"A Very British Transition" - A Post-Junta Britain TL
- Thread starter powerab
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Chirac was part of the original drafting of the Treaty of Vienna but Sarkozy is currently implementing it. It's certainly unpopular but the price one pays for a more integrated EU. France is a lot weaker geopolitically than OTL as there is no Anglo-French axis to balance out Germany in Europe and the US in NATO/the UN
My guess is that we will see a Le Pen presidency or a french president who will want to slow the European Union. As a french the France you describe is a nightmare, I hope France will retake her seat at the security council
LePen has certainly been bolstered by this, as well as by the influx of migrants from the United Kingdom, she's currently polling 4th for the 2012 Presidential election with an average of 12% to Sarkozy's 24%, the Socialist's 17% and Bayrou's 16%. But this is sure to increase when the financial crisis hits.
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ITTL, are children born to British parents abroad jus solis or jus sanguinis, and how does this affect the diaspora in the Netherlands since dual citizenship isn't permitted, unless things are different for the Netherlands ITTL?
Children born to British exiles are still considered British. The Dutch diaspora is one of the largest exile communities and obviously since dual citizenship isn't permitted many Brits were forced to give up their citizenship upon being exiled. Now Britain has joined the EU it isn't such an issue as British Dutchmen are free to come and go as they please but in the early days it was a real problem.
Well she could face Sarkozy or the socialist candidate in the second turn of the elections. But i would have thought that she would poll higher with those factors.
According to the sources I could find (admittedly I can't speak French so might be a miss translation) Le Pen was polling around 7% at this point in history, so it's nearly double her OTL polling.
ITTL, how are the United Kingdom's foreign relations with these countries:
ITTL, a Volkswagen Jetta 1.4 turbo saloon in Mexico probably costs around £13,000, but adding on import costs and VAT , what would be the full cost?
Are buses by firms like Mercedes-Benz used, © Wikimedia Commons 2020 image of Mercedes-Benz Citaro bus:
- China
- South Africa
- Japan
- Taiwan
- Mexico
- Chile
- India
- Canada
ITTL, a Volkswagen Jetta 1.4 turbo saloon in Mexico probably costs around £13,000, but adding on import costs and VAT , what would be the full cost?
Are buses by firms like Mercedes-Benz used, © Wikimedia Commons 2020 image of Mercedes-Benz Citaro bus:
In 2008 the leader of the party was the father of Marine Le Pen and he was less more popular than her when she became head of the FN. The first time Marine Le Pen appeared in the poll was in 2009 and she polled at 11%. She only became the head of the FN in 2011 and at this time she polled around 20%.
ITTL, how are the United Kingdom's foreign relations with these countries:
Also, would a car built in Mexico - for example, the Volkswagen Jetta or a vehicle built in Turkey like the Mercedes-Benz Citaro bus, face steep tariffs?
- China
- South Africa
- Japan
- Taiwan
- Mexico
- Chile
- India
- Canada
ITTL, a Volkswagen Jetta 1.4 turbo saloon in Mexico probably costs around £13,000, but adding on import costs and VAT , what would be the full cost?
Are buses by firms like Mercedes-Benz used, © Wikimedia Commons 2020 image of Mercedes-Benz Citaro bus:
- China - Worse than OTL, due to Britain's weakened state China was essentially able to take back Hong Kong in 1997 no negotiations, humiliating the UK. The UK has also taken a great number of Hong Kong exiles, angering Beijing.
- South Africa - Also worse, Junta Britain was one of the few states to support apartheid South Africa, which the ANC government remembers. Relations have improved somewhat since the fall of the Junta and Johnson has apologised for Britain's historical apartheid support.
