WI/AHC: Tories win 1945 Election.

What it says on the tin. How can, and what would the results be, if Churchill (it can be someone else i.e Eden, but preferably Churchill) and the Conservatives win the 1945 election?

How does this effect the immediate post war world and the run up to the Cold-War? What of the Empire/Commonwealth? What about post-war domestic policy? What about the postwar armed forces? What about the post-war British economy?

I think the biggest problem with this is the electorate. They were tired and wanted change. They saw the Tories (Churchill) as the war government and wanted the 'brave new world/land of milk and honey' promised by Labour. Of course, it all went down hill after that in OTL, but that's a different discussion for a different forum.

In many ways, John Major's government suffered the same way at the end of a long period of consecutive Tory governments (he got lucky the first time - Labour was still being lead by Kinnock, but a change in government was inevitable eventually). Gordon Brown suffered likewise.

Nigh on ASB. The Tories were blamed for the Depression, Appeasement and for the debacles in Norway, France, Crete and Malaya, their organisation had atrophied during the War while Labour's had been kept active. To have a post war Tory Government you need the entire interwar period to be different and for the War itself to go much more in Britain's favour and end earlier. While they certainly couldn't win a 1945 GE, a 1944 GE after a War that avoided most of the above defeats could well have seen Churchill win.

perfectgeneral wrote this thread a few years ago about how Britain may have developed with a Tory victory in 1945, it's well worth a read.

The Oncoming Storm said:

perfectgeneral wrote this thread a few years ago about how Britain may have developed with a Tory victory in 1945, it's well worth a read.

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I did read this thread and although it was enjoyable it was in places somewhat... erm... unlikely to say the least.

Have Labour lead the 1930-1945 National Government and the British war effort. Have Eden lead the Tories and back the Beveridge Report.

That's an articulated lorry full of butterflies but really, 15 years of Conservative dominated government, including economic woes, geopolitical instability, appeasement and poor military preparation... I don't know, have Labour captured by Stalinists and oppose the war on the basis of the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact? Have Attlee punch a child on the campaign trail and have the PLP applaud it and mimick the action across the country thousands of times?

...on a slightly more sensible tact, Churchill suffers a heart attack (only way you're getting him out of the top position, and in 1945 the Tories still thought it was a bonus to have him in charge), Eden takes over, backs Beveridge as I said, and maybe an electoral alliance with the Liberals. It will slice into the Labour majority but a majority it will be, a combo of economic centrism, lib-con electoral pact and sympathy for Churchill's heir and even then I'm convinced Attlee is striding into No. 10. Fifteen years of stale government is a hard thing to shake.

Labour's victory in 1945 can also largely be put down to being given basically free rein by Churchill to extol the virtues of British Socialism during the War, when Labour controlled a lot of domestic policy. Perhaps you could have several major blunders for Labour in this period?

According to several sources (though, possibly, all traceable back to Hugh Dalton), Herbert Morrison opposed leaving the coalition as early as Labour did. If he was leader instead of Attlee, there is potential for the Labour Party to stay in the coalition at least long enough for Churchill to gain the upper hand. Morrison might even be willing to go for a coupon election, keeping the coalition together into the next Parliament. The Tories will have time to rebuild their party machine and get PR going on their image. Meanwhile, Labour will begin to split as the left agitates for it to leave the coalition - and many supporters might well start to view it as a puppet of the Tories and transfer their loyalty to the Common Wealth Party or the Communists. The Tories get to do to Labour the same thing they did to the Liberals after WWI.

Churchill's post-war government is going to be an absolute disaster, one from which Britain might never recover. There will be famines in the north, homelessness dragging on well into the 1950s, bloody war in the colonies until Britain is stripped of them by the UN, insurrection in the army, mass strikes, the collapse of the coal industry and rail network. The foundations of the prosperity that Britain enjoyed in the 50s, 60s and early 70s will never be laid. As things get worse, there may be a backlash from the government, the hardline repression of political opposition - and there will be the constant threat of an unpopular war with the Soviets. Imagine a boot stamping on a human face until Churchill is forced into retirement. We'll probably end up like Italy and Greece (complete with America intervening to stop the rise of the communists in the early 1950s), though there is some hope that a reunified Labour Party could gain power in the 1950s and do some Scandinavian things.

