AHC: The minor parties of the UK "Khaki election" of 1918 survive and flourish

What would be the best means to ensure that the small but notable upsurge of minor parties in the 1918 election go on to play a major role in the interwar period? Parties like the "patriotic labour" National Democratic and Labour Party, the far-right National Party, the patriotic-Marxist National Socialist Party and even the so-called veterans interest "Sliver Badge Party" that took a surprising but largely forgotten share of the 1918 electoral vote, winning around 13 seats between them, most of them National Democratic. What's especially weird about the National Party is that they actually had more seats before than after the election, because most of their MP's and Peers re-defected back to the Conservatives.

So what are the best things that could happen for these smol electoral beans, and conversely what is the absolute worst turn of events for the Lloyd George Coalition (though perhaps not too bad necessarily, most of the National Democratic MP's were coalition) and the Labour Party opposition?

May or may not be research for a timeline where British politics gets "Weimarised."
 
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The obvious thing would be for an introduction of voting reform in the aftermath of the Great War. A curious little fact is that many in the Liberals opposed voting reform prior to the 1920s as they thought it would electorally harm them. :p
 
The obvious thing would be for an introduction of voting reform in the aftermath of the Great War. A curious little fact is that many in the Liberals opposed voting reform prior to the 1920s as they thought it would electorally harm them. :p

Was anyone proposing that?
 
Was anyone proposing that?

It was discussed around that time, but it never quite came to fruition. Ironically the 1923 general election actually produced a relatively proportional result: the popular vote was Tories 38%, Labour 31%, Liberals 30% and percentage of seats won was Tories 42%, Labour 31%, Liberals 26%.
 
It was discussed around that time, but it never quite came to fruition. Ironically the 1923 general election actually produced a relatively proportional result: the popular vote was Tories 38%, Labour 31%, Liberals 30% and percentage of seats won was Tories 42%, Labour 31%, Liberals 26%.

Any reading on this you'd recommend?
 
After a bit of googling it turns out that the committees involved in drawing up the Peoples Representation Act of 1918 seemed to want to introduce a hybrid system whereby various certain constituencies would use proportional representation and others the alternative vote "as an experiment", while many would still use first past-the-post. It sounds utterly chaotic and complicated, I'll start a new thread for it.
 
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With the National Party, if you want to see them succeed long-term then they need wind in their sails from the get-go. IOTL, the Nationals did poorly in the seats in contested outside of the general election, coming a distant third in the Islington East by-election and fourth in the Manchester Rusholme by-election. So, while they might not need to win these by-elections, to ensure their long-term survival the Nationals at the very least need to achieve strong seconds in order to convince potential backers (such as the Tariff Reform League, whose support the party courted IOTL) that they are a worthwhile investment. Also, its worth looking into the fact that many members of the National Party were economically interventionist - Imperial Preference being an obvious example of this - and consequently many of their members favoured an alliance with Labour. So, with all that in mind, I'd say that the best way to ensure the survival of the Nationals is to go down the following route:

(1) Early by-election successes,

(2) Better result in 1918 (perhaps 4-5 seats rather than the two they held IOTL), and

(3) Labour's growth in the early 1920s is stunted somehow and the party is unable to break through into the 100s, so, in order to widen its appeal beyond its traditional base, accepts National proposals for an alliance (or at the very least a pact whereby the two parties stand down for one another).

If all that goes the Nationals way, then they could easily achieve a sizeable parliamentary contingent over the course of the 20s.

As for the National Democratic Party, my understanding is that they were essentially the Labour contingent in Lloyd George's coalition government. So perhaps continue the coalition until the National Democrats are capable of standing on their own two feet? This would probably require a Greek victory in the Greco-Turkish War in order to avert the Chanak Crisis, which was the prerequisite for the Carlton Club meeting that saw Conservative MPs vote to withdraw from the government.
 
Any reading on this you'd recommend?
There have been multiple threads on the subject of Britain adopting STV in 1918, which it came close to doing. Someone even did a TL on this a few years back, I believe it's name was 'The Goats and the Lions'.

I'll admit I've also sketched out an outline based on this PoD before, but I found there were too many butterflies after a few decades.

I agree that PR is the best chance to have some of these parties survive. That said, I don't think they could all do so at the same time- a lot of them would be treading on each other's toes in terms of their electoral appeal. I had the National Democratic and Labour Party eventually merge with the National Party (both were surprisingly open to co-operation with each other) to basically create a patriotic protectionist party which is somewhat divided on broader economic issues. I could see a merged party (or the NDLP on its own) becoming a possible vehicle for fascist ideas after a while, though anti-German sentiment among both parties might prevent that

Also, it is worth noting that there was one of the smaller parties from the Khaki Election that has remained reasonably strong to the present day; the Co-operative Party. I could see some of the other parties attaching themselves to a larger party and building up their presence from there- maybe the National Socialists affiliate with Labour rather than going for a full on merger, the NDLP could build a relationship with the Tories, or a more successful Liberal Party maybe.

I can't see single issue groups like the Silver Badge Party having long term success though, as they were clearly latching onto an issue that was especially prevalent post World War 1, but would likely lose much of its importance after a few years of peacetime.
 
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