Scottish Parliament up.
Whatever you do, you'd need to make it so that the SNP win five less seats minimum. They are still in government, but without a majority. No referendum for now. Come 2015, the SNP make gains but not enough to seriously detract from Labour's total to the extent that they actually lose seats over 2010 as they do in OTL.
Come election day 2015, Labour hold onto their seats in Scotland, and make modest gains. What is more the lack of concern over the SNP pulling the strings in a Labour coalition gives them a boost in England too over OTL. Labour get 280/290 seats or so in the new Parliament. Still behind the Tories, but enough to push them into minority territory. The Lib Dems are destroyed as in OTL.
The polls would have to be right too, so 2015 isnt seen as the disappointment it was in reality, and there is a chance that Miliband's fragile confidence isnt shaken, and he thinks he has earned another shot at it. He might get a leadership challenge, but most of the possible candidates are either too close to him to betray him, would have little political disagreements with him, or just dont have the stomach for it, as the likes of Ummuna, Jarvis, and Johnson did in OTL. Maybe you would get a Blairite challenge from someone less prominent, but as we know now, the Labour party is now far more left wing than most people thought, so he would see off the challenger with ease.
Of course, Miliband probably remains unpopular with the public, so we have a similar situation as we are in now with Labour saddled with a leader who the membership like, but the public do not, and a PLP who think he is an electoral liability. Frankly, in this kind of timeline, it would be uncharacteristic of Miliband to stay on, he probably wouldnt have the resolve to battle with the PLP all the time.
The difficulty seems to be with this timeline is making him popular enough that he gains more seats than in OTL, but unpopular enough so that he doesnt make it into government, and Labour remain the second largest party, as surely they would have to to stay out of government with the collapse of the Lib Dems. It is difficult, but I think in this situation there is an off chance of it happening.
 
Based on the real life results even as interim leader it ain't hapening. Howard was able to do it for a while as he had gained seats, increased the Tory vote and had never really been regarded as having a serious chance of winning the election.

There really is no way in which Labour's 2015 result could be spun as positive. It was a disaster and a shock that Miliband never saw coming. There is not a chance he would have been in the right psychological state to continue as leader; and even if some n the party felt he should, I don't think they could force him to go through utter humiliation that another PMQs would have been.
 
There is no way would have survived anything other than interim. No MPs really wanted him as leader from 2014 onwards, and the left-wing membership networks who clubbed together to elect Corbyn, were way over defending him.

Him staying on until the Beckett report would have been V plausible, and advantageous as it perhaps would have presented the shitstorm that's now happening. It also would have meant that some part of his leadership would have not been a total disaster.

But alas, a craven man with no political judgement or leadership, abdicated leadership when it would have been useful.
 
Based on the real life results even as interim leader it ain't hapening. Howard was able to do it for a while as he had gained seats, increased the Tory vote and had never really been regarded as having a serious chance of winning the election.

There really is no way in which Labour's 2015 result could be spun as positive. It was a disaster and a shock that Miliband never saw coming. There is not a chance he would have been in the right psychological state to continue as leader; and even if some n the party felt he should, I don't think they could force him to go through utter humiliation that another PMQs would have been.

Agree with most of this. On the latter point - there's a couple of things going on here. I agree based on Miliband's behaviour, running off to Ibiza with his tail between his legs, and the predtictably awful Gen Election it's unlikely him pulling a Howard unless someone asked him too. But Senior MPs also were V happy to see the back of him.

A few days later at a leadership hustings (that didn't feature Corbyn because he hadn't announced yet) one newly elected MP said to me 'Imagine how much better it'd have gone if any of them had been in charge? They can string a sentence together'.
 
Labour would need to do significantly better than they did in OTL. Scotland is probably the best place for that PoD. You could either have the referendum, but the Better Together side, and Ed Miliband himself, make far less of a cock up of it. The Yes side actually move backward in the polls, and experiences a humiliating defeat which discredits them badly, and the SNP are looking to defend their remaining seats in 2015 rather than take all of Scotland.
But that is difficult to see, so I think it would be easier just to not have that referendum at all, and change the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections, which resulted in a majority for the SNP, so that there is no claim for a referendum in the first place. I am an outsider to Scottish politics, so I dont know what particular factors led the SNP to win there, other than the collapse of the Lib Dem vote it would appear. Perhaps Miliband makes a better first impression on the Scottish public, or Scottish Labour opts for a more popular leader.Or you could go even further back, and change the voting system to be more proportionate when Labour were setting the Scottish Parliament up.
Whatever you do, you'd need to make it so that the SNP win five less seats minimum. They are still in government, but without a majority. No referendum for now. Come 2015, the SNP make gains but not enough to seriously detract from Labour's total to the extent that they actually lose seats over 2010 as they do in OTL.
Come election day 2015, Labour hold onto their seats in Scotland, and make modest gains. What is more the lack of concern over the SNP pulling the strings in a Labour coalition gives them a boost in England too over OTL. Labour get 280/290 seats or so in the new Parliament. Still behind the Tories, but enough to push them into minority territory. The Lib Dems are destroyed as in OTL.

