AHC: Have a modern british PM be assassinated

samcster94

Banned
Only one PM has ever been assassinated, and he was killed during the Napoleonic Wars. What can be done to have this happen to one.
Bonus points if it is not Thatcher nor involves the IRA(as the IRA tried to kill Thatcher).
 
Only one PM has ever been assassinated, and he was killed during the Napoleonic Wars. What can be done to have this happen to one.
Bonus points if it is not Thatcher nor involves the IRA(as the IRA tried to kill Thatcher).

Well it includes the IRA but the mortar bombing of 10 Downing Street actually hits Major...
 
What about - yes, it being Thatcher - but some radical Communist/Trade Union guy (that would then be a radical Syndicalist) manages to hit Thatcher during some speech either directly after the Winter of Discontent or in 1983/4 (when Scargill and the Unionists were most active, AFAIK)?

Then, conspiracy theories about support from Moscow and such things will abound...

And I will present a scenario... hopefully not too offensive for English football fans:

POD: March 1979 - in a football game against Preston North End, a certain Gary Lineker is rudely fouled. The defender sees the red card, but Gary Lineker's damage is much worse: A complicated knee injury which ends his professional career as a young talent.

Instead, Lineker at first jobs around and then joins British Rail, and thus gets into contact with the unions, the TUC and other such left-wing organisations. He is radicalised during the Thatcher administration etc.

On September 15, 1983, the first PM since the Napoleonic Wars is assassinated: Margret Thatcher during a speech originally wanting to proclaim an uptick in the economy due to her harsh laws on trade unions and strikes, and the newest results in the Falkland war. Soon after, Gary Lineker is apprehended and arrested as the assassin.

When, on October 9, 1983, Gary Lineker is bludgeoned to death by another inmate, conspiracy theories similar to the Kennedy assassination theories begin to sprout like mushrooms.
 
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Heath wins the 1974 general election, sort of (Liberal support/minority government) the Sunnigdale fiasco and UWC strike continues as the PM is in one of his stubborn moods but little comes of it. Come 1975 the government falls and Britain goes back to the polls. The mainland increasingly sick of North Ireland (even more so than OTL which got very high in the 70s) Labour play a hard anti-UWC campaign (Wilson called them louts and scroungers IOTL) and promise decisive action scraping a majority. The new PM (maybe Wilson or Callaghan) looks into options, including unilateral withdrawal, which is still extreme but more attractive ITTL, so there's more serious discussion. The Northern Irish civil service loathed the 70s Labour governments, so say through a friend some talk of withdrawal leaks to Belfast and on to the Ulster Defence Force or similar terrorist group.

Wilson/Callaghan is then killed in a car bomb as a traitor to the Union, no doubt with accompanying conspiracy theories that MI5 let it happen or were even the real culprits.
 
How about a "Britain First" knuckle dragger assassinating Prime Minister Jeremy Corbin in a a POD with a post Brexit vote that goes 52% Remain and results in Labour Winning a minority Government after a Snap election goes badly wrong for Cameron (after serious pressure from Pro-Brexit back benchers) and the Conservatives get thrashed at the polls

Then Corbin as attacked at Glastonbury (Saturday 24th June 2017) while giving his speech by a Britain First terrorist
 
How about a "Britain First" knuckle dragger assassinating Prime Minister Jeremy Corbin in a a POD with a post Brexit vote that goes 52% Remain and results in Labour Winning a minority Government after a Snap election goes badly wrong for Cameron (after serious pressure from Pro-Brexit back benchers) and the Conservatives get thrashed at the polls

Then Corbin as attacked at Glastonbury (Saturday 24th June 2017) while giving his speech by a Britain First terrorist

So... Jo Cox written large?
 
How about a "Britain First" knuckle dragger assassinating Prime Minister Jeremy Corbin in a a POD with a post Brexit vote that goes 52% Remain and results in Labour Winning a minority Government after a Snap election goes badly wrong for Cameron (after serious pressure from Pro-Brexit back benchers) and the Conservatives get thrashed at the polls

Then Corbin as attacked at Glastonbury (Saturday 24th June 2017) while giving his speech by a Britain First terrorist
I think the average labour MP would do the job if Corbyn ended up as PM.
 
Some suggestions:

- Chamberlain by someone frustrated Czehcoslovakian.
- Churchill by nazi agents.
- Blair by someone frustrated Iraq veteran.
- Islamists assassinate someone PM from Blair to May.

And if India goes from some reason very messy (perhaps Gandhi and Nehru are killed), someone British PM might be assassinated.
 

