"There was little change during the next hundred years, except that blacklisting became increasingly secretive, mainly becuase employers did not want to provoke strikes over the issue by a stronger trade union movement which was growing in power. Ironically, it was this very secrecy which may have prevented a public outbreak of McCarthyism in Britain during the Cold War. The climate was certainly ripe for a witch-hunt. There was a rash of spies. Some, like Professor Alan Nunn May, Dr Klaus Fuchs and Bruno Pontecorvo, were convicted. Others, like Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, defected to the Soviet Union. There was even an English version of Senator Joseph McCarthy in Sir Waldron Smithers, the organ-playing right-wing Tory MP. Every year from 1947 onwards Smithers would rise in the Commons to ask the Prime Minister of the day to set up a Committee On Un- British Activities' along the lines of the American model. Clement Attlee and later Winston Churchill always greeted this request with a brisk 'No, sir' at Question Time. The way Ministers and senior civil servants dealt with Smithers's demands provides an insight into why McCarthyism did not break out in Britain. The lack of a strong select committee system in Westminster made it very difficult for Smithers to operate. While he was isolated in Parliament as an eccentric reactionary, the US political system has powerful Congressional Committees which McCarthy was able to exploit for his campaign. However, Britian was not entirely immune. In May 1947 Clement Attlee set up a Cabinet committee on 'Subversive Activities', the forerunner of the introduction of positive vetting and the 'loyalty programme' of civil servants in 1948. One of the most disturbing effects was the reaction of private employers and local authoriries. Many tried to take advantage of the Cold War atmosphere. In 1949 the John Lewis Group planned to set up political tests as a condition of employment at a time when their workers were demanding higher wages, and only backed down after angry criticism from all political parties and trades unions. But in the following year some local authorities began dismissing political extremists form teaching posts. One Scottish teracher was refused a job because she had a communist husband--even though the school was short of staff. Some, like London County Council, dropped this policy after protests. But others, like Middlesex County Council, contimued the ban for several years..." Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylor, *Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting,* p. 10. (Lodon: Hogarth Press 1988)
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldron_Smithers "During the Cold War, while MP for Orpington, Smithers in 1947 pressed for a House of Commons Select Committee on un-British Activities to be created to conduct anti-communist investigations, to mirror the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee.[3][4] In 1952, fearing possible sabotage, he wrote to Winston Churchill asking for an enquiry into communist influence at the BBC. "We have traitors in our midst", he wrote, "and although I should deplore suppression of free speech they should be treated as traitors". The letter was not released until January 2016.[4]"
Can anyone see a scenario where Smithers is more than an eccentric and British internal anti-Communism goes much further than the limited steps it took in OTL?
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldron_Smithers "During the Cold War, while MP for Orpington, Smithers in 1947 pressed for a House of Commons Select Committee on un-British Activities to be created to conduct anti-communist investigations, to mirror the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee.[3][4] In 1952, fearing possible sabotage, he wrote to Winston Churchill asking for an enquiry into communist influence at the BBC. "We have traitors in our midst", he wrote, "and although I should deplore suppression of free speech they should be treated as traitors". The letter was not released until January 2016.[4]"
Can anyone see a scenario where Smithers is more than an eccentric and British internal anti-Communism goes much further than the limited steps it took in OTL?