- Japan - Roughly on par with OTL relations
- Taiwan - Stronger than OTL as Junta Britain had a stronger anti-communist line and a more confrontational attitude to the PRC
- Mexico - Also roughly on par with OTL
- Chile - Worse than OTL, similarly to South Africa Britain had close relations with Pinochet's Chile, which angered politicians in democratic Chile, again relations have improved since the fall of the Junta
- India - Slightly better than OTL as the Junta favoured India over Pakistan in conflicts such as Kashmir, but generally similar to OTL
- Canada - Worse than OTL as Canada was horrified by Britain's fall to authoritarianism, but these have improved as Britain democratised. Canada and Britain often compete for de-facto leadership of the Commonwealth as Britain is a lot weaker internationally
Whilst Mercedes has exploded into the British market, uptake in the private sector is slow so most buses are made in Britain by companies like Alexander Dennis.
Chapter 37: Cash Out
The Johnson administration had loosened regulations governing City financiers
“Although desirable, financial deregulation alongside political liberalisation can be disastrous if not managed properly. If the regulatory structure is not in place before liberalisation, risk-taking behaviour will not be constrained. Bad loans are a likely outcome, with potential calamitous consequences for bank balance sheets at some point in the future. Financial deregulation alongside political liberalisation also often leads to a lending boom, because of increased opportunities for citizens. We saw this in the British example. The authorities (Treasury and Bank of England) realised that the previous framework was flawed in many respects. The regulations in place at the time of the banking crisis were inadequate and insufficient. The financial statements provided by banks did not permit testing of the real risks of the institutions.” - The Financial Crises and Financial Reforms in Transition Britain, Scott James (2020)
You know what the great thing is about being allowed back into the global democratic order? - International finance. As an up and coming new market spending vast sums on infrastructure improvements, Britain became a hub for international investors and infrastructure borrowing. Britain’s accession to this new-fangled euro currency made it even easier for Britain to procure international capital. Then a thousand miles away a bank by the name of Lehman Brothers collapsed, then another then another and suddenly the entire international financial system was crumbling down and Great Britain was stuck in the middle. Britain’s many rich friends suddenly began to cash out as all the world’s nations looked inwards to mitigate the crash in their own borders.
For Britain the main problem was a housing bubble. The Johnson administration had overseen a mass sale of state housing. Hundreds of thousands of Brits became homeowners for the first time ever, and international investors had bought up homes in major cities like London. House building had also exploded as the government sought to modernise Britain’s housing stock with 1.4 million new homes built in four years. Despite all these new homes many were built up by wealthy external investors, with over a quarter of British homes unoccupied. Real estate prices had exploded by over 200% in just a few short years since the fall of the Junta and British homeowners owed almost a trillion euros in mortgage debts collectively.
Britain’s politicians were reluctant to do anything about Britain's housing bubble as nearly all MPs had at least some investments in the housing market, with some MPs owning over 20 homes. Then the banks tumbled down and the bubble popped, the British construction industry crumbled by over 25%, areas on the periphery like Scotland and Northumberland were hit especially hard with the construction industry in these provinces falling by nearly 50%. Britain’s construction boom had provided decent paying good quality jobs for thousands of working class Brits, now many of them were in the dole queue, eyeing up the airport to emigrate.
Emigration increased by 30% in 2008, mostly to Ireland
As the bubble burst Britain’s housing market collapsed, many who had invested their life savings into a mortgage deposit found their shiny new house worth less than half of what they had paid for.Many of Britain’s infrastructure plans were abandoned halfway as the state ran out of money, extra runways on Heathrow and Stansted airport were abandoned before finishing as the Treasury rushed to secure capital, planned new “eco-towns” were dropped and rail upgrades were “indefinitely shelved”. This of course had knock-on effects for the banks, especially smaller ones. Britain had a system of small, partly state owned regional banks operating in most of the larger provinces.
