• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

Healey 1980, Benn 1981

R

Ricardolindo

Well-known member
Location
Portugal
If Denis Healey had won the Labour Party leadership election, is it possible that Tony Benn would defeat him in 1981? https://books.google.pt/books?id=lIM_b98LgdIC&pg=PA189&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false, admittedly a biased source, said "If Healey had won, a challenge under the new rules might have been unstoppable, and once the choice lay with a broader-based electoral college, Benn might have won."
If so, what would happen? Would the entire Labour Right leave the party for the Social Democratic Party?
 
Ricardolindo said:
If Denis Healey had won the Labour Party leadership election, is it possible that Tony Benn would defeat him in 1981?
Click to expand...
It’s possible, it’s also more likely that Benn loses as the prospect of Benn winning the leadership scares more of the Soft Left who lent there votes to Benn for the Deputyship (which was seen as less high scale than leadership). The most likely prospect of a Healey wins scenario is that he does slightly better in 83’.
Ricardolindo said:
If so, what would happen? Would the entire Labour Right leave the party for the Social Democratic Party?
Click to expand...
Labour loses in 83’, a bit worse than OTL’s 83’ but I doubt we’re going to see the Alliance outperform Labour, the Alliance suffered there own series of problems and it’s unlikely even a Benn lead Labour (not Bennite, as Benn would have had to compromise with the Soft Left at least) would collapse below 1935 levels of seats. Folks like Hattersley and Mandelson defect to the SDP but folks connected to the Trade Union movement and such are unlikely to defect to the very middle class SDP.

Labour probably rebounds under someone like Prezza, Denzil Davies or even Neil Kinnock.
 
It's not completely implausible that Benn could win because in whatever the contest is, he's going to have a strong CLP vote in the first outing for the electoral college - there wasn't much democracy involved in the OTL deputy leadership contest CLP section - it was just a lot of (very left wing activist) CLP steering committees awarding their block vote to Benn. And that gives him a strong platform in any contest, given the position of the left at the grassroots level in the early eighties.

But if Healey won it's very likely the OTL SDP defectors would hold their powder for another trigger event. Which means more institutional strength for the right at every level of the party. Which, combined with the much higher stakes involved in the possible ouster of a leader by Tony Benn, means it's almost certain that the only way Benn can go in a leadership contest is down rather than up, relative to the OTL deputy leadership contest.
 
Last edited:
Elektronaut said:
It's not completely implausible that Benn could win because in whatever the contest is, he's going to have a strong CLP vote in the first outing for the electoral college - there wasn't much democracy involved in the OTL deputy leadership contest CLP section - it was just a lot of (very left wing activist) CLP steering committees awarding their block vote to Benn. And that gives him a strong platform in any contest, given the position of the left at the grassroots level in the early eighties.

But if Healey won it's very likely the OTL SDP defectors would hold their powder for another trigger event. Which means more institutional strength for the right at every level of the party. Which, combined with the much higher stakes involved in the possible ouster of a leader by Tony Benn, means it's almost certain that the only way Benn can go in a leadership contest is down rather than up, relative to the OTL deputy leadership contest.
Click to expand...

On the other hand, Benn could not be accused of disrupting a left-wing leadership like he was under Foot.
Also, Foot got the votes of at least 5 Labour Right MPs who were already planning to leave the party. They wanted to weaken the Labour Party as much as possible so more would join them. Thus, wouldn't those 5 have left anyways?
 
Ricardolindo said:
Thus, wouldn't those 5 have left anyways?
Click to expand...
Probably join the Liberals or sit as ‘Independent Social Democrats’, Roy Jenkins originally wanted to join the Liberals but David Steel proposed creating a new Centre party that could eat into Labour’s votes.

Now of course, there was still the possibility of the SDP forming if Healey won, there with a fair few who saw him as soft on the Left. But instead of the Gang of Four, it’s probably just Bill Rodgers and Roy Jenkins with like ten other MPs instead.

The Labour Right would likely rally behind Healey, the Tribune Group abstains and Benn will probably plateau at around 40 per cent or something like that. It’ll probably scare a bunch of people and gee up the Left Wing Grassroots but end up kind of pointless.

An interesting thing to ponder is the effect this would have on a Labour Leadership contest in Alt 83’, Labour will probably still lose in Alt 83’ anyway due to it’s campaign and a buoyant economy. Instead an Alt 83’ contest probably see’s the Left behind Kinnock against a Labour Right Unity Candidate (who’s probably someone like Peter Shore, Denzil Davies or anyone other than Roy Hattersley) and there’s a possibility that Meacher or Jo Richardson runs for Deputy and does better than OTL.
 
It's been a while since I read Crewe and King but I'm pretty sure they don't put the number of accelerationist MPs at five. I think they reckoned it was two or three who voted Foot.

