Much excitement on the internet about the prospect of Brown being out of his post within the next week. Mark Reckons has given a £10 evens bet on it. Easy tenner.
As bad as things are though, I can’t see Brown stepping down.
For starters, that would require Brown to grudgingly accept that there’s someone else in the Labour Party that can lead the party better than he can. There’s no way he’s going to accept that.
Next, it needs Brown to give up on his hope that he can turn things around as his ‘message’ of ‘action’ versus ‘nothing’ begins to get through. There’s no way he’s going to give up on that.
Then he needs to believe that there’s someone else in the Labour Party who can fight at better General Election campaign than he can. Remember he believes himself to be the guy that got Blair re-elected in 2005. He’s the master campaigner, the master election strategist. No-one else can be trusted, can they?
Finally he’d need to feel that he’s had every minute of being PM he’s entitled to, that he’s had ‘what he deserves’ for his loyal service to the Labour Party, and believe that there’s other people who now deserve the chance to lead Labour. He believes he’s entitled to more.
Brown won’t go voluntarily. The pressure and murmurings of rebellion will do nothing to dent Brown’s resolve.
So how do you remove a Labour Prime Minister? He can be replaced at their Conference, assuming enough MPs can get the correct forms in to the NEC in the correct time-scales. But there’s the tricky issue of getting the NEC to issue these forms in the first place - there’s a precedent that they do not issue these papers while the Leader is serving as Prime Minister. The machinery of the Labour Party is set up to make it impossible for MPs to remove the Prime Minister with a democratic process.
An alternative tactic would be for every Cabinet Minister to resign, and every backbencher refuse to take up a Cabinet post – however that’s the realms of fantasy. It would cause a constitutional crisis and force the dissolution of parliament and an immediate General Election. Labour MPs will not want to use any tactic that causes a General Election.
Same goes for a blackmail dissolution of Parliament vote – a Labour Backbencher, with the support of the Tories and the Lib Dems, decides to trigger a vote of no confidence in the Government. More than 63 Labour MPs say they’ll vote ‘no confidence’ if Brown doesn’t resign before the vote – Brown would call their bluff and decide that standing up to backbench terrorists will stand him in good stead if they do, in fact, end up voting ‘no confidence’.
No, there’s no way to force Brown out of the role that doesn’t involve a General Election, with perhaps one exception – would Brown listen to Sarah Brown? Could she be the only person who could make Brown see sense?
So Mark, I’ll take your £10 bet.
Darrell said...
4 Jun 09 at 9:55 am
Hmmmm I agree he is unlikley to be ‘formally’ forced out using the rules but he could provoke a Cabinet rebellion if he is tin-eared enough to try and remove people who dont want to be moved. As for the voting for dissolution; I disagree, ‘standing up to backbenchers’ on that one would only be viable if he had wider support in the country. The voting for a dissolution move is the one I can see working.
Obnoxio The Clown said...
4 Jun 09 at 10:00 am
I agree with you entirely, apart from the idea that Sarah Brown might be able to change the Prime Mentalist’s mind. I don’t even think losing a General Election would encourage him to stop voluntarily.
The men in white coats are going to have to drag him out.
Stu said...
4 Jun 09 at 10:05 am
I’m getting the feeling that Brown has already called some bluffs. I can quite easily see Hazel Blears visiting him and saying ‘step down or I’ll resign’, and him telling her she wouldn’t dare.
You’re right, though, he’s not going voluntarily. Unlike his predecessor he lacks an understanding of when his time is up.
Roger Thornhill said...
4 Jun 09 at 3:29 pm
I have long predicted that Gordon would have to be physically removed. I mean, physically, as in his puffy fingertips, devoid of nails to gain purchase, slide across the hi-gloss black of No10 into a waiting Vauxhall Omega – the ultimate indignity.
Constantly Furious said...
4 Jun 09 at 4:20 pm
A great post. So great, that something suspiciously similar has just appeared over at Constantly Furious (with credit – I’m not an animal.)
You say it all so much purdier..
Andy said...
4 Jun 09 at 4:50 pm
Guido is right. He really is the prime mentalist. I expect a lot of office equipment to be damaged in the next few days.
Ian B said...
4 Jun 09 at 4:57 pm
Alone among my countrymen, I don’t much care about removing Brown. Does anyone expect things to improve under some other “leader”? I don’t. The policies implemented and articulated by the visible political faces- Brown, or Blair, or Blears- are formulated by the wider ruling class, and will continue regardless of which stuffed sock is given official political authority. Until we can shift the hegemonic paternalist/statist values, the individuals are irrelevant.
I don’t think Mr Brown is a very nice man, but I don’t much care about that since I don’t have to have dinner with him or anything. But he’s just a figurehead for the elites. I fear many people are looking forward to getting rid of Labour, with some crazy idea that things can only get better, just as in 1997 when the Major government was on the ropes. Things got worse then, and things will continue to get worse for the foreseeable future whichever party is in power- including the Libs- because they are all signed up ideologically to the same ruinous, er, ideology.
The only real hope for change is to change that nebulous “mood of the country”, and as every good Gramscian[1] knows that means subverting the cultural hegemony in our direction, and since that is an edifice without obvious weak spots- especially as The Enemy have constructed and control a madrassa system called “Free Universal Edjication”- that is going to be immensely difficult, and all we can say with confidence is that we haven’t even made a start yet.
So really, Brown, Blears, some bloke called Johnson, pfft. As Spinal Tap wisely reminded us, The more it stays the same, the less it changes… That’s the majesty of rock, the pageantry of roll”.
_
[1] Although blaming Gramsci is a nice narrative, really the man is overrated. Stripped of the marxist jargon, he just described a campaigning and political methodology as old as time, and widely implemented before he wrote a word, which is that you can only get what you want by getting the elite on your side.
Charlotte Gore said...
4 Jun 09 at 5:29 pm
All too true, Ian, sad to say.
Mark Reckons said...
4 Jun 09 at 6:13 pm
Hi Charlotte. I have posted an update on my blog now (http://markreckons.blogspot.com/2009/06/does-someone-fancy-little-wager.html)
I have clarified the terms of this as I am talking about if he steps down this month. I am not interested in internal Labour party election timescales and whether he stays on as caretaker PM in the interim. I should perhaps have been clearer originally but please let me know if you are happy with the terms and assuming you are then it’s game on!
measured said...
4 Jun 09 at 8:25 pm
Brown was dogged in his determination to be PM and he is dogmatic in his approach. I agree with you, Charlotte. You should win that bet.
James D said...
5 Jun 09 at 5:27 pm
Labour’s majority is 63, not 125. Only 32 backbenchers therefore need to threaten to vote on such a motion in the House. Like the Nationalists’ one on Wednesday.
If anything, the best case scenario for the Labour rebels is for exactly 32 of them to vote against the Government on Wednesday, so that Brown has the humiliation of being saved by the DUP.
Dara said...
15 Sep 09 at 6:04 pm
Now come on, Charlotte, does Sarah really want Gordon at home all day…close your eyes and think a minute…Gordon at breakfast; Gordon at elevenses; Gordon putting in the garden, Gordon hanging around the kitchen, Gordon and Susan on the High Street Gordon helping Susan choose her clothes, make up, friends and reading material and making her walk three paces behind. Gordon asking Susan if he’s taken his pills. Gordon asking Susan if it’s time to take them again. Gordon asking if anyone has called. Gordon asking whom Susan is talking to…
We’re not even up to lunchtime……………………………………………
If I were Susan I’d be saying “don’t let them push you out of your job…” (please God keep him out of my kitchen/bedroom/livingroom…