# Blair–Brown deal

* This article is part of a series aboutTony Blair
Electoral history
MP for Sedgefield
Beaconsfield by-election
Leader of the Opposition
Leadership election
Brown Deal
Shadow Cabinet
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Premiership
Policies
New Labour, New Life for Britain
Blairism
New Labour
Third Way
Appointments
"Tony's Cronies"
"Blair Babes"
First ministry and term (May 1997 – June 2001)
Ministry
1997 election
Chancellorship of Gordon Brown
1997 budget
1998 budget
1999 budget
2000 budget
2001 budget
Good Friday Agreement
peace process
Handover of Hong Kong
People's princess
Kosovo War
Military intervention in Sierra Leone
Second ministry and term (June 2001 – May 2005)
Ministry
2001 re-election
9/11
War on terror
War in Afghanistan
2003 invasion of Iraq
Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
Saddam–al-Qaeda conspiracy theory
Bush memo
Downing Street memo
February Dossier
September Dossier
Ultimatum to Iraq
Iraq War
2002 budget
2003 budget
2004 budget
2005 budget
Third ministry and term (May 2005 – June 2007)
Ministry
2005 re-election
Cabinet reshuffle
2006 budget
2007 budget
Cash for Honours
London bombings
Respect agenda
Leadership succession
Post–Prime Minister
2007 Sedgefield by-election
Quartet on the Middle East
A Journey (autobiography)
Associates
Faith Foundation
Iraq Inquiry
Sports Foundation
Institute for Global Change :
vte :
* This article is part of a series aboutGordon Brown
Electoral history
MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath
Shadow Chancellor
Blair–Brown deal
Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellorship
1997 budget
Winter Fuel Payment
Five economic tests
Financial Services Authority
10p tax rate
Sale of UK gold reserves, 1999–2002
Policies
Brownism
New Labour
Third Way
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Premiership
2007 leadership election
Ministry
Treaty of Lisbon
2007–2008 financial crisis
Bank rescue packages
2008
2009
Climate Change Act 2008
2009 European elections
2010 general election
Post–Prime Minister
2014 Scottish independence referendum
Bibliography
Courage: Eight Portraits
Britain's Everyday Heroes
The Change We Choose
Beyond the Crash
My Life, Our Times :
vte :
The Blair–Brown deal (or Granita Pact) was a gentlemen's agreement struck between the British Labour Party politicians Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in 1994, while they were Shadow Home Secretary and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer respectively.

## Deal

It is widely believed that the pair had a meeting in 1994 at the restaurant Granita in Islington, London, following the unexpected death of John Smith, the then-Leader of the Labour Party, on 12 May of that year. They agreed that Brown would not stand in the forthcoming Labour leadership election, so as to allow Blair a better chance of an easy victory, and in return Blair would appoint Brown Chancellor of the Exchequer upon Labour's presumptive victory. In government, Brown would be granted unprecedented powers over domestic policy, which would make him the most powerful Chancellor in British history.
It is also widely believed that Blair agreed, if he were appointed Prime Minister, to stay in the job for only two terms and then resign in Brown's favour. Blair led Labour to a landslide victory at the 1997 general election, and Brown became Chancellor with wider powers and the "formidable autonomy" as promised to him. At the 2001 general election, Labour were re-elected to a second consecutive term in government; with strong powerful results similar to the previous poll four years earlier. At the 2005 general election, Labour were returned for a historic third consecutive term in office; albeit with a significantly reduced majority due to gains made from the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.
In 2007, as Blair had allegedly predicted, Brown became Blair's successor following Blair's resignation, though he served part of a third term instead of the mere two. The existence of any deal was denied for many years by both men.

## Disputes

The existence of the deal was publicly dismissed by Blair, Brown and many of their associates for several years, prompting much speculation as to what, if anything, was agreed.
The Guardian published a written note in June 2003 which, it said, outlined the policy areas proposed by Brown that Blair would commit to as part of the deal, namely a "fairness agenda" consisting of "social justice, employment opportunities and skills" under a Labour Government.
In October 2003, columnist Tom Brown told the BBC that Brown had informed him of the deal the day after it had been made. Tom Brown said to BBC Radio Scotland:
   I'm in absolutely no doubt there was a deal since Gordon phoned me the morning after it was made and told me about it. But at the same time I also believe that both men left the restaurant with a different version of the deal in their minds. They hadn't actually written it down on paper. Gordon believed Blair would step down about now actually, and Blair believed that he... hadn't committed himself to any timetable.
An episode of Dispatches in May 2007, entitled "Gordon Brown: Fit For Office?" reported that Brown felt betrayed after losing support from Peter Mandelson and other friends and that this lack of support, rather than any deal, made him decide not to run for the leadership.
An account of the pact between the two politicians was presented in detail in the book of 2001, The Rivals: The Intimate Story of a Political Marriage, written by BBC journalist James Naughtie.
The relationship between Blair and Brown from the years 1983 to 1994 – culminating in an in depth dramatisation of the Granita meeting – was the focus of a 2003 made-for-television film directed by Stephen Frears and written by Peter Morgan, based in part upon Naughtie's book. The film, titled The Deal, starred Michael Sheen as Blair and David Morrissey as Brown.
A caption in the opening titles (directly inspired – according to Frears – by the identical epigraph at the start of the film of 1969, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) informed viewers that "much of what follows is true".

## Location

In a televised interview with Piers Morgan in February 2010, Brown admitted that he deferred contesting the Labour leadership and that Blair had promised to hand over power to him at a later point, but that the two men later fought bitterly after – from Brown's perspective – Blair failed to keep to his end of the bargain. Brown also stated that the deal had not been made in Granita but had been struck before the men met in the restaurant. In his 2017 book My Life, Our Times, Brown again described the Granita dinner as "a formality" that merely confirmed what the two had previously discussed and agreed.
In her autobiography, Cherie Blair writes that the deal took place at a neighbour's home, not at Granita. In an interview with Peter Hennessy on BBC Radio 4, Tony Blair claimed that the agreement had been struck '...in a couple of different places in Edinburgh', claiming that by the time they dined at Granita, minds had been made up as to what was going to happen.