"A Very British Transition" - A Post-Junta Britain TL
- Thread starter powerab
- Start date
@powerab mainly but of course anyone can chime in...
Any chance of a major push for electoral reform being retrofitted on consideration in the "Cardiff Accords?"
In Europe in general, the majority of nations have some kind of party-based semi-proportional electoral systems. I call them "semi" because rather few go on a straight basis of total national proportionality, most breaking the nation up into regions in which proportionality prevails more or less, but this can lead to national disproportionality of course.
Now "proportional" in this sense necessarily refers to the electoral system recognizing parties and thus to some degree privileging party organizers, something that opponents of reform in nations that don't have these systems or are discontented with blame for problems. And certainly I do think one can provide for the benefits of party-proportionality in ways that privilege party organizers and big wigs a lot less--but guess which alternatives faced with these choices the party big wigs like to promote and which they like to discredit?
Meanwhile--across the Irish Sea, back in the settlement leading to the Irish Free state and eventually fully independent Republic, it was the British negotiators who demanded that Ireland's legislature (the democratically elected lower house, the upper Senead is appointive) the Dàil, should be elected by Single Transferable Vote, with districts ranging from 2 to 5 members. They did this because they anticipated the interests the Unionists backed as being overwhelmed and shut out of all power if Ireland adopted the same first past the post single member district system that Britain has relied on for centuries. Now I hardly think STV is the perfect electoral system, I think giving voters express ability to get party-proportionality is pretty important and not just for established parties either, and have some radical though to my mind simple and straightforward solutions. But in the context--conservative Junta supporters versus a rising oppositional majority that leans farther left than right, and harks to continental models perhaps, and with British tradition largely discredited through having broken down in the Junta--might not STV emerge as a compromise solution? Unlike systems that formally grant key electoral roles to parties, STV is in principle party-agnostic, like FPTP what is happening in theory is a contest between individual candidates for office from a particular district, in isolation from all others in the nation. There is no need to notice the existence of parties at all, as far as determining which candidates win seats go; in theory ballots and outcome reporting can fail to mention any party affiliations whatsoever. Yet, to a limited and distorted degree, the mechanism can in fact be said to be semi-proportional. Sort of--the fewer the average number of members in a district, the larger a group can be and still fail of representation, and I have graphed the outcomes of the Irish Dàil elections from the early '80s to the present day plotting share of representation in the Dàil won versus share of (first choice) national popular vote and can show the systematic pattern of distortion in favor of the larger parties, squeezing out of smaller ones and randomization of shares of intermediate ones.
However in the circumstances, might it not emerge either directly from the Cardiff Accords, or as a broadly popular party platform shared by the left wing and separatist parties if rejected by the Nationals, to implement STV in Britain?
A specific scheme I would suggest might be adopted would be to form the existing 600 odd constituencies consistently into 200-odd 3 member groups, for a uniform national system of consolidated three member districts. Three is a low average for purposes of gaining proportionality IMHO, five might be a lot better--but such districts would not be tremendously large, the computational mechanics of the STV process would be simpler than in larger districts, and there is much to be said for uniformity.
OTOH, the UK House of Commons has a rather poor history of achieving uniformity in district sizes OTL, and it might be that three might be adopted as a minimum (avoiding or forbidding 2 member districts) but local constituency voters might be given the option of forming larger districts with mutual majority approval--four neighboring standard districts might vote to reform into 3 four member districts or 2 six member; five might reform into three 5 member districts, and so on--I don't think there will be much support for individual districts being larger than 7 member. If there is a diversity in numbers of district members but fair proportionality in population to member, then the more limited opportunity for smaller parties presented by the standard 3 member district might be offset by the larger districts opening more doors.
One reason I could see STV being promoted is that all groups have some reason to fear being shut out out of proportion to their numbers.
Another is that adoption of STV has a track record mainly in English speaking nations. Australia uses it for their Senate, and I believe the system was invented in the USA as a once quite widespread reform of city government. Now in the USA it was largely purged away in the pretext that it was misrepresented as a "Communist" scheme, but in the context of a Junta government grudgingly but with a sense of necessity seeking to negotiate a transition back to democratic validation of HMG, such Blimpish talk would have little traction with the dissident majority that has heard plenty of such cant over the decades, whereas the conservatives themselves might fear being shut out of power if simple pluralities carry the boroughs and ridings. (The distinction between "borough" and "riding" might ironically have to go by the board in the process of consolidating traditional constituencies into triple groupings of them; it would often be the case that a borough is fused with its country counterpart into one sensible regional district incorporating both urban and suburban/rural voters).