Basileus Giorgios said:

Labour's victory in 1945 can also largely be put down to being given basically free rein by Churchill to extol the virtues of British Socialism during the War, when Labour controlled a lot of domestic policy. Perhaps you could have several major blunders for Labour in this period?

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That's a major factor. Churchill simply didn't care about domestic politics and was happy to give Labour free rein in order that he and his fellow Tories could control the war effort. While that probably was a good thing on balance it did make his defeat in 1945 inevitable.

In all honesty I think the best way for the Tories to win a 1945 election is not to have a 1945 election - have the war in 1940 go much more successfully for the Western Allies to the extent that the fall of France is prevented (Germany doesn't change the original plan perhaps), and the war then ends in 1941 or 42. Then national prestige hasn't been shattered by two years of defeat and humiliation, large chunks of the country haven't been pulverised and there hasn't been as much time for the idea that socialism (or at least collectivism) is a better way to structure the country to take hold.

Gregg said:

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While my mutualist yearnings would love to see the CommonWealth Party do better, I can't see such a rupture taking place. Remember the Labour Party hierarchy in 1945 were basically survivors of the 1931 culling, if any generation of Labour is aware of the dangers of splittings its them. Morrison was wary of fighting an election so soon but pressure would be very strong against it and I think he'd back down.

Also while I think your predictions for a 1945 Tory ministry are a little dramatic, you're right in that it would probably put the Conservatives onto the Opposition benches well into the 1960s. Churchill will push some very out of touch measures and I wouldn't be surprised if a coup took place around 1948. Also lets be frank, a Tory win will not be a secure one, regardless of the voodoo needed to see it happen.

Tories winning the '45 would require ASBs the size of Lancasters. Never even remotely on the cards - they were blamed for the entire 1930's. My grandfather was in 2nd Army and he wrote to my Grandmother before the results of the election were announced (there were a lot of overseas votes from servicemen and women don't forget) to say that the Tories were going to get walloped.

Cymraeg said:

Tories winning the '45 would require ASBs the size of Lancasters. Never even remotely on the cards - they were blamed for the entire 1930's. My grandfather was in 2nd Army and he wrote to my Grandmother before the results of the election were announced (there were a lot of overseas votes from servicemen and women don't forget) to say that the Tories were going to get walloped.

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Agree a trillion times over but the topic is a popular one, might as well speculate because its not going away.

Jape said:

Also while I think your predictions for a 1945 Tory ministry are a little dramatic, you're right in that it would probably put the Conservatives onto the Opposition benches well into the 1960s. Churchill will push some very out of touch measures and I wouldn't be surprised if a coup took place around 1948. Also lets be frank, a Tory win will not be a secure one, regardless of the voodoo needed to see it happen.

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Look we all agree this is unlikely but having a coup happen is even more ASB than having Churchill win a 500 seat landslide.

Arachnid said:

Look we all agree this is unlikely but having a coup happen is even more ASB than having Churchill win a 500 seat landslide.

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I meant a political "backroom deal" coup. Cabinet threatens mass resignation. Not aviator glasses and tanks in the street.

With the Conservatives in power, the independence of India is delayed.

Jape said:

I meant a political "backroom deal" coup. Cabinet threatens mass resignation. Not aviator glasses and tanks in the street.

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No, a coup is tanks in the street, Cabinet telling the PM he is out of touch is a leadership change. They are very different things, if you mean one thing don't say something completely different.

Jape said:

While my mutualist yearnings would love to see the CommonWealth Party do better,

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Better in terms of votes, but it's just going to split the anti-Tory (or anti-coalition, if it's a coupon election) vote and give the Tories more seats.

I can't see such a rupture taking place. Remember the Labour Party hierarchy in 1945 were basically survivors of the 1931 culling, if any generation of Labour is aware of the dangers of splittings its them. Morrison was wary of fighting an election so soon but pressure would be very strong against it and I think he'd back down.

