Analysis: The last-ditch plot to oust Brown
The final attempt to oust Gordon Brown exploded across a stunned Westminster today. Everything comes down to the next few hours.
By Ian Dunt
The letter to Labour MPs from former Cabinet ministers Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt took everyone by surprise today. Many analysts have been quickly trying to scrub up on the technicalities of ejecting the prime minister from Downing Street, but that is getting ahead of ourselves. The real issue is about momentum.
If legions of Labour MPs take up the call for a secret ballot this afternoon, this could be the plot that actually succeeds. If enough MPs break rank, Cabinet resignations could follow, and that would change everything.
The Cabinet is famously cautious, and it has passed over opportunities to oust Brown before. When James Purnell tried to trigger a coup last year he found there was no-one behind him. The genius of today’s attack is that it sidesteps the Cabinet entirely and aims firmly at the party’s rank-and-file. After all, it is MPs who will lose their jobs if things go badly in the general election. Most Cabinet members will be OK.
But Hoon and Hewitt won’t be pleased by the timing of their political bomb. Brown had just finished another surprisingly successful PMQs performance. He has now got the better of Cameron for several sessions in a row and when Labour MPs retreated to their offices to find their letter, they will have had a strong, robust performance fresh in their memory.
The polls are going his way. The Tories are down to a single figure lead and everything is still to play for.
That makes it a strange decision for Hoon and Hewitt. The great irony of today’s events is that by taking such drastic action, the pair may have derailed Labour current poll recovery.
The chances are they will fail, although that forecast could very easily be proved wrong within hours of it being written.
If Brown can survive the next few hours, he can probably survive the entire coup. If he survives until tomorrow he’ll probably – probably – be ok.
Update: 17:12 – Enough Cabinet ministers have now expressed support for the prime minister for the coup attempt to have lost much of its steam. Any rebellion from the big hitters in government – Peter Mandelson, Alistair Darling, Jack Straw, Harriet Harman, Alan Johnson and David Miliband – would have signalled a serious dilemma. That could still come, but for now Mandelson and Darling have both put out statements announcing business as usual.
What’s noticeable, however, is how little praise either heap on Brown. Both statements barely mention him. They hardly constitute the gushing defence he’s looking for, but he’s probably satisfied that they have come out in support of him at all.
Johnson has also refused the opportunity to rebel, but in far more supportive terms.
