‘Why the deputy leader matters more to Labour’s factions than its future’

‘Cactus Jack’ Garner once famously described the job of Vice President of the United States as “not worth a bucket of warm piss” and having served in that post for most of Franklin Roosevelt’s time in the White House he knew of what he spoke.

The position of deputy leader of the Labour Party is, in itself, not worth even the contents of Garner’s bucket. On the death or resignation of the leader, the deputy does not automatically succeed them but only serves as acting leader until the election of a successor, something Margaret Beckett did after John Smith’s demise in 1994 while Harriet Harman performed that role after Gordon Brown in 2010 and Ed Miliband five years later stood down. Nor is it much good as a stepping-stone to the leadership: only Clement Attlee and Michael Foot out of eighteen deputies have made that jump.

Moreover, it is not automatic that the deputy leader will become Deputy Prime Minister, itself a post of dubious significance, in a Labour government nor even a Cabinet member – George Brown went to the back benches when he resigned as Harold Wilson’s Foreign Secretary in 1968. In terms of actual substance therefore one might wonder what all the fuss is about?

‘Not so much the post itself which is important but the contest’

Despite not coming with any formal power, other than a seat on the National Executive Committee, the deputy leadership has over time achieved some significance as one more battleground over which Labour’s factions can fight the party’s never-ending civil war. It is not so much the post itself which is important but the contest for it.

The title of deputy leader was suitably enough created out of thin air in 1922 by Ramsay MacDonald as a consolation prize for J.R. Clynes after he had defeated him for the leadership, at the time a contest conducted only amongst MPs. Clynes enjoyed no special privileges as a result and after 1931 was temporarily joined by another MP as deputy, suggesting the uncertain nature of the post in the party’s constitution.

Until 1952 the post was elected by acclamation by MPs but after resigning from the Cabinet Aneurin Bevan challenged Herbert Morrison as part of his revolt against the leadership but was easily defeated. After that the post remained largely honorary and in the gift of the Leader, although Roy Jenkins created a stir when in 1972 he resigned as Deputy over his support for Britain’s entry to the EEC, which Labour then opposed.

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1981: the battle between Healey and Benn

It was in 1980 when election to the post was opened to members and affiliated trade unions that the deputy leadership took on much more important – but still mostly symbolic – significance. As part of reforms initiated by Tony Benn and supporters the leadership and as a consequence the deputy leadership was in future to be decided by an electoral college in which MPs would only have a minority voice.

Michael Foot had been elected leader just months before these changes and at the meeting of MPs at which his victory was announced he proposed they have Denis Healey as his deputy to which they immediately agreed.

Benn, who had ambitions to become leader and continue to transform the party in a more radical direction, decided he would test the new process and hopefully ditch the robustly right-wing Healey. His decision split the left with some notably Neil Kinnock seeing it as a distraction from fighting the Thatcher government whereas others believed a Benn victory would immeasurably advance the cause of socialism.

Healey won by just 0.8 percent – a victory still contested by some. But the public rancour provoked by the contest badly hurt the party in the polls and damaged Benn’s own prospects as it caused some of his backers in the trade unions to seek an end to conflict and back the leadership.

This was the only time the deputy leadership really mattered – and then it mattered more as a test of the relative strength of the party’s different factions. It was the contest and not the prize that was important.

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‘Significance down not to what they are but who they are’

Since then the purpose of the post has remained as vague as ever. Nobody ever seems to know what it is there for although usually aspirants say they would use being deputy to build up and energise the party membership (which always seems to need to be rebuilt and reenergised).

Benn’s attempt to unseat Healey showed up the party’s bitter divisions, as did Tom Watson’s time as Jeremy Corbyn’s Deputy especially as both tried at various times to unseat the other.  But the post can be used to demonstrate party unity to voters.  Once Bevan had given up the fight against the leadership Hugh Gaitskell supported his former bête noire becoming his Deputy. Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley were dubbed the ‘Dream Ticket’ to convince voters that left and right could work together – although many remained unconvinced.

After repeated attempts, John Prescott was finally elected deputy in 1994 and Tony Blair found him a useful prop to reassure doubting members that his New Labour was not a betrayal of its founding principles. Prescott’s endorsement of Blair’s new Clause Four in 1995 was especially important to his early period as Leader.

But like the US Vice President, Labour’s deputy leader is there mostly for show. If a Deputy Leader becomes someone of significance in a Labour government – like Prescott or Angela Rayner – it is more to do with their own attributes and support in the party: it is not because of what they are but who they are.

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