Out from the Wilderness: The Tories Initial Years in Power 1936-1937
Following the formation of the first Conservative led coalition since 1928, Irwin's government was faced with several challenges. Irwin's government continued the policies of Mosley's administration, with the Tories broadly acknowledging that the social reforms were here to stay. Irwin, also continued the thaw in relations between the two nations, and King George V visited the Irish Free State for the first time since partition. [1]
Irwin, like previous Prime Ministers viewed the good Anglo-German relations cultivated since the 1920s as the cornerstone of Britain's policy towards Europe, particularly given France's lurch to militarism, and Russia's increased sabre-rattling in the east. Irwin, also concerned by the threat of war in Central Europe [2], also made overtures to the military regime of Pietro Bagdolio in Italy, which caused tensions within the coalition government, though Liberal leader Winston Churchill supported him. Irwin, continued the rearmament programme of Mosley's government, and unsettled by the Anti-Semitic pogroms taking place in Russia, agreed to accept several thousand Jewish refugees from the East (Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden also did the same.) [3]
[1] The king, who was ailing in health at this point, was reasonably well-received, and the two countries seemed to be heading for full normalisation of relations by the end of the 1930s.
[2] Austria's collapse into anarchy and Italy's growing tensions with Yugoslavia made the region look dangerously unstable.
[3] The militarist regime of Diterikhs continued the long infamous Tsarist policy of instigating violence against the Jews and other minorities. While nowhere on the same scale as OTL Nazi attitude, the violence was high, with around 200,000 displaced.