As I alluded, I personally don't think STV would be entirely satisfactory from the point of view of maximizing and equalizing the power of each voter. It would be likely to favor the persistence of a "two and a half party system" but that of course should be appealing to British sensibilities, as it has been the House of Commons pattern for hundreds of years.
I'd want to improve on it, but there are reasons the sort of improvements I would recommend might work well on the basis of STV ranked choice voting. Meanwhile just adopting it as is full stop would be a compromise between Continental-influenced party proportionalists and die-hard defenders of the virtues of FPTP.
Any chance of a major push for electoral reform being retrofitted on consideration in the "Cardiff Accords?"
In Europe in general, the majority of nations have some kind of party-based semi-proportional electoral systems. I call them "semi" because rather few go on a straight basis of total national proportionality, most breaking the nation up into regions in which proportionality prevails more or less, but this can lead to national disproportionality of course.
Now "proportional" in this sense necessarily refers to the electoral system recognizing parties and thus to some degree privileging party organizers, something that opponents of reform in nations that don't have these systems or are discontented with blame for problems. And certainly I do think one can provide for the benefits of party-proportionality in ways that privilege party organizers and big wigs a lot less--but guess which alternatives faced with these choices the party big wigs like to promote and which they like to discredit?
Meanwhile--across the Irish Sea, back in the settlement leading to the Irish Free state and eventually fully independent Republic, it was the British negotiators who demanded that Ireland's legislature (the democratically elected lower house, the upper Senead is appointive) the Dàil, should be elected by Single Transferable Vote, with districts ranging from 2 to 5 members. They did this because they anticipated the interests the Unionists backed as being overwhelmed and shut out of all power if Ireland adopted the same first past the post single member district system that Britain has relied on for centuries. Now I hardly think STV is the perfect electoral system, I think giving voters express ability to get party-proportionality is pretty important and not just for established parties either, and have some radical though to my mind simple and straightforward solutions. But in the context--conservative Junta supporters versus a rising oppositional majority that leans farther left than right, and harks to continental models perhaps, and with British tradition largely discredited through having broken down in the Junta--might not STV emerge as a compromise solution? Unlike systems that formally grant key electoral roles to parties, STV is in principle party-agnostic, like FPTP what is happening in theory is a contest between individual candidates for office from a particular district, in isolation from all others in the nation. There is no need to notice the existence of parties at all, as far as determining which candidates win seats go; in theory ballots and outcome reporting can fail to mention any party affiliations whatsoever. Yet, to a limited and distorted degree, the mechanism can in fact be said to be semi-proportional. Sort of--the fewer the average number of members in a district, the larger a group can be and still fail of representation, and I have graphed the outcomes of the Irish Dàil elections from the early '80s to the present day plotting share of representation in the Dàil won versus share of (first choice) national popular vote and can show the systematic pattern of distortion in favor of the larger parties, squeezing out of smaller ones and randomization of shares of intermediate ones.
However in the circumstances, might it not emerge either directly from the Cardiff Accords, or as a broadly popular party platform shared by the left wing and separatist parties if rejected by the Nationals, to implement STV in Britain?
A specific scheme I would suggest might be adopted would be to form the existing 600 odd constituencies consistently into 200-odd 3 member groups, for a uniform national system of consolidated three member districts. Three is a low average for purposes of gaining proportionality IMHO, five might be a lot better--but such districts would not be tremendously large, the computational mechanics of the STV process would be simpler than in larger districts, and there is much to be said for uniformity.
OTOH, the UK House of Commons has a rather poor history of achieving uniformity in district sizes OTL, and it might be that three might be adopted as a minimum (avoiding or forbidding 2 member districts) but local constituency voters might be given the option of forming larger districts with mutual majority approval--four neighboring standard districts might vote to reform into 3 four member districts or 2 six member; five might reform into three 5 member districts, and so on--I don't think there will be much support for individual districts being larger than 7 member. If there is a diversity in numbers of district members but fair proportionality in population to member, then the more limited opportunity for smaller parties presented by the standard 3 member district might be offset by the larger districts opening more doors.
