A second take on dictatorial Britain

Which is more likely to result in a coup and/or a dictatorial/military régime?

  • 1968: MI5 coup against Harold Wilson

    Votes: 27 61.4%
  • 1981: Great Riots of '81

    Votes: 5 11.4%
  • 1984-85: The Miners' Strike

    Votes: 6 13.6%
  • 1990: Poll Tax Riot

    Votes: 1 2.3%
  • Other (explain)

    Votes: 5 11.4%

  • Total voters
    44
What option do you consider likeliest for a coup d'état and/or the establishment of a dictatorship to take place in Great-Britain between 1960 and 1990?
EDIT: events prior to 1960 bringing about a state of dictatorship in the mentioned timespan are also fine -but spare us Sealion please:rolleyes:.
 
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An interesting question. Using any of those to create a dictatorship is quite hard, given the checks and balances the country has, but going through them sequentially:

MI5 Coup Against Wilson: Possibly the most plausible if it were to actually happen. Mountbatten would be the Interim Leader but all evidence (the little of it that exists) was that the dreamers who wanted to put this in place wished to replace Wilson and his 'cabal' with moderate blue Labourites and hand over power to a traditional Tory government. Democracy would not be suspended for very long, IIRC. But the coup was so disparate and not ever really considered/planned, so it's quite a weak option here.

The 1981 Riots: Not much chance of them leading to a dictatorship. Thatcher was so unpopular that any attempt to suspend elections with the riots as a justification might simply lead to open rebellion and the police/Army moving against her.

The Miners' Strike: While this period is the most authoritarian Britain has been in recent history, it never got that close to dictatorship. Yes, the Army and Special Forces were deployed against civilians, and movement was restricted around the country for the first time since the war, but the crucial element of the suspension of democracy was absent and, IIRC, never considered. You'd need a fair few butterflies and a lot more violence to make this possible and, again, a leader (eg Thatcher) who was prepared to institute an actual lasting dictatorship, rather than a Roman-style 'temporary government of one'. I don't think Maggie ever really wanted that (apart from in November 1990).

The Poll Tax Riots: See the 1981 riots, really. No logical way for a dictatorship to be established from this.

Others: Short of a government-toppling General Strike in the 1970s and an ensuing Dictatorship of the Proletariat under Jack Jones (which is only seen as likely by the Daily Mail, the addled mind of Baroness Thatcher and morons) it's very difficult to see a single event causing a dictatorship in the birthplace of parliamentary democracy. Certainly between 1960 and 1990. The interwar period has the actual General Strike, of course, which could have gone much worse for the government and maybe seen some degree of dictatorship somewhere along the line. If you read What If Gordon Banks Had Played, one of the great TLs of AH.com, that shows what happens if Enoch Powell leads the Tories to victory in 1974 and the Troubles go a lot worse. That's quite a plausible (if reliant on a much bolder IRA) circumstance for dictatorship in 20th century Britain. And even then it's less of a dictatorship than a dictatorship-by-committee - without spoiling anything, Powell himself is less in charge than those around him.
 
None of those four options is remotely plausible.

The "MI5 Coup against Wilson" is a discredited myth put about by some on the left. There is no sign that any of the main "participants" (i.e. Mountbatten) were even aware of it.

1981 is equally unlikely, while Thatchers polls weren't great she was up against Foot so she had 3 more years of a large majority and the worst Opposition leader ever so she had no need and there was no way that a few trots were going to overthrow her.

Miners strike is equally out, despite left-wing myth the police coped fine without needing military support so its very ASB to see that happening.

As for the Poll Tax, no logical way.

If Gordon Banks Played is the best way though that wasn't a coup or real dictatorship as Powell won every election he fought. But it is correct in saying that it would take a series of things going badly wrong over a decade to get within a million miles of a proper (rather than political) coup in the UK.
 
Miners strike is equally out, despite left-wing myth the police coped fine without needing military support so its very ASB to see that happening.

A longer lasting, more violent miner's strike might push the government to even more authoritarian measures though.
 
Prime Minister Power

Many many moons ago one of the 'o' level questions in Brit Con was :-

"The power that a PM wields would be envied by a dictator. Discus"

I know from friends who were in the services at the time that certain branches of the armed forces were deploted during the miners strike, however to go from that to which would effectively been martial law to full coup would require the whole parliamentary party to back the PM, and for the whole armed forces to politically back and believe in that action. I can't see that happening in any of those scenarios.

Happily for those of us who live in the UK the armed froces are apolitical (though small c conservative) and political parties too much of a broad church to blindly support cabals... so far
 
Apparently after the Great War a conservative mp said that victory had made David Lloyd George so popular that he could be made dictator for life if he wishes. So let's say the Welshman did want it, could it really happen? And how?
 
No. It couldn't, he wasn't that popular as latter events showed and even if he was ASB'd with the mind of Stalin he wouldn't be able to make other people go along with it.
 
Suppose the miners won in 1984-5. The country would have hit rock bottom: the government at the mercy of the unions, no end in sight in Northern Ireland, law and order collapsing and both parties having failed. What's next?
 
Suppose the miners won in 1984-5. The country would have hit rock bottom: the government at the mercy of the unions, no end in sight in Northern Ireland, law and order collapsing and both parties having failed. What's next?

The unions break the habit of several decades and accept reform, mass nationalisation is even more effective than it was first time around, Labour bring perpetual peace to Northern Ireland 13 years early and Britain becomes an economic powerhouse in a manner similar to the Soviet Union or Cuba
 
Mrs T had prepared for the miners strike, coal was stockpilled and she outsmarted Scargill politically on nearly every step of the way. If he had fought a better campaign then our heavy industry would/may have survived better in the short term at least and the unions would have been stronger too. Still not a revolution or coup though IMHO
 
All these options are ASB. The only way Britain is going to loose it's democracy is voter apathy. Fewer and fewer people are voting in elections untill someone realises that if they just do away with the democratic process nobody will care. By the time people wake up to what happened it'll be to late. Unlikely in the timeframe we're discussing but possible for the future :confused:
 

Thande

Donor
1968 is the only one of those with even the slightest possibility of revolution and dictatorship, and it's still vanishingly small.
 
Not going to happen. A military coup would only be remotely possible if you have a far left Labour government and all the other options had failed - but a far left Labour government is unlikely anyway, and even if you got one, the moderates in the party aren't just going to be butterflied away.
 
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