Training | 2010.01.13
There is more than cowardice that stands between Labour and regicide | Jonathan Freedland
With no clear challenger and no ideological drive to oust Brown, seasonal rumours of a coup are likely to remain just that
As if in a seasonal rite, the talk once more in Labour circles is of a coup d\'etat. It was like this in July 2008, again in the autumn of that year, returning in June 2009 with a brief flurry in October, and now 2010 begins with yet another round. It means that, one way or another, speculation about Gordon Brown and the Labour leadership – first raised in 1992 – has been a feature of three consecutive decades.
There are mutterings this time of a letter – yet another one – circulated by a former cabinet minister, to be sent to Tony Lloyd, chairman of the parliamentary Labour party, demanding a secret ballot on the leadership. Even if that comes to nothing, there are plenty at the top who are desperate to see Brown gone, the prospect of a long chilly winter ending in a springtime defeat too much to bear. One senior cabinet minister admits that the next election is as good as lost, but that under Brown what would otherwise be a narrow defeat will be converted into a walloping that could take 20 years to reverse. "It\'s a complete disaster," he says, his voice rising.
In which case, why don\'t they get rid of him? What exactly is holding Labour back? Plenty of commentators believe the only explanation is a collective deathwish, a lemming mentality that is one part stupidity, one part delusion and three parts cowardice. The only reason Labour is not shoving Brown from the nearest top-floor window is that it lacks the nerve to save its own skin.
That\'s appealingly simple but misses the full picture. Instead a varied stew of motivations, some personal, all political, stand between Labour and regicide, only some of which include cowardice.
Start with the most obvious restraint on action. Even if there is a silent majority in the cabinet that would favour Brown\'s departure – and the unbending loyalists to the prime minister can be counted on the fingers of one hand – there is no such majority for any replacement. Alan Johnson was once mooted as a unity candidate, but his stock has fallen. As so often, the Home Office has proved to be ambition\'s graveyard, and rows with scientific adviser David Nutt and over the extradition of hacker Gary McKinnon have dented his support. Besides, says one colleague, he doesn\'t seem to have the "hunger" either to get the top job or to do it.
Others have transferred their affections to David Miliband, who has won admiration in recent months for his sustained attack on the Tories over their links to ultra-nationalist fringe parties in Europe. Trouble is, few believe he could step gracefully into No 10 with the cabinet united behind him. While, say, Ed Balls might have been prepared to defer to Johnson, he tells friends that he will not make way for a generational peer: Balls would challenge Miliband in an open contest.
That makes those ministers who once fantasised about a cosy, bloodless coronation – ditching Brown on Monday with a new face in place on Tuesday – think twice: they have to face the prospect of a long, brutal internal battle, played out months before a general election. "That would be a sure way to lose," says one minister who always used to be identified as an arch-Blairite.
The Brown camp know the threat of civil war strikes fear into the Labour heart, and they play on it. "The country would think we were completely mad," they say, adding that "the time for a contest has long gone". When was the time ripe? Last summer perhaps? Back then the Brownites insisted that the moment was wrong because a change at the top would oblige Labour to call an early election. In other words, then was too early and now is too late. Point this out to Brown\'s allies and they offer a smile.
Still, this could be overcome if there were not a clash between what Brown\'s critics perceive as Labour\'s collective interest – a change of leader – and their own personal interests. Some cabinet ministers want Brown gone but fear that if they strike they will fall foul of Heseltine\'s law, which declares that the assassin never becomes the king. Others can see that Labour\'s electoral hopes might be boosted by a change now, yet calculate that their own leadership chances would be stronger after a general election than before it. So they do nothing.
Nowhere is this conflict between individual and party interest sharper than in the figure of Peter Mandelson. Everyone you speak to agrees that he is the key player: if he were to turn on the PM, Brown could not go on. Those agitating for change presume he must be an ally, reading confirmation in remarks like those he made yesterday , when he warned that Labour would lose if it retreated to a core vote strategy, which sounded like an attack on Brown for lurching leftward.
Mandelson may indeed think a change would avert disaster for the party he loves. But he is also highly conscious of his own reputation: would he want to be known for ever as the man who stabbed Gordon Brown in the back not once but twice? Besides, the current situation – in which he is the de facto deputy prime minister – suits him and he has little incentive to wreck it. As he is reported to have told a child who asked why he continues to back Brown: " That\'s the only toy I have to play with ."
Similar ambivalence holds back even the most venomous Brown-haters. One former cabinet minister told me that it would be better in the long term for Brown to be allowed to fight an election – and lose it horribly. That way, Brownism would be buried forever. If Brown was toppled before an election, say these anti-Brownites, the former PM and his allies would remain a sullen, resentful faction, sabotaging any future leader for years to come.
There are other, less subtle obstacles in the way of a coup. For one thing, there is no clear ideological drive to oust Brown: his opponents want him out because they fear he is a loser, not because they have an alternative programme. Relatedly, there is no cabal or machine in position, agitating to push Brown out. Tony Blair faced just such an operation, in the form of the Brown camp – who, one minister reports, were so well-organised they used to speak in a weekly conference call every Sunday at 4pm. There is no Johnson, Harman or Miliband machine that even comes close.
What\'s more, there can\'t be. One potential plotter says even the slightest hint of action is fatal: Team Brown would instantly take up arms and crush any effort before it began. Whatever his other failings, Brown\'s mastery of internal machine politics is still awesome. Indeed, those who would seek to oust the PM admit they are not sure they have the mechanism to do it. Were the cabinet to turn on Brown, there is nothing in the rulebook to stop him simply firing the rebels and putting new ministers in their place.
One last thing holds Labour back. Even those who were once his enemies say that he is still the biggest figure on the stage; that he is a heavyweight who made the right decisions when the financial crisis struck; that it would be reckless to cast all that aside when there is – crucially – no polling evidence that any of his rivals would fare any better.
None of this makes a coup impossible; politics is unpredictable and can change fast. But if it doesn\'t happen, it won\'t solely be a lack of guts – it will be that Labour\'s powerbrokers were caught in a series of webs of their own making.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]ice-labour-regicide-brown-coup
