...Kinnock would hand the reins off to his successor as Labour leader, Gordon Brown. Brown faced a difficult situation, with voter fatigue with Labour as well as dissatisfaction with Kinnock's strong stand against devolution costing the party Scottish and Welsh support and the Conservatives under Michael Portillo pounding the government on Britain's support for the American-led mission in the Congo. Faced with the same perceived lack of a mandate that his predecessor had, Brown called for elections in the summer of 2001.
Portillo hit the prime minister hard and Brown seemed largely unable to reverse the downwards trajectory Labour had been on when he inherited the leadership. His reversal on Kinnock's position of devolution prevented a complete Labour wipe-out in Scotland and Wales, but even he was amazed at the result once the counting finished late post-election morning.
The 2001 results came about as the result of separate factors that seemingly conspired to prevent a Tory majority. First, the constituency boundaries had been redrawn in what opponents called a "natural Labour gerrymander" that gave the governing party a built-in advantage. Second, the Democratic Party, acting as a spoiler, served as a protest party for Conservative-leaning voters who felt that Portillo was too hard-line for the prime minister's office, giving Labour plenty of seats that normally would have been out of their reach. Finally, there was the aforementioned factor of Portillo himself. The young Tory leader was enormously popular within his party but his proposed program of deregulation, tax cuts and spending cuts primarily on public aid programs, had resulted in a fierce media backlash and given Brown and Democratic Party leader Charles Kennedy a lifeline that both men grasped with both hands.
The Democrats controlled the balance of power and immediately, Portillo and Brown both tried to gain their favor. The constitutional convention was that Brown, as the incumbent prime minister, be given first chance to form a government, but Portillo immediately protested, pointing out that the Conservatives had won more seats and won by far a larger portion of the popular vote. The ensuing brouhaha, as later recounted by both Buckingham Palace officials and several civil service lawyers, immediately caused fear of a constitutional crisis developing. But that was cut short when Kennedy led the Democrats into a coalition with Labour within two days of the election, keeping Brown as prime minister.
Kennedy's conditions were high and Brown had to relinquish several key portfolios, such as education and transport, to Democratic ministers and also agreed to bring up electoral reform. Brown's enactment of devolution for Scotland and Wales was arguably the highlight of his term, and his party gained a small bump from the turnaround in the Congo to make unexpected gains in the European Union elections in 2004 as well. Brown and Labour, both knowing that a switch from first-past-the-post (FPTP) would hurt Labour, technically fulfilled their coalition agreement by passing an act that would given Britons a chance to vote whether to change their voting system to the single transferable vote (STV) (which the Democrats preferred) or keep FPTP. Labour then subsequently sat on its hands while the Conservatives (ironically for a party who had recently lost two elections despite winning the popular vote in both) campaigned furiously, and in some cases dishonestly, against STV, and voters ended up rejecting it by a 2:1 margin.
Portillo had resigned as Conservative leader in the light of his party's poor showing in the 2004 European elections and was replaced by William Hague. Hague's skills at debate and his ideological placement in the center of the Conservative Party drove the final nails into Brown's hopes for a second full term. A final bit of coalition drama ensued when Kennedy resigned from both the Democratic leadership and the cabinet in late December, checking into rehab for alcoholism. Amid press speculation and gossiping if Kennedy had been "drunk at the wheel" while helping to run the government, the Democrats replaced him with Malcolm Bruce in time for the election.
To no one's surprise, the Conservatives won a crushing victory, getting a majority of over 50 seats and almost winning as much of the popular vote Labour and the Democrats combined. Brown resigned as Labour leader that night, signalling the end of Labour's 15 years in control of Great Britain.
Hague's term in office would be one of rebuilding and restructuring as the Conservatives began the restructuring of the British armed services, following both the end of the Troubles and the Congo War, emphasizing making the military more mobile rather than an occupation-type force that had been used in both Northern Ireland and the Congo. The army reforms, alongside the raising of tuition fees, and ending of several tax breaks which were used primarily by lower- and middle-income taxpayers to help pay for both the reforms and equalize the deficit increases that Britain's involvement in the Congo had brought led to protests that the military was being funded at the expense of the students and Hague was forced to return tuition fees to the previous level before the 2010 election to head off student anger.
The selection of Joseph Kennedy II as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in the 2008 United States presidential race caused outrage in Britain, as Kennedy had previously voiced support for the IRA during the Troubles. Hague's blistering dismissal of Kennedy as "wearing rose-tinted glasses with plastic green frames" resulted in very friendly relations between Downing Street and the Riley White House following the election.
Gordon Brown's unexpected successor as Labour leader was left-winger Jon Cruddas, who worked to chip down Hague's impressive lead in the polls before the writs were dropped in 2010. Cruddas' push, however, was hindered by push for effective policy rather than what was politically popular at that moment, allowing Hague to avoid getting into what Conservative leaders privately feared would be costly debates. Scottish voters were also receptive to the Scottish National Party (SNP) without Brown, who had granted devolution, leading Scotland and Labour saw several attainable seats either taken by the SNP or taken by the Conservatives or Democrats when the SNP acted as spoilers. Hague, meanwhile, was forced to deal with the rise of the National Party, led by former cabinet minister John Redwood, that ran as an anti-Europe right-wing populist party.
Hague won a very slim majority of two seats (effectively seven including abstentionist Sinn Féin MPs) with the Nationals taking almost five percent of the vote, most of which almost certainly would have went to the Conservatives otherwise. Cruddas, despite helping his party pick up 50 seats from the previous election, opted to resign as leader following the election, with some saying he privately welcomed the excuse of failing to get rid of Hague to justify leaving a position he disliked...
Well done (as ever.)
