Gordon Brown should be challenged

Monday8217;s wise withdrawal of Michael Meacher boosts the chances that the leftwing MP John McDonnell will now be able to raise enough backbench support to challenge Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership by the time nominations close on Thursday. Unfortunately, Labour8217;s current rules require would-be candidates to have the support of 12.5 per cent of Labour MPs 8212; at least 45 signatures 8212; before they can stand. This is a prohibitively high bar for minority challengers which Labour should reconsider when it has the opportunity. In the meantime, it is in the interest of democratic politics, the socialist left, the Labour party, Mr Brown and the country that Mr McDonnell succeeds in getting enough backing.

Public opinion objects to a coronation and is right to do so. Parties are, or ought to be, participative bodies in which members are able to choose their leaders from a range of candidates. However eminent Mr Brown may be, it is nonsense to pretend that he is the only individual qualified to succeed Tony Blair or that his is the only vision of the party8217;s future worth considering. Self-evidently, the left has a sharply different view from the chancellor of how Labour should govern, but it is a view that deserves to be voted on by the party as a whole. A contest, even one limited to Mr Brown and Mr McDonnell, would allow Labour8217;s membership a long overdue debate on their party8217;s record and direction. Such a debate would be good not just for Mr McDonnell but also for Mr Brown, since it would compel him to set out his ideas and goals under pressure of cross-examination.

Mr Brown is clearly virtually certain to win, but a contest would give him a real rather than a formal mandate from his party. A contest would also prevent the left, and especially some oppositional trade union leaders, from seeking to claim after a Brown coronation that they speak for a wider segment of party and union opinion than they actually do.

From a leader in the 8216;The Guardian8217;, May 15