If I was a reform-minded Labour MP trying to persuade my like-minded colleagues to move against Gordon Brown, these are the arguments that I would deploy:
Things are as bad as the polls suggest: The latest ICM poll (which Pete blogged earlier) has the Tories on 47, twenty points ahead of Labour. Electoral Calculus predicts that on a crude swing this would lead to a Tory majority of more than 200. People tend to discount these numbers as traditionally the incumbent party recovers as the campaign goes on, as the election moves from being a referendum on the government to a choice between the parties. But given, as Mike Smithson has noted, that the Tory poll rating goes up every time Cameron is in the news, and Brown has the opposite effect on Labour’s numbers, there is no guarantee that Labour will close the gap enough during the campaign to prevent an epic defeat.
The size of the Tory majority will determine how Labour behaves in opposition: If the Tory majority is forty or below, the Labour party will not turn in on itself completely: the prospect of power will keep it sane. However, if the Tories win a two-term majority, then the temptation for Labour to indulge itself with a left-wing leader who appeals to the party but not the country will be immense.
Shadow cabinet elections: Everyone has rather forgotten this, but in opposition Labour MPs elect the shadow cabinet. A rump PLP could put some very odd folk in the shadow cabinet.
So, while Alan Johnson might not be any more ‘Blairite’ in actual policy terms than Brown, he might—by limiting the size of Labour’s defeat—prevent the party from lurching too far to the left in opposition. If Labour continue on with Brown, they could find themselves going down to the kind of defeat that condemns them to several terms in opposition.
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