No Granita Deal

[mondialito]

Hello Everyone,

Long Time Lurker and First Time Poster here. It's great to join and look forward to taking part in many discussions here.

I wanted to pose a scenario which I am surprised no-one else has asked in this section of the site.

In the days after John Smith's funeral, Tony Blair convinces Gordon Brown to stand aside in Labour Leadership Election in exchange for unparalleled power over economic policy as Chancellor at the (in)famous Granita Restaurant, but what if Brown turned him down and chose to run anyway?

Who do you think would have won, and if Blair did win, how would having come through what would have been a tough leadership campaign instead of an effective coronation have altered the way he led the party and the country after 1997?  

[carlton43]

Blair would have won easily; not been saddled with useless Gorden; not had the deadening in-fighting for years; been more Blairite and right wing; purged the party of Brownites and the left; merged with the Cameroons and been damn difficult to shift.

[Devil Wincarnate]

Welcome on board Mondialito! There's an Introductions thread under Off Topic by the way.

I do wonder if the end result would be a failed split off from Labour on its hard left- but I suspect someone like Davıd Boothroyd or john07 would have an interesting take on it.

[Deleted]

I suspect little would have turned out differently. Brown held his status until becoming PM not because of any deal with Blair, but because of his large and robust power base within the party.

[Richard Allen]

Dec 19, 2014 9:57:48 GMT @strinity said:

I suspect little would have turned out differently. Brown held his status until becoming PM not because of any deal with Blair, but because of his large and robust power base within the party.

Indeed. If Brown had challenged Blair I suspect that the latter would have still won but it wouldn't have been a crushing victory and Blair would never have had the strength to push through the many changes he made to the party without Brown's support.

[carlton43]

It would be good to speculate on not only 'No Granita Deal', an easy Blair victory, no Brown in cabinet, but also no Middle East problems at all. I think he would have been more successful and much more Thatcherite.

[The Bishop]

On the contrary, I suspect he might have been a tad more "mainstream" Labour in that event.

[Pimpernal]

In this scenario it means we have a Brown who wasn't a bottler ... which means the scenario would never have happened...

[mondialito]

Thanks Devil Wincarnate, I did try to find a New Members thread, but I couldn't find it, thanks for the tip!

I think that Blair would have beaten Brown, but it would have been no landslide. I think the reforms to the party would have happened, but not been as wide reaching. For Instance, Labour may have become more top down as a party and moved more towards the 'centre', but Clause IV would have stayed even if it was just a symbolic nod to the past.

Blair may not have made Brown Chancellor, but I think he would still want Brown to be in the tent pissing out rather than the other way around.

[Deleted]

This brings up another question in my mind: If Brown, not Blair, had stood in the 1994 leadership election. Perhaps that's for another thread.