SNP surge was a result of number of converging factors. But Milibands weakness was as much a liability in Scotland, if not more, because the SNP looked so competent by comparison. Something you'd hear on the doors in literally every part of Britain was some variation of 'You picked the wrong Brother' or 'I'd vote for you if you picked David' in the years 2011-5.

This wasn't helped by the ineptitude of a succession of Scottish Leaders, Gray, Lamont, and then Murphy (who was dealt a bad hand, but played it badly. You can also question the judgement of a man who see's a player sat a table with an awful hand, then pulls the chair away from them and demands to play in their place. With the same hand.)

The Better Together campaign wasn't the problem, it was the fact the other parties offered no vision for Scotland post-referendum. But that's not really the heart of the matter. The problem for Labour was that it looked weak and like it would be crap at doing anything for Scotland. The SNP, having just campaigned for Indy in an exceptionally high profile referendum, looked credibly like it would do just that. The Lib Dems suffered the same problems in Scotland as in rUK, lost support for propping up the Tories among it'd base, people who liked the government just voted for the Tories.

The psychological trends in Scotland were the same as across Britain, but ran through a different electoral prism.
 
SNP surge was a result of number of converging factors. But Milibands weakness was as much a liability in Scotland, if not more, because the SNP looked so competent by comparison. Something you'd hear on the doors in literally every part of Britain was some variation of 'You picked the wrong Brother' or 'I'd vote for you if you picked David' in the years 2011-5.
That is part of the problem with coming up with a TL where he stays on. To do better, it is quite possible he would have to look like a strong leader, but in the unlikely event that that happens he is probably more popular across the whole of the UK, and he ends up in power.
Trouble with David was though that he was just another Blair, he was more interested in mixing with elites than his constituents, who rarely ever saw him.An ideal situation would have been if David kept his charisma and confidence, but had the degree of sincerity and intelligence of Miliband, along with being a good deal more decisive.
 
That is part of the problem with coming up with a TL where he stays on. To do better, it is quite possible he would have to look like a strong leader, but in the unlikely event that that happens he is probably more popular across the whole of the UK, and he ends up in power.
Trouble with David was though that he was just another Blair, he was more interested in mixing with elites than his constituents, who rarely ever saw him.An ideal situation would have been if David kept his charisma and confidence, but had the degree of sincerity and intelligence of Miliband, along with being a good deal more decisive.

I mean you're talking about making Ed Miliband a fundamentally different person, which is somewhat ASB.
 
Guessing that if he'd stuck on long enough for Corbyn to become the candidate of the Bennites, the party would agree to keep him on as a consensus candidate who could appeal to the left wing of the party without turning it into the Syriza of the Anglosphere.
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Yeah, or he just has a really good PR man. Hey, if GWB can be made to look like a man of the people, anything is possible ;)

To be fair though Bush didn't need to control hundreds of people in what was an abyssal election strategy of bait and switching candidates and assuming that "if we build it, they'll come".

Guessing that if he'd stuck on long enough for Corbyn to become the candidate of the Bennites, the party would agree to keep him on as a consensus candidate who could appeal to the left wing of the party without turning it into the Syriza of the Anglosphere.

Burnham, I think, would be a suitable candidate in this case.

Good responses so far- the Scotland PoD is particularly interesting.
 
Guessing that if he'd stuck on long enough for Corbyn to become the candidate of the Bennites, the party would agree to keep him on as a consensus candidate who could appeal to the left wing of the party without turning it into the Syriza of the Anglosphere.
You are forgetting that when Corbyn first emerged as a candidate, he was just there to broaden the debate. He only did after several different figures on the left declined, and even then he took some convincing. He wasnt even expected to get on the ballot, and he very nearly didnt. Basically, if someone had posted as an AH on this site rather than it actually happening, we would have said it was ASB.
So he wouldnt need only to become a candidate, the polls would need to consistently show Corbyn had a very good chance of winning. When that began there were calls from some quarters for the party to suspend the election, but I doubt they really had much chance of amounting to anything. If they did that, they would alienate the membership pretty much completely. Miliband probably wouldnt have stayed on for long, because he is still unpopular with the country, and so having him over Corbyn may not be very much better. What is most likely is that another election is called and the PLP just keep Corbyn off the ballot.
If you want a situation where Corbyn is not leader, then I could probably come up with half a dozen different PoDs which would sound reasonable, Miliband staying on is a lot harder though.
 
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