One reason I could see STV being promoted is that all groups have some reason to fear being shut out out of proportion to their numbers.
Another is that adoption of STV has a track record mainly in English speaking nations. Australia uses it for their Senate, and I believe the system was invented in the USA as a once quite widespread reform of city government. Now in the USA it was largely purged away in the pretext that it was misrepresented as a "Communist" scheme, but in the context of a Junta government grudgingly but with a sense of necessity seeking to negotiate a transition back to democratic validation of HMG, such Blimpish talk would have little traction with the dissident majority that has heard plenty of such cant over the decades, whereas the conservatives themselves might fear being shut out of power if simple pluralities carry the boroughs and ridings. (The distinction between "borough" and "riding" might ironically have to go by the board in the process of consolidating traditional constituencies into triple groupings of them; it would often be the case that a borough is fused with its country counterpart into one sensible regional district incorporating both urban and suburban/rural voters).
As I alluded, I personally don't think STV would be entirely satisfactory from the point of view of maximizing and equalizing the power of each voter. It would be likely to favor the persistence of a "two and a half party system" but that of course should be appealing to British sensibilities, as it has been the House of Commons pattern for hundreds of years.
I'd want to improve on it, but there are reasons the sort of improvements I would recommend might work well on the basis of STV ranked choice voting. Meanwhile just adopting it as is full stop would be a compromise between Continental-influenced party proportionalists and die-hard defenders of the virtues of FPTP.
So to give a brief summary of the current electoral system under the Cardiff Accords.
The House of Commons is composed of 497 members elected by universal adult suffrage for a four-year term of office. Each one of Britain's 40 provinces is a constituency entitled to an initial minimum of three seats. The remaining 377 seats are allocated among the forty provinces in proportion to their populations. Parties, federations and coalitions may present candidates or lists of candidates. The lists are closed, so electors may not choose individual candidates in or alter the order of such lists. Electors cast a ballot for a single list.
The seats in each constituency are apportioned according to the d'hondt method. Since each seat has an average of 10-12 members, the defacto electoral threshold is fairly high as parties must get 8-10% of the vote in a constituency to make it into Parliament. So whilst it is a PR system it is construed to produce strong results for the two major parties.
STV was considered but both SDP and National supporters were worried this could lead to the rise of independents or maverick MPs within the parties who could cause trouble. As Britain is a fairly authoritarian society, both parties wanted to maintain a high level of control over their electoral lists, making STV unpalatable. A PR system under D'Hondt with a small legislature and small constituencies was seen as the best option.
Last edited:
Yes the Rolling Stones, Beatles and other subversive acts fled abroad, mostly to the states. Lennon especially became a vocal critic of the Junta whilst living in exile, funding and supporting international "Free Britain" campaigns. There are conspiracy theories that MI6 was involved in Lennon's death but little concrete evidence.
What made Mountbatten say yes to the coup here? I took a quick look at the 1968 incident, and it sounds like the British equivalent to the American "Business Plot" of 1933, an effective non-incident driven by the megalomania of a few malcontented businesspeople whose choice of Generalissimo wasn't the least bit interested in participating in treason on their behalf. Maybe he could have been won over, I don't know a ton about Mountbatten or this moment in British history, it just seems like a thing where you'd need some groundwork beforehand to make it work.
Did mountbatten have his govt of national unity? The best brains in the government without party? What happened to Rhodesia?
Aha! I never imagined that British conservatives would stomach switching over to an explicitly party-list based system, but here with you saying flat out that is what they did (maybe not as their first preference to be sure) I quite accept that this is a plausible move for them to make. For their opposition it makes perfect sense they'd tout a system broadly similar to continental systems post-WWII.
It even makes sense they ignore the attempt to hybridize constituency and party-list the Germans developed now widely known and used in various forms as "MMP." As you say, apparently there wasn't a big tent "constitutional convention" type process, it was a matter of a handful of insider negotiators for the opposition meeting counterparts for the Junta establishment and doing a handshake deal.
