1997: Ken Clarke elected Conservative leader

[Gracchus]

For whatever reason, Ken Clarke is elected leader of the Conservative Party after their disastrous defeat in the 1997 election.

What are the implications of this?

Better performance for the Tories in 2001?  An earlier rise for UKIP, or another eurosceptic party?

Discuss

[DaWN]

First of all, nobody was beating Blair in 01. Clarke may have done a little better among swing voters than Hague did but that would have been cancelled out by eurosceptics sitting on their hands or voting for an early version of UKIP (more on that in a moment). After the loss (roughly comparable to the real life result), he would have been shown the door just as Hague was, and IDS or someone similar would have taken over.

UKIP or a eurosceptic party would have certainly gained ground under a Clarke leadership,  but enough to make much of a difference earlier than it actually did? Difficult to say - on the one hand, I doubt it  have influenced Labour's europe policy that much, such as Brown's decision to stay out of the euro. The majority was too large and the Tories too irrelevant. Electorally, it might have been a force in 2001, but given the size of the Labour majority and the pitfalls of FPTP I don't think it would have made much difference (maybe 10% of the vote at a stretch, and doubtful any seats unless there were any Carswell-style defections which would have been far from impossible), and by 2005, Europe was not the main issue by any stretch of the imagination. In the end, what caused UKIP and Brexit was Cameronism, the recession and the policies of the coalition, not whether there was a different opposition leader of one of the main parties 20 years earlier.

So in the end I don't think much changes - Clarke probably has a post-leadership career similar to Hague's, with the exception that he stays on the backbenches to this day. 2001 maybe has a slightly different result with an anti-EU party gaining a little ground, but I don't think this translates into any seats because of FPTP.

[Coldstream]

I think Labour probably would have done better than in real life since you’d see UKIP (or maybe the referendum party) siphoning off eurosceptic votes on the right enough to deliver Labour some marginal seats. The fact Clarke is every labour voters favourite Tory isn’t particularly an asset.

[brucejoel99]

If Clarke institutes the leadership contest reforms that Hague did in real life to put more power in the hands of the membership, then he gets deposed in the middle of his term by the Eurosceptic wing of the party, similar to how IDS would later be deposed by Howard in real life.

If he lasts the full term, though, then the result in 2001 wouldn't change a great deal. On one hand, more infighting could turn even more voters away from voting for them, & they could lose a few more seats to Labour, but not that many, seeing as they were already at rock bottom in '97 anyway. On the other, Clarke was popular with the electorate, & him leading the fight against the right of his party could very well have boosted his personal popularity even more. People would still be turned off by the infighting, but his personal popularity could see them make very small gains compared to real life, maybe gaining a maximum of up to 20 seats. Either way, it'd be a disappointing outcome, & given the ruthlessness of the Tories with there leaders at that time, Clarke would immediately be kicked to the curb, & would likely be replaced with somebody a bit more Eurosceptic, like IDS, Hague, or even Portillo.