With a PoD no earlier than 2nd May 1997, find a way for the Conservative Party in the UK to fall to third place in the House of Commons, behind Labour and the Liberal Democrats (or some other party). Please no ASB or any silliness, but you can be adventurous. A Labour/Lib Dem wank is probably the easiest.

One way I propose is perhaps having Ken Clarke win the leadership election and then say that he wouldn't necessarily oppose entry into the Euro. This leads to outright civil war in the party and eventually it splitting between the pro-euro/non-anti-Europe faction and the ardent eurosceptics. The two parties fight each other rather than the Labour government, and the Lib Dems slip through the middle.
 
Is there anyway to worsen the Tories' situation around 2001 (leaving the Lib Dems on roughly their 2005 performance), yet still have Duncan Smith/Widdecombe elected leader?
 
Is there anyway to worsen the Tories' situation around 2001 (leaving the Lib Dems on roughly their 2005 performance), yet still have Duncan Smith/Widdecombe elected leader?

I believe @The Red did a tl once where Blair is forced to delay the 2001 general by the foot and mouth crisis (there was talk of this otl) and then 9/11 happened and Labour won even bigger than in 1997.
 
Maybe the Liberal Democrats' decapitation strategy in 2005 could have worked better - Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), Folkestone and Hythe (Michael Howard), Maidenhead (Theresa May), West Dorset (Oliver Letwin) and Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Collins) were all supposedly targets, but only one actually fell in 2005. Others (naming no Birmingham Liberal Democrats) might be able to inform better about which of those were actually genuinely targeted.
 
The plan was actually to end the TL with the Tories coming third, although naturally they were going to be replaced by something worse.
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I don't know how it could happen between 1997 and 2017 but perhaps afterwards it might happen if Tories handle Brexit very terrible way.
 
I don't know how it could happen between 1997 and 2017 but perhaps afterwards it might happen if Tories handle Brexit very terrible way.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Yeah maybe if Trump fucks up the Republicans will slip to third party?
 
I believe @The Red did a tl once where Blair is forced to delay the 2001 general by the foot and mouth crisis (there was talk of this otl) and then 9/11 happened and Labour won even bigger than in 1997.
First TL I ever read on the site, incidentally.
The plan was actually to end the TL with the Tories coming third, although naturally they were going to be replaced by something worse.

Does any of you guys have a link to that timeline because i'd love to read it.
 
Would you count if the Tories split into a pro eu and an anti eu faction as the one that ended up in 3rd place was still called the Tories as satisfying your op?
 
There are a number of scenarios I could foresee, but they mainly involve some combination of the following factors:

-Make the Tory infighting worse. The best way to do this would be to have Ken Clarke win the leadership, perhaps Portillo makes it onto the ballot in 2001, and he loses out to Clarke because of the revelations of his past homosexual experiences. Clarke's positions on Europe, Iraq, and his character would not endear him to many of his MPs, and that would lead to civil war. If he were ousted before facing a GE and was replaced by IDS, then that would do maximum damage to their chances.

-Make a breakaway party more feasible. Have either the Pro Euro Conservative Party do better, maybe by giving it a better name and more prominent defections due to a worse situation in the Tory Party, or have a stronger party to their right, maybe an earlier UKIP surge, or have the Referendum Party pick up steam, maybe by having Goldsmith live a little longer.

-Another thing which would be helpful would be PR. Maybe Blair introduces it in his first term. I don't know what PoD might spur onto go ahead with it, but if it happened, it would make a Tory split more likely, and also increase the chances of the Lib Dems moving past them, as the classic 'they've got no chance' line would not be as potent, and they would not be handicapped by FPTP giving them a seat share well below their actual number of votes.
 
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