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Granted, the upward pressure within the party against staying in the coalition would have been as intense as it was in OTL. But I still think this is the only way of getting a Tory victory in 1945/46, and I think having Morrison as leader would make it possible - in terms of some of the butterflies as to who would and wouldn't be in leadership positions and the general trend of Labour's polity since 1935. If the leadership can persuade the unions and in turn conference to support staying in, then those on the left who still want out will be expelled (in a re-tread of the 1939 expulsions over the Popular Front).

Of all the members of that generation, Morrison seems to have been the most willing to risk splits - most obviously, he engineered the first breach in what would become the Bevanite/Gaitskellite split in 1951 (in order to remove Bevan as a potential rival for the post-Attlee leadership).

Also while I think your predictions for a 1945 Tory ministry are a little dramatic,

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I stand by every word (though I was perhaps a little bit influenced by reaction to the thread someone linked above, in which Chruchill seems to be simultaneously more socialist than Attlee and more laissez-faire than Thatcher). I can go into detail, but I'm wary of further distracting myself from the timelines I want to write.

Arachnid said:

No, a coup is tanks in the street, Cabinet telling the PM he is out of touch is a leadership change. They are very different things, if you mean one thing don't say something completely different.

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I think that's unfair - "coup" is often used to mean something other than tanks in the street. The removal of Iain Duncan Smith has frequently been called a coup, for instance; and various PR turns have been described as coups, especially those involving surprising endorsements (most recently, that thing with Mick Jagger before it went tits up). When I read Jape's post, I immediately understood him to mean a leadership coup within the government (similar to the one Cripps attempted against Attlee in OTL).

Gregg said:

We'll probably end up like Italy and Greece, complete with America intervening to stop the rise of the communists in the early 1950s.

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With the Strategic Air Command launching saturation bombing of Great Britain? The 82nd and 101st US Airborne paradropping on London? US Marines in Southampton, Liverpool, and Belfast? MacArthur called out of retirement and made "Shogun" of Eng-*BARF!* Oh...I knew I couldn't finish this crap without losing it.

Seriously, I agree with all those who say Tory rule beyond 1945 was all but ASB. Politically, the UK was a volcano ready to blow. It was a correction long overdue, as the voters were well aware that it was the fault of the US (Republican) economy of the 1920s that caused the Depression, not Ramsey MacDonald. Certainly it was the inability of the Conservatives to deal with the economy in the thirties following the Laborites ouster after just two years in power. Blaming Labor for the Depression is like blaming Obama for the economic collapse of 2008.

Labor's victory was inevitable.

usertron2020 said:

With the Strategic Air Command launching saturation bombing of Great Britain?

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No, I meant in the same way as they did in Italy and Greece - funding, dirty tricks and other CIA activity to subvert democracy in the name of saving democracy.

Gregg said:

No, I meant in the same way as they did in Italy and Greece - funding, dirty tricks and other CIA activity to subvert democracy in the name of saving democracy.

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I know. I was just being facetious.

There was a very good (BBC? Masterpiece Theater?) program about the Labor Party in the 1980s (in its most radicalized form ever*) coming to power in a landslide. Think Prime Minister Tony Benn but with a personality of John Curtin (with a dash of JFK). Though the concept at the time seemed ASB, that wasn't the point of the story/mini-series. It was the story of the steps foreign powers (the US) would go to prevent the effective governing of a democratically elected (overwhelmingly) parliamentary government.

There were no US characters (this was happening in the Reagan Era) everything was seen through the eyes of the good guys. All the actions against the government were limited to attempts to embarrass and weaken the current prime minister, not overthrow the whole government or even just force elections. The idea was to force the PM to resign and replace him with his "token moderate". Someone politically halfway between Tony Benn and Tony Blair.

Even as an American, I found the mini-series fascinating. Since I knew at that time that a "Red Landslide" in the UK was impossible, it made for just a very interesting bit of entertainment. Especially with no one being particularly vilified, save for the PM's "token moderate". Has anyone else seen the mini-series and knows the title?

*-Note that the issues on the Labor Party's platform: withdrawal from NATO, nuclear disarmament, joining the Warsaw Pact[SIZE=-4]ok, just kidding on that one[/SIZE]; these were never addressed as they were not the points the show was trying to make. It was about the national and political sovereignty of a fully functioning democracy.