“New towns, like Churchill, in the East of London, or Brunel, North of Eastbourne, were never finished and became ‘ghost towns’. In Churchill, for instance, 21,000 apartments were built, out of 80,000 planned, and less than 4,000 were occupied. One of the transformations of savings banks practices in Britain involved offering loans to private corporations, which was not the case under the Junta. For many bank ranches, this practice changed daily activities, and even their socio-economic role. Some savings banks like Anglia based Lowestoft Savings, were more reluctant than others, such as the Bank of London, in accepting this change. But, the transformation took place by “doubtful loans” in the “construction” business. Managers at every level started to meet entrepreneurs involved in construction.” - The new social role of savings banks and the British financial crisis, Lecture by Mark Blyth, Brown University (2017)
Banks were deeply intertwined with the housing bubble
Leftover from the Junta days, these “Savings Banks” were designed to provide easy to access savings accounts and provide loans for citizens to become homeowners. These banks lent heavily to real estate companies who, one by one were going bankrupt and defaulting on their debts. The Savings Banks found themselves left with the collateral and properties of those companies, overpriced real estate and land, now worthless, rendering the Savings Banks in essence bankrupt. The banks had given the state some control over finance, much more so than banks in Ireland or France, but it also meant when the banks failed the buck stopped with Westminster.
Chancellor Simon Hughes had two options: bailouts or nationalisations. The central government could buy private shares in the Savings Banks and take failing private banks into public ownership, giving the state the resources needed to combat the impending recession, the other option was bailouts and concentrations. The idea being the Treasury would bail out the largest banks and in return these large banks would buy up the smaller regional banks. This would not only consolidate Britain’s bloated financial system but it would cost a lot less in immediate capital than a mass nationalisation programme.The Cabinet was split on the issue, Chancellor Hughes favoured the bailout and consolidation strategy, known in the media as the “Hughes Plan”.
The Hughes plan was supported in Cabinet by Deputy Prime Minister Alan Milburn and Justice Secretary David Miliband. Meanwhile a faction around Agriculture Secretary Glenda Jackson, supported by Culture Secretary Charles Kennedy and Health Secretary Eddie Izzard supported a nationalisation plan. It came down to a Cabinet vote, but with the loss of John Prescott, Peter Tatchell and others from the left of the SDP, the Cabinet was strongly stacked in favour of the Hughes Plan, with Prime Minister Johnson himself voting in favour of the plan. There would be no nationalisations, if the Savings Bank failed, it failed, the Government's main goal was keeping the bigger banks above water, the little banks could always be absorbed, but if the City of London fell the whole British economy could go tumbling down with it.
““A very solid group with more than 14m customers.” That was how a senior Nationwide executive described the big British bank. He assured journalists that the task of integrating the ten regional savings banks in the group was complete. The executive stressed plans to cut costs and reduce debt were well advanced. “We’ve created a brand,” the executive said, although the confidence he sought to convey was undermined by his evident unease. Over a week later, the government of Alan Johnson intervened to save the bank. The game was up for an ill-fated behemoth with more than 5,000 branches and 40,000 employees. Howard Flight, a former Chancellor who became Nationwide's chairman, was obliged to resign. The government announced a bailout at an estimated cost of up to €14bn.” - The bank that broke Britain, Victor Mallet, Financial Times (2008)
Nationwide was one of the largest banks to be bailed out
Absolutely in love with this timeline!
I hadn't thought about the housing market in TTL but you're right that the UK would likely be ideal for Irish or Spanish style housing bubble, what with the generally decreasing population and emigration.
The UK offering guarantees to the biggest UK banks runs the risk of replicating, on a smaller scale, the mistakes made in Ireland in the run up to the sovereign debt crisis. The Irish government in OTL pretty much just gave carte blanche to it's banks. I can't see the UK doing that in TTL, or the effects being as disastrous with the UK's larger more mixed economy, but all the same there's undoubtedly going to be some fall out.
With the UK in the Euro the politics of the European Central Bank are going to be noticeably different. Less German dominance one can hope.
Any chance of an update on the effects of the Euro on the UK's economy up until this point? Has it benefitted the UK's manufacturing sector (ala Germany and the Netherlands) or depressed it (like in Italy, Spain and the like)?
