Alternative Alternate Leaders of the Labour Party

[Yokai Man]

Ashdown was a Liberal, not SDP, and he was already a Liberal for a good while before Labour's early eighties nadir.

I suspect Kennedy would probably also have ended up in the Liberals without the SDP.

I wonder how it would affect them if the Liberals die out or at least become even more irrelevant due to,idk,Norman Scott dying,Thorpe going to jail and the SDP being slightly more successful.

 

[Warthog]

so I had a look through Labour MPs elected in 1945, and wondered about Thomas Cook (of Dundee)? If he hadn't died in a car crash, he could have served well into the mid / late 1970s

Arwyn Lynn Ungoed-Thomas would have been fun (obviously for his names) but also because of ruling that you even if nuclear weapons are invalid udner the Geneva Convention, it doesn't mean the government can't spend taxes on them

 

[Mumby]

I was recently doing some research into the idea of Labour not breaking through in 1945 and the post-war situation being sorta Italy-esque, with a dominant Tory 'Union Party' remaining largest party, aided and abetted by a more successful post-war Liberal Party. Clement Attlee became leader in OTL as he was effectively one of the few MPs remaining with ministerial experience in 1931 - and that fed into my rationale as I looked for Labour MPs with ministerial experience from Churchill's war cabinet to become Leader.

It was difficult considering how incredibly old a lot of Clem's cabinet was IOTL - Bevan was the youngest minister by quite a distance it seems. I ultimately settled on Tom Johnston - as Churchill's Secretary for Scotland he would be one of the MPs with the closest to Prime Ministerial experience left in such a scenario. He'd be super old, but he seems to have been fairly robust IOTL.

 

[Time Enough]

It was difficult considering how incredibly old a lot of Clem's cabinet was IOTL - Bevan was the youngest minister by quite a distance it seems. I ultimately settled on Tom Johnston - as Churchill's Secretary for Scotland he would be one of the MPs with the closest to Prime Ministerial experience left in such a scenario. He'd be super old, but he seems to have been fairly robust IOTL

That's a good choice in general but particularly that timeline. Tom Johnston is one of those character in which I'm always like "He's an intresting, should be used more", I don't know who would replace him,Richard Crossman?

Now early leaders of Labour who don't appear often is David Shackleton, a big hitter within the trade union scene and the PLP he left in 1910 after Churchill asked him to become a civil servant. If hadn't accepted the offer I could see him becoming the Leader of the Labour Party over Ramsay MacDonald in the 1910s/20s.

 

[Tamar]

There are also a number of hard left figures who did not make it into parliament, but may have found themselves running in Corbyn's place had they done so. Mark Seddon, Tommy Sheppard, Richard Leonard, and Neil Findlay all come to mind.

Seddon seems like the easiest of these four - he unsuccessfully ran for the Labour nomination on Stoke-on-Trent South in 2005 and, unlike his prior attempt in Ogmore and later attempt in Stoke Central, doesn't seem to have had any trouble from Labour HQ in that instance.

 

[Time Enough]

Sorry for random nature of this message of this idea but got reminded by a Party with Socialists:A History of the Labout Left of two folk who would be intresting:

This one ain't for the Labour Party but the Independent Labour Party, Jennie Lee in scenario where some tatical voting and Labour collapsing allows Jennie to win North Lankashire in 1935 (if Labour's vote had support her she would have won). She becomes the chair and leader of the ILP in 1939. Not much happens although she could have the ability for the ILP become like the Co-Op party and reaffliate in the 1940s leading to it becoming a party within the party (so folks could be Lab-ILP candidates).

The other one being a scenario where Ed Miliband wins a minority in 2015 and then a small majority in 2017, upon leaving in 2020 something in the leadership election the Milibandist candidate is Tristam Hunt who beats the other folks in that contest. If he sells himself I could see him winning another majority.