WI Tories oppose Iraq War?

[The Oncoming Storm]

This idea came to me the other day as to what would have been the implications if the Tories had failed to support Blair over Iraq. Some Tory MP's did vote against the Commons motion supporting the War and IIRC 2 of their junior frontbenchers resigned so they could vote against it.

Obviously this would need a different Leader from IDS, perhaps Ken Clarke or even David Davis? How plausible is it that the Tory Leader at the time tells Blair during that debate "I'm sorry Prime Minister but I am not convinced by the case for war that you have set out and therefore I cannot support it. I have decided to allow all my MP's a free vote on this matter so they can follow their consciences." IIRC the Commons vote was won pretty clearly despite a massive Labour rebellion, had more Tories gone through the No Lobby then the numbers could have got even tighter for Blair possibly damaging his authority.

It could also have made the run up to the 2005 GE much harder for Blair, a Tory Leader who had opposed the War would have been able to attack him much harder about the failure to find any WMD, the "dodgy dossiers" and the catastrophic failure to prepare for the aftermath. This could have helped deny Charles Kennedy from claiming that ground for the Liberal Democrats.

So how would this have affected the election? Could the Tories have performed better than IOTL and at least cut Labour's majority down even more? What other consequences could have happened?

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Tory opposition to Iraq may not be as big a boon to the party as could be hoped, given a lot of Conservative MPs and voters were already in favour of the war, and were prepared to give Blair, and more importantly, the US Republicans, the benefit of the doubt. It'll certainly help the party when the 2005 General Election comes round, but probably not massively- I can see them gaining maybe an extra ten or twelve seats from Labour, and a couple from the Lib Dems, on top of the thirty Tory gains of OTL.

Still, it means Blair and Brown are now working with a majority nearer to thirty than sixty, which will certainly have some butterflies.

 

[Orville_third]

I think the Tories put Blair over the top for war, with the opposition from within Labour and every other party but the UUP and DUP.
If the WMD hunt goes as it did IOTL, the Tory leader will look a lot better while Blair will look a lot worse. The won't be a need for the Hutton Enquiry. Blair could even lose a majority, unless you count on other factors. (After all, Harper in Canada backed the war...)

 

[Peelitebkearns]

PM Prescot

I heard that if the voat for the war in Iraq went against Blair, he was planning on resigning in favour of John Prescot.
If parliament does give Tone the go-ahead (as I think they would do, all be it only just) then I can certainly see a Tory party aposed to the war picking up seats from Labour in 2005. Chances are they get a good proportion of the anti-war voat the LibDems got IOTL as well, further reducing Blair's majority.
Blair's authority is probably even more damaged than it was in reality,so my guess is he leaves no. 10 earlier, say in 2006.
Asuming Brown takes over at that point, what does he do with a majority pretty close to the one Major governed with in 1992?