AHC: British Red Scare

Gonzo

Gonzo

Your challenge is to have a British Red Scare in the 1970's with a PoD no later than 1960. It can be on a greater or lesser scale than the US red scares; but it still has to be a 'red scare' nonetheless.
 

Politibrit

In a way there was within elements of the security services, MI5 investigated Harold Wilson for being a Soviet Spy. There certainly was communist infiltration of the Labour Party through the Miitant Tendency, though it was not pro-Moscow. Maybe if you found a way for it to be a larger faction of Labour MPs than just two by weakening the strength of the right wing grassroots within the party even more than it was, allowing Militant to take over more CLPs, then combined it with a weak Tory government desperately trying to prevent Labour from kicking them out, then maybe a sustained campaign from them to discredit Labour through communist affilation could whip up something akin to the Red Scare.
 

Masteroftheuniverse

The eccentric Tory MP Waldron Smithers repeatedly called for a House Committee on Un-British Activities to be set up on the model of the American one but he was generally ignored. Get him into a position of power and you'd have a British McCarthy around.
 
shiftygiant

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
John Stonehouse is put into a more senior Goverment position. In 1966, Labour win a far larger majority, and are able to hold into Goverment through 1970. During this period, it is publicly revealed that Stonehouse has been working for the Czech Secret Service, sparking a whirlwind of accusations of spying. Healy is burned for his former membership to the Communist Party, and several other Hard Left Ministers and Secretary of States (Tony Benn and Eric Heffer spring to mind) have their careers ended by accusations. Eventually this reaches Wilson, who is openly 'outed' as a Spy for the Soviet Union, and interrogated by MI5. The Tories and Liberals use this as a stick to beat Labour, with violence breaking out in the streets between the right and left.

With Enoch Powell or a fellow far-righter likely to be Leader of the opposition, there would be some hard times ahead for the British Left.
 
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