A hard left Labour government in the UK in the 1980s

I do not think that this is at all likely however with a series of PODs it might just have been possible.

1) No Falklands war

2) Owen gets to lead the SDP and manages to smash the alliance with the Liberal Party (unlikely but not quite impossible)

3) Livingstone's efforts on reducing fares and increasing rates (property taxes) are not blocked by the Courts.

4) Thatcher decides to push through both the abolition of the GLC and the Poll Tax without a specific mandate.

5) Kenny Everett's absurd comments happen at worse time for tories- say and 1983 conference. Remember he got cheers for saying 'let bomb Russia' and "let's kick Michael Foot's stick away". Foot suffers a fall which disables him enough to prevent him carrying on as leader.

6) Livingstone wins a by election and the Labour leadership.

The General election in May 1984 goes something like

Labour 38% 341

Tories 37% 270 seats

SDP (Owen worshipers) 8% 2 Seats

Liberal Party 12% 11 seats

Others 5% 26 seats (mostly Northern Irish)


Labour getting an overall majority on such a low vote and low lead over the tories may sound unlikely but there was already and bias to Labour against the tories in constituences and turn out even then.


What happens next?

Would there be less than Constitutional attempts to undermine the government by elements in the UK.

Would Reagan be tempted to treat Britain like Chile or Honduras?
 
The UK is fucked. Seriously.

If they're really hard left then they'd probably start by rolling back a lot of the Conservative government's trade union legislation and economic policies. Look forward to Winter of Discontent II coming to a country near you very soon.

Edit: actually I'm not sure if they'd started on introducing trade union legislation by 1984 yet. Either way a hard left government is going not introduce them or roll back any that have been introduced I would expect.
 
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Many AH.commers feel a strange disturbance in the force, as if some sacred idol had been displaced.
 
I was commenting on the quick reaction by posters here, positing that Alternate history writers in the ATL feeling like some great sacred idol (Thatcher and Thatcherism) to be missing.
 
Read the Fourth Protocol, or even the film Octopussy. Both detail how a hard left/Soviet-sympathetic government is possible in the UK.

The former is more likely - get more hard-left wing MPs elected to Parliament somehow. Then have a media-friendly candidate win the election in 1983 and immediately dumped after the victory for the hard-left candidate using internal party rules. Just like Ken Livingstone did when he became leader of the Greater London Council in 1981.

The UK wouldn't necessarily be crippled by such a move - they would be able to use oil revenues to support ambitious social programmes like investing in housing stock and renewing schools and hospitals à la Scandinavian Socialism but there's a strong chance that dead-duck industries would be propped up like British Coal, British Steel et al.

The Falklands War didn't win the election for Thatcher - look at the Gulf War and George Bush sr. It was the Labour manifesto that Tony Benn wrote, the infamous "Longest Suicide Note in History" that killed their chances. If the hard left can play it canny, keep their collective mouths shut, the SDP won't form, Foot could have really turned the screws on Thatcher over the Falklands after all, there were many questionable decisions and actions over the war. Furthermore the 1979 election campaign had the award-winning killer Saatchi posters of "Labour isn't Working" and the long dole queues. Well in 1983 unemployment topped 3 million, 1.2 million more than in 1979. The fear of nuclear war had many a CND protest so scrapping Trident and redistributing the money towards the social sector could have been a vote winner. But opportunities were lost, squandered and frankly, pissed away.
 

Tovarich

Banned
ljofa said:
The former is more likely - get more hard-left wing MPs elected to Parliament somehow. Then have a media-friendly candidate win the election in 1983 and immediately dumped after the victory for the hard-left candidate using internal party rules. Just like Ken Livingstone did when he became leader of the Greater London Council in 1981.

This always makes me rofpmsl!:D

Good grief, if we on the 'Hard Left' had ever been capable of that level of organisation, don't you think we'd have been running the world decades ago?!*
This was opportunism, not conspiracy.


And talking of opportunism....
ljofa said:
The Falklands War didn't win the election for Thatcher - look at the Gulf War and George Bush sr.

The 'Falklands Factor' cannot be overestimated.
Thatcher's government was the most unpopular since records began, right up until that point, despite all the right-wing media bullying of Labour already being in place.
They are hardly comparable situations, though.
Thatcher's war was defending sovereign British territory and people (even though the same government gave the Falklanders about as many rights as Hong Kong British passport holders)
GW1 was all about oil, and 'Joe 6-Pack' of the 1990s knew it.

*(Heh, if we were that capable, we'd even be running it well!):cool:
 

Cook

Banned
1) No Falklands war

I’d be curious to know what sort of a backlash Thatcher and the Conservatives would have suffered in the more likely scenario that the Falklands War goes ahead but is a military disaster. Exocet hits on Invincible and Canberra prior to the landings devastate the Task Force and humiliate the Government.
 

Tovarich

Banned
The jingoistic fervour was well whipped-up before the task-force ever left shore.

In the event of Argentina forcing back the TF (unlikely), I suspect somehow the previous Labour government would have been blamed by the media.

I also very much doubt that Thatcher would have nuked Buenos Aires.....though that does make for entertaining TLs, so long as people realise entertainment is all they are!
 
If the hard left can play it canny, keep their collective mouths shut,
Then they wouldn't be the hard left.


There were people in British Labour who wanted to negotiate a more moderate manifesto to be taken to the people but there were others who realised that if there was any negotiation with the hard left then the moderates would aquire ownership of the defeat. By standing back the moderates allowed the hard left to hang themselves and denied them any scapegoats amoung the moderates. Thus planting the seeds of the longest lasting Labour government in British history. If Foot or Livingstone had won in 1983, the Conservatives would have been back by 1988.
 
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