I don't see any split with Healey in charge, because I mean why would they? They may not like Healey but there's a leader of the right in charge, who has won out against by far the most electable candidate of the left in the shape of Foot. And the big fear was of the electoral college meaning permanent left-wing domination, and that's yet to be tested, and also represents an oustanding possibility for a very, very, wide-ranging split, if Healey is thrown out. A split from Benn ousting Healey as leader would make the OTL split look like Change UK. The obvious approach is just to wait until the electoral college is tested.

It's possible Roy Jenkins and a few members of his court drift off into the Liberals but that's going to be fairly small beer honestly.
 
Elektronaut said:
It's been a while since I read Crewe and King but I'm pretty sure they don't put the number of accelerationist MPs at five. I think they reckoned it was two or three who voted Foot.

I don't see any split with Healey in charge, because I mean why would they? They may not like Healey but there's a leader of the right in charge, who has won out against by far the most electable candidate of the left in the shape of Foot. And the big fear was of the electoral college meaning permanent left-wing domination, and that's yet to be tested, and also represents an oustanding possibility for a very, very, wide-ranging split, if Healey is thrown out. A split from Benn ousting Healey as leader would make the OTL split look like Change UK. The obvious approach is just to wait until the electoral college is tested.

It's possible Roy Jenkins and a few members of his court drift off into the Liberals but that's going to be fairly small beer honestly.
Click to expand...

Crewe and King said "and asked them...to tell us in confidence whom they had voted for in each of the two ballots in the 1980 election. Most of them replied. Most said they had voted for Healey on both ballots, and many of them were obviously surprised that we should even have asked the question. But five, whose names we cannot reveal, including the MP just quoted, acknowledged that they had voted for Foot, in the second ballot if not the first. One of them added: 'I voted for Foot because I thought he would make the worst leader for Labour, not only in a personal capacity but also because he was nearest to the left.'"
"In other words, we know that enough of those who subsequently deserted Labour for the SDP voted for Foot to have produced a tie in the election. We expect that at least one other did so. If he did, he would have produced the margin by which Foot won. If our findings are correct, Foot was indeed the left's candidate in the leadership election, but he was also the candidate of a crucial minority of the future SPD. He was the product--and Labour the victim--of what the French call *la politique du pire*, the politics of the worst."
Thus, five Labour Right MPs voted for Foot, which would have created a tie and they speculate a sixth also did so which would have led to a Healey victory.
Anyways, if Benn defeated Healey in 1981 and the entire Labour Right left the party, do you think Labour would fall into third party status?
 
Elektronaut said:
It's possible Roy Jenkins and a few members of his court drift off into the Liberals but that's going to be fairly small beer honestly.
Click to expand...
And those who don’t defect, well, there’s the possibility of the private sector and wider and better jobs there that you could court in the meantime.

I do think you would likely get like, a couple of MPs who are committed to the possibility of a new Centre Party like George Brown’s brother but it probably just ends up with like, two MPs who try to fight as Independent Social Democrats and lose there deposits ala Dick Taverene but without the local support. But they would be as you say, small fry compared to the actual split.

An interesting thing to ponder is what the reaction would be to Kinnock, who would likely win the 83’ election on a promise of a Left Wing leadership after the failure of Healey. The possibility of David Owen making his own Centre Party in a Alt-84 is possible (even if it would likely fail).
 
Elektronaut said:
It's not completely implausible that Benn could win because in whatever the contest is, he's going to have a strong CLP vote in the first outing for the electoral college - there wasn't much democracy involved in the OTL deputy leadership contest CLP section - it was just a lot of (very left wing activist) CLP steering committees awarding their block vote to Benn. And that gives him a strong platform in any contest, given the position of the left at the grassroots level in the early eighties.

But if Healey won it's very likely the OTL SDP defectors would hold their powder for another trigger event. Which means more institutional strength for the right at every level of the party. Which, combined with the much higher stakes involved in the possible ouster of a leader by Tony Benn, means it's almost certain that the only way Benn can go in a leadership contest is down rather than up, relative to the OTL deputy leadership contest.
Click to expand...
I can see ways for Been to do better - the big one is that I'm not sure Foot backing Healey would carry as much weight as OTL (though you can certainly argue it didn't much anyway)
 
Elektronaut said:
Oh yeah, the left would still be at work locally, and you'd get one or two right-wing machine politics hacks who have been deselected resigning the whip and that kind of thing. IOTL a whole tranche of them joined the SDP, but a few of them would end up resigning the whip anyway if Healey had won.
Click to expand...
True very true, now whilst this is away from the discussion at hand, I often pondered the possibility myself of a later, not as massive split but a split of the Owenites per say in the late 80s, do you think that would be plausible possibility from no OTL SDP split.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top