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Charisma deficit: Gordon Brown will have to do more than just learn how to smile if he is to fill Tony Blair’s shoes.

FOREIGN POLICY: How would you describe Gordon Brown’s role in British politics to date?

Sally McNamara: He’s a big figure in British politics, although not on the international stage. He’s served as chancellor of the exchequer since 1997, and has been an extremely powerful figure within the Blair administration. Brown has controlled the purse strings for the war in Iraq and all sorts of state activities. He’s going to have a lot of difficulty breaking with Blair’s policies because he is heavily associated with Blair.

FP: Brown and Blair have had a tense and competitive relationship. Does this stem from any substantive policy differences between the two?

SM: The two of them had this famous deal where Tony Blair would run after [former Labour Party leader] John Smith died. Gordon Brown would back Blair for two elections, and then Brown would take the helm. That didn’t happen—Tony Blair was an egomaniac and he wanted to outdo Thatcher’s record. He didn’t do that in the end in terms of length because he came nowhere near on quality. After Blair broke the agreement, the prime minister’s relationship with Gordon Brown was at its toughest. When it became clear that Blair had to go, the relationship got better. Gordon Brown has been planning this his entire life. It is his life’s ambition to be prime minister of Britain, because he thinks he can do a good job.

FP: Will Brown have the political clout and personal will to continue British involvement in Iraq?

SM: Yes. He will be under some pressure from the left of his party to bring troops home from Iraq. However, what we have seen in Britain is a long-term commitment to the stability and security of Iraq. Contrary to popular opinion in the United States, we are taking 2,000 troops out in October, but we are sending 1,500 more troops to Afghanistan. Britain is not cutting and running, contrary to what many U.S. congressional folks are saying. Depending on the results of the “surge,” we may see a different focus from Brown in terms of a turn toward soft power and a concern with investment and development in Iraq. But, as in the United States, the Iraq War can’t go on forever.

FP: Will the caricature of Tony Blair as George Bush’s lap dog encourage Brown to exercise more independence from Washington?

SM: If you look at Tony Blair’s approval ratings in the United States, they are enormous. Tony Blair is not viewed as a lap dog in this country. True, in Britain there is declining support for the “special relationship,” because Blair didn’t sell it. If you look at what Britain gets out of that relationship, it is absolutely essential that it continues, not least because of the high-level intelligence exchange that it facilitates. If you look at a lot of the terrorist attacks that we’re thwarting, that’s happening because there is such a high degree of trust within the British and American intelligence agencies. But as for Blair’s priorities like the Kyoto Protocol or the International Criminal Court, those things were never going to fly in the United States anyway.

FP: Now that there is talk that Britain will be offered certain “opt-outs” of the European Union treaty, do you believe Brown will move forward on approval of the constitution in Britain?

SM: In terms of policy differences, you hear some talk that Brown may be to the left of Blair. But he is known as a Euroskeptic, a position usually affiliated with the right. Brown personally put the kibosh on Britain joining the single euro currency under Blair, who had hoped to make that a crowning achievement of his premiership. British Euroskepticism is the highest in Europe. What the EU is going to do is bring back the same treaty with a new name and a couple of cosmetic changes. In the end, we’ll probably end up seeing a more “à la carte” Europe. But I have no doubt that if the British people were ever asked anything about further EU integration, they’d say, “No thank you.” That’s why no British government can afford a referendum. Gordon Brown doesn’t want to set the stage for a referendum that he would lose; it would destroy his credibility.

FP: Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke famously said that Brown had “psychological” issues, while former Cabinet Secretary Lord Turnbull called him a “Stalinist.” Does any of this criticism begin to accurately describe Brown’s management style?

SM: Gordon Brown is well known as a control freak. One of the reasons he doesn’t like the EU is not because he doesn’t like bureaucrats and technocrats, but because he thinks he’s the best technocrat and the best bureaucrat. It’s one thing to heavily intervene in your economy, but it’s another to let someone else do it. It goes back to his charisma deficit—the British public and even his own cabinet find it difficult to empathize with him. He’ll put a lot of his own loyalists in his administration, just as Blair did when he took office. But while Brown may be a control freak, he’s not a dictator or an autocrat.

FP: Tony Blair was a consummate politician. Will Gordon Brown’s charisma deficit hurt him with the British public and prevent him from pursuing some of Blair’s long-terms goals in regards to climate change and poverty in Africa?

SM: Absolutely. Whether you’re from London or Timbuktu, you want your leaders to have a personality. Whatever you say about Tony Blair, during the big picture events—the death of Diana, September 11—he cut a major figure on the international stage. He captured the mood of the British people. However, you need policy behind the charisma, and Tony Blair lacked that, as evidenced most recently during the Iranian soldier kidnapping incident. Brown probably has a couple of years or 18 months to prove himself to the British before a general election is called. Whether the charisma issue will make or break his premiership is hard to say, but it certainly will not help him.

Sally McNamara is a senior policy analyst in European affairs at the Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center For Freedom and a former elected official in Nottingham City, England.

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