Could Harriet Harman follow in Lady T's footsteps?
Just been idly browsing the Labour Party Rule Book (as you do). With the political situation as it is and many talking about Gordon Brown as if his time is almost up my thoughts have turned to what might happen if he does stand down.
Gordon Brown is an extremely proud man and I suspect if he stands down he could not bear the indignity of continuing to serve whilst his colleagues campaign to succeed him. Therefore I expect that he will cease to be PM immediately. If this does happen then the question becomes what happens next. Clause 4B.2e of the Labour Party Rule Book states:
Procedure in a vacancy
(i) When the party is in government and the party leader is prime minister and the party leader, for whatever reason, becomes permanently unavailable, the cabinet shall, in consultation with the NEC, appoint one of its members to serve as party leader until a ballot under these rules can be carried out.
Now it is not guaranteed but surely the obvious choice would be Harriet Harman. She is the only member of the cabinet with any sort of Labour Party derived democratic legitimacy for the role having been elected deputy leader in 2007. If this was to happen then as I understand it she would become Prime Minister, albeit only for a few weeks and thus be our second female PM following in the footsteps of Margaret Thatcher.
One thing that might scupper this is if she wanted to go for the job herself. In which case I expect the NEC would not allow her to fulfill the role she was campaigning to become permanent as it would give her an unfair advantage.
We could be in for some interesting times in the next few weeks....
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6 comments:
I watched an interview with her recently and was pretty sure her voice had dropped lower than usual (ala Thatcher)- I remarked to my husband at the time that I thought she was up for the leadership role. Maybe I was right?
"the party leader, for whatever reason, becomes permanently unavailable,"
When Major resigned as party leader, he didn't stand down as Prime Minister. Precedent is that Brown would stay on as a caretaker until the election is done.
The only reason he wouldn't is if he specifically refused, and the Queen probably wouldn't be happy about that.
After the death of John Smith in 1994, Margaret Becket, then deputy leader of the Labour Party, became acting leader and was also a candidate for the leadership (she came third).
So Harriet the Harminator could do both.
But Millennium Dome, I think there is a big difference between being acting leader of the opposition and acting Prime Minister. She would get to do all sorts of state functions and occasions and have the chance to look all Prime Ministerial. I don't think the NEC would allow it.
All Hail Me! The Great Leaderess!
Hello you! How's your "court of public opinion" holding up these days?
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