Nick P

Donor
1974: Elements within MI5 and MI6 are very concerned at the idea of the Prime Minister being a Soviet agent. Despite investigations that disprove it and other attempts to calm their nerves, certain people decide that Harold Wilson must go....
 
How about a "Britain First" knuckle dragger assassinating Prime Minister Jeremy Corbin in a a POD with a post Brexit vote that goes 52% Remain and results in Labour Winning a minority Government after a Snap election goes badly wrong for Cameron (after serious pressure from Pro-Brexit back benchers) and the Conservatives get thrashed at the polls

Then Corbin as attacked at Glastonbury (Saturday 24th June 2017) while giving his speech by a Britain First terrorist

Cameron didn't want Brexit and campaigned against it, I can't see him calling a General Election if he gets what he wants.

The best way of getting Corbyn in as PM is a Leave win, Cameron resigning followed by May doing what she's done so far and a few more incidents such as the Manchester attack and Grenfell piling the pressure on the government until she's forced into a vote of no-confidence that she loses forcing her into yet another General Election.

It would need to get really bad for enough Tory MPs to turn against her and give Labour a majority on the Commons vote though.
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
1974: Elements within MI5 and MI6 are very concerned at the idea of the Prime Minister being a Soviet agent. Despite investigations that disprove it and other attempts to calm their nerves, certain people decide that Harold Wilson must go....

1974 was the second of two reported attempts. Probably more chance of blood being spilt, his even, the second time around.
 
Cameron didn't want Brexit and campaigned against it, I can't see him calling a General Election if he gets what he wants.

The best way of getting Corbyn in as PM is a Leave win, Cameron resigning followed by May doing what she's done so far and a few more incidents such as the Manchester attack and Grenfell piling the pressure on the government until she's forced into a vote of no-confidence that she loses forcing her into yet another General Election.

It would need to get really bad for enough Tory MPs to turn against her and give Labour a majority on the Commons vote though.

I was thinking of some sort of group of Back bench pro brexit Conservative MPs (UKIP Lite) sore at having lost the vote stopping the Government from operating and giving the Chief Party Whip a wedgie and ultimately forcing a vote of no confidence which results in a snap election being called to break the deadlock.
 
Exactly one year after Bloody Sunday, PM Ted Heath leaves the House of Commons after delivering a speech on the upcoming entry to the European Market (EEC).
Somewhat relieved that no-one questioned him on the point of Fisheries, which he had a lot to hide about that day, his Ministerial Limo leaves the underground car park of the Houses of Parliament.
As it climbs the ramp to reach street level, the car violently disassembles.
It is later discovered that a car bomb with a mercury tilt switch was attached to the underside of the car.

(yeah, it's IRA and basically Airey Neave's assassination brought forward a couple of years. But.... there could be some interesting butterflies from this scenario.)
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
Exactly one year after Bloody Sunday, PM Ted Heath leaves the House of Commons after delivering a speech on the upcoming entry to the European Market (EEC).
Somewhat relieved that no-one questioned him on the point of Fisheries, which he had a lot to hide about that day, his Ministerial Limo leaves the underground car park of the Houses of Parliament.
As it climbs the ramp to reach street level, the car violently disassembles.
It is later discovered that a car bomb with a mercury tilt switch was attached to the underside of the car.

(yeah, it's IRA and basically Airey Neave's assassination brought forward a couple of years. But.... there could be some interesting butterflies from this scenario.)

'violently disassembled'... wow, what a turn of phrase.
Also, it was the INLA who killed Neave. Another nasty bunch of ***** but not the same as the PIRA.
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Cameron and Fox are actually killed in the Taliban plot.

Or an unhinged Daily Mirror reader shoots Wilson on the steps of No. 10 in 1968 after Cecil King's editorial goes a step further and suggests he should be taken out of office 'by any means necessary'.
 
'violently disassembled'... wow, what a turn of phrase.
Also, it was the INLA who killed Neave. Another nasty bunch of ***** but not the same as the PIRA.
"Spontaneous Unplanned Disassembly," "Self Disassembly," and similar turns of phrase were common during the early days of rocketry. If it survived the launch, "Lithobraking" was a possible finish to the mission.
 
Also, it was the INLA who killed Neave. Another nasty bunch of ***** but not the same as the PIRA.

True ... but the INLA didn't form until 1974, so would still be part of the IRA at this point.
Not sure that the O.P would think it a significant distinction for purposes of the thread anyway.
 
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