Lab-Lib coalition: Gordon Brown’s leadership is not the issue

By Declan Gaffney

The Observer and Guardian are telling us that Gordon Brown’s leadership of the Labour Party is the main block to a Labour-LibDem reforming coalition.

A Lab-Lib coalition may be impossible, but if that is the case, it has little to do with the Labour leadership. Gordon Brown’s position is an issue because Nick Clegg chose to make it one in order to maintain tactical distance from Labour in the absence of disagreement on the key issues of voting reform and the timing of deficit reduction. An under-reported Times/Populus poll on Saturday showed public indifference both between Mr Brown staying or going, and between a Conservative minority government supported by the Lib Dems and a Labour-Lib Dem coalition.

The idea that changing the leadership will smooth the way to a Lab-Lib coalition is just one of the myths which have blossomed around the current crisis. As Lord Turnbull (no friend to Mr Brown) very clearly stated on Sunday, Mr Brown is not ‘clinging to power’: he has a duty to continue as Prime Minister until such time as a new government can secure the support of the House of Commons. The Lib Dems are not faced with a choice between ‘propping up the current government’ and an alliance with the Conservatives. The only serious option for a Lib Dem-Labour agreement would be a coalition, which would neither be, nor be perceived to be, a continuation of the current administration. The parliamentary arithmetic does not rule out a Labour-Lib Dem coalition: with SDLP and Alliance MPs supporting their Labour and Lib Dem colleagues, Tories and Democratic Unionists would need the active support of nationalists to secure a successful no-confidence motion.

As for the argument that a Tory-Lib Dem arrangement is the only ‘stable’ outcome, this is to ignore the Conservative’s strategic interest in dissolving any such arrangement at a time of their own choosing in pursuit of the majority which they have been denied this time. Incentives are no less important than numbers when it comes to securing stability.

Focussing on Mr Brown’s leadership is a distraction from the serious question of whether it is possible to form a coalition which would minimise the risks of instability and paralysis under current circumstances. The stakes are high. The long term interests of the Lib Dems, and now of Labour, lie in demonstrating that successful national coalition government is possible in the UK in peacetime. The long term interest of the Conservatives lies in ensuring that nobody ever gets a chance to put that proposition to the test of experience: or, should a coalition prove unavoidable – even one which they lead – doing everything possible to discredit it.

If Mr Clegg chooses an alliance with the Conservatives, a perfectly legitimate decision given the electoral outcome, he should defend his decision on its merits and explain why he felt its advantages outweighed those of a coalition with Labour. But if he tries to explain his choice by saying that he can’t work with Gordon Brown, he should not be taken seriously. Meanwhile Labour should be under no illusions that a change of leader would resolve any of the substantive issues around coalition.