What's the tourism sector like within the UK? As someone who lives in Edinburgh, I can't imagine the Festival being such a huge, all encompassing event in TTL. With serious consequences, both positive and negative, for the city. It's hard to imagine places like Skye, Bute or Eriskay without the thousands of tourists they get every year.
I hadn't thought about the housing market in TTL but you're right that the UK would likely be ideal for Irish or Spanish style housing bubble, what with the generally decreasing population and emigration.
The UK offering guarantees to the biggest UK banks runs the risk of replicating, on a smaller scale, the mistakes made in Ireland in the run up to the sovereign debt crisis. The Irish government in OTL pretty much just gave carte blanche to it's banks. I can't see the UK doing that in TTL, or the effects being as disastrous with the UK's larger more mixed economy, but all the same there's undoubtedly going to be some fall out.
With the UK in the Euro the politics of the European Central Bank are going to be noticeably different. Less German dominance one can hope.
Any chance of an update on the effects of the Euro on the UK's economy up until this point? Has it benefitted the UK's manufacturing sector (ala Germany and the Netherlands) or depressed it (like in Italy, Spain and the like)?
What's the tourism sector like within the UK? As someone who lives in Edinburgh, I can't imagine the Festival being such a huge, all encompassing event in TTL. With serious consequences, both positive and negative, for the city. It's hard to imagine places like Skye, Bute or Eriskay without the thousands of tourists they get every year.
It's hard to give a comprehensive assessment the economic impact of Britain's euro member, Britain's only been in the euro for a year, in the short term this has benefited it's economy as it's made it easier to attract foreign capital and generally manufacturing has grown through all the investment in housing and infrastructure. In the long term it may be more damaging but we'll have to wait and see!
Tourism again has exploded since joining the EU, but this has come from a fairly low baseline compared to OTL. People still visit Buckingham, Tower of London etc so London does well off tourism but Britain's smaller cities and towns not so much. Touristy areas of Scotland such as Skye do get visited but tourism is lower than OTL as the SNLA insurrection has given Scotland a bad reputation.
The Fringe came under heavy censorship during the Junta years due to it's anti-establishment acts, this of course pretty much ruined the festival. It is trying to rebuild in the democratic era but it's not the globally recognised event it is in OTL.
Wikibox: Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party is a Scottish nationalist party in Scotland, United Kingdom. It was redounded in 2004 as the successor organisation to the banned Scottish National Party, alongside other small pro-independence and devolutionist organisations.
The SNP is usually seen as a moderate nationalist party in Britain, as opposed to more radical separatist parties such as RISE. There is some debate on whether the SNP is a conservative or liberal party. The Liberal tendency dominates the SNP at present with leader John Swinney seen as on the Liberal wing, while the centre-right tendencies have been sidelined. Scholars argue the SNP's ideology is deliberately ambiguous so as to appeal to the broadest spectrum possible. The 2005 manifesto states that "we want to build a wide social majority so that Scotland can have its own State in the European frame. Scotland has the will to become a normal country among the world's countries and nations".
In the most recent elections, held in 2005, the SNP won 28.89% of the vote across Scotland. It gained 13 seats in the House of Commons and 47 regional deputies across the four Scottish provinces. Three of the four Scottish Provincial Presidents are from the SNP. After the election, they entered into coalition with the RISE Party in all four provinces. The SNP and RISE cooperate politically in a "non aggression pact". RISE has a completely different political orientation but also supports Scottish independence. Reports in 2008 stated that the pact may break apart due to fractions around SNLA dissidents, with the SNP opposing pardons.
Author's Note: Hey look after two TL's I've worked out how to wrap text on this forum
Tremendous, as always. Britain overheating on terrible loans backed by inflated prices of a first-gen of appraisers and loosely interpreted banks makes sense. Add shiny new currency and you have a disaster with people not understanding value of the funny fruit-colored bills. Also, people don't understand first-time home ownership and how it works as well.