Britannia Radio

Brown to lead the IMF?

No way. Labour is toast – and the party must simply await its fate

• 
• • Martin Kettle
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 February 2009 13.30 GMT
  • Article history

I'm willing to believe, as Jackie Ashley reports this morning, that some Labour figures are speculating that Gordon Brown might be persuaded to quit Downing Street and fly off to head the new, improved post-G20 summit IMF2 – though I should add that I haven't heard that particular story myself from any of my Labour sources. That doesn't mean the story is wrong, of course! But I still don't think it's going to happen.

Here's why.

First, Gordon Brown has to cooperate in any such manoeuvre. Where is the evidence that he would do so? For the IMF lifeboat story to work you have to accept that Brown is now so humiliated by Labour's standing and lack of electoral prospects that he is (a) willing to give up the premiership and (b) willing to live for the rest of his life with the tag of being The Man Who Wasn't Up To It. That is a huge ask – even Tony Blair found it hard to give up and he was a much more relaxed leader than Brown. I don't think Brown is that kind of person.

Second, Labour has both to want him to go and, at the same time, to be united around his prospective successor. The first part of this condition may be true, though again I don't see the evidence for it yet. But the second part is certainly not true. Alan Johnson is being puffed at the moment as The Man The Tories Most Fear. But he is certainly not the only person who might go for the leadership – the Milibands and, in particular, Harriet Harman, would see this as their one chance to be prime minister. A squabble over the leadership would follow and it would not impress the voters at such a time.

Third, even if Johnson had a coronation as the compromise candidate, is he really the answer to Labour's problems? Johnson may come across as authentic to some people, but he doesn't impress lots of others. Nor does he have a particularly strong track record as a successful political leader. I think the Johnson premiership is inside the bubble stuff. It looks smarter in Westminster terms than it does in non-Westminster terms. To change the leader is a big gamble when the dividend from doing so is so uncertain. These objections apply to any non-Johnson alternative too.

Fourth, would Brown really be the right man for the revamped IMF? Even if – and it's a big if – there is a successful G20 that reforms the global financial institutions in the way that the British would like, it does not follow that Brown would be the right choice to run it. For one thing, as Jackie says, he is one of the many authors of the failed financial regime that the new IMF would be replacing. For another, the French and Germans would be very reluctant to lose their existing control of the IMF manging directorship to a British candidate, while for yet another – and for me this is the clincher – Brown's style of working means he is simply not good at running large collegiate organisations.

And, finally, there's this. The Labour party is not a ruthless party. It doesn't knife its leaders. It rallies around them. The only exception to this was Brown's knifing of Blair, which took forever and which was predicated on the belief that the party longed for Brown as its rightful leader. In the end, Brown pulled it off. But these conditions don't apply now. These Brown-to-go fantasies are the ragings of a party which discovered too late that Brown would not be the leader it thought it needed. The reality, I think, is that they are stuck with their choice. Labour is toast – and the party must simply await its fate.