As Boss William Marcy Tweed is supposed to have said, "I don't care who does the electin' as long as I do the nominatin'!" If the parties are granted power to set up their lists, there is little practical recourse voters have to put pressure on them; the voters are given a choice between several party platforms and their judgement of how closely this or that party will hew to actually doing it, and only a few parties have the credible strength to put their platform through anyway. Without some flexible way for insurgent mavericks to insert themselves and make a case for voters to shift support to them, then democracy such as it is comes down to the big parties judging which policy offerings will be most persuasive from the limited range of practical choices to gain sufficient voter support.
If instead the reform agreement were for something like German MMP, then such maverick "still small voices" of gadfly conscience could get into Parliament via the FPTP constituency races and annoy them and put them at risk of voters jumping ship around proven leaders if only in debate, if they have persuasive sounding alternative proposals.
It just seemed like a major flip from FPTP's apparent party-neutrality to jump straight to party-list closed systems, but of course if the aim is to keep power under control of a few gentlemen power brokers, with voters basically empowered only to determine which of them has the most patronage to dispense, then this was exactly the right move. So much for all the talk of constituency bonds and glorious independency and all that!
For the record, I think one can achieve both superior party-proportionality and at the same time much fairer chances for genuine independents without complication. But then again, every time I try to explain it people think it is too complicated, so I won't try. None of it is to the point anyway when the persons making the agreements with each other don't have the value of making every vote count equally and fairly as their guiding principle, and are simply trying to maximize the power of their faction. It is quite humorous though that this is the compromise reform they make.
And just maybe, it has potential to bite these power brokers in the backside...
I think this is just one of those TLs where you have to accept a POD to get to an interesting story. There’s no way the 1968 incident would actually result in a hard coup, and it’s even less likely for it to be a junta style dictatorship.
‘A very British coup’, which I suppose the name was borrowed from, is the only way I can imagine a modern British ‘coup’ taking place.
But the story is interesting and I’m enjoying it anyway.
As @saluto said is the short version.
To be honest the initial PoD is fairly ASB. Which is why I don't go into a huge amount of detail around the coup and the Junta years. In my head essentially the Wilson of this TL is more the Bevanite Wilson of the 50s, rather than the moderate he turned into in opposition. So for Mountbatten and the British establishment mass nationalisations and withdrawal from NATO are seen as a genuine threat, leading them to step in. But again this is fairly implausible so I'm trying to keep it vague for the sake of the story.
Yes initially Mountbatten formed a Cabinet of Conservatives, Liberals, Ulster Unionists, Moderates from Labour. As well as his allies in business, media, the military and other "best brains" who had hastily been promoted to the Lords. This National Government would eventually form what became the National Party.
So Rhodesia had declared Independence three years before the coup, which was one of the factors leading to the military stepping in. Due to the fact Britain was so unstable after the coup, Rhodesia had effectively been independent for three years and overnight Britain had lost both international support and the moral high-ground Mountbatten was reluctant to intervene, leaving Rhodesia to their own devices. This of course led to the Bush Wars and the rise of Zimbabwe.
It's always nice to meet another electoral system nerd!
You've summarised it better than I ever could, obviously since Britain hasn't had elections or a democratic culture for 40 years there was fear, (especially amongst the new opposition parties) at the Cardiff Accords that FPTP, STV or open lists would lead to a raft of independent local pub landlords and parish council chairmen being elected to Parliament.
As for backside biting, you'll just have to wait and see...
Generally OTL One Nation Tories are in National. They are generally associated with the Reformist Wing of the Party, the Reformists support the transition to democracy, neo-liberal economic reforms and accession into Europe.
Ken Clarke served as Home Secretary in the Hill-Norton administration for seven years but resigned in 1998 after failing to prevent a bombing attack on Leicester Station. Despite this he remains one of National's most senior civilian politicians. He heads the National Party list in the Derbyshire constituency.
David Cameron currently works as a Senior Staffer at National's Party HQ, helping to coordinate their election campaign.
How has the rest of the world particular the Commonwealth nations reacted to Britain's coup?
Did General Walter C. Walker play a role in the coup or in the consequent regime? Was Wilson executed under allegations of treason due him being “exposed” as a Soviet spy? I’m pondering how much will be more integrated EU without UK as member state.