Britain needs an Iron Lady - The TLIAD spinoff.

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I wonder what treatment is going to get McCain: impeachment or the electric chair :D

Poor Kinnock. At least he tried to do his best:p

Impeachment I imagine. :p The Republican Party is done for for the next 8-12 years though. The next President will probably be Joe Lieberman, but nothing is finalised. Obviously the next PM up is Ken Livingstone...
 
Ken Livingstone.png

The Livingstone Premiership was always doomed to be short lived. A member of the Labour Party who was a vocal critic of Thatcher’s dictatorship, part of Benn’s cabal of revolutionaries, and later a political prisoner alongside Neil Kinnock, Livingstone was a committed socialist who wanted to return Britain to its state in the Attlee and Wilson years (and maybe even to take things further). His abortive dreams for a socialist Britain would come to haunt the party, and became one of the reasons why the CLA was able to sweep into power with such resolute support from centrists.

The majority of his time as Prime Minister was spent on various official inquiries into the ongoing state of affairs in Iran, and the lengthy process of disentangling British troops from the ongoing occupation. He led to Britain officially condemning the USA’s actions and, alongside Livingstone, was a key witness at the impeachment trial of President McCain, an impeachment which he welcomed. His time in office also saw the severing of relations between Britain and the Caucasus Federation, when it became apparent they we abusing Iran’s defeated status to press claims in the north of the region, and touting international law by moving in soldiers to secure territory.

Livingstone was also overshadowed by the dynamic “New CLA” pioneered by Kenneth Clarke, with a moderately One Nation Tory Economic agenda, combined with a dedication to Social Justice and repenting for the sins of the nation’s past. Clarke was a scathing critic of the far-left PM, calling him a “racial lout”, whilst his allies in the press lambasted the government’s every move leftwards.

The Labour faction’s chances were finally routed when it was revealed that Livingstone Allies and Shadow Ministers Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnel had had an “altercation” with low-ranking LSDC Whip Robert Kilroy-Silk. The event occurred in late 2004, just a few months before the election, leading the Daily Inquiry (which had filled the void after the collapse of the Thatcher-supporting Daily Mail) musing as to whether that kind of attitude towards ideological opponents would become party policy.

Livingstone knew he had to go, but didn’t want to throw his party into chaos. He announced two days before the election, in the hopes of salvaging some degree of support from the centrist aspects of the electorate, that he would be stepping down as party leader and would not continue as Prime Minister. The election made sure of this and for the first time in fifteen years Labour returned to the Opposition.

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Ken Clarke.png

Clarke was the “People’s Prime Minister” when he entered office, promising an end to the technocratic Kinnock-ite socialism, whilst also presenting a system radically different to the right-wing dictatorship of the eighties. An unlikely Maverick, Clarke initially rose as an opponent of devolution and a supporter of British entry into the European Union as a means of salvaging the economy. These policies won him mass support across England, although he was less popular in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

The first act of the Clarke Premiership was cancelling the farther transfer of powers to the devolved assemblies, which prompted the radicalised SNP to demand an Independence Referendum. Clarke decided to call the bluff, and the referendum was held in 2006, with the pro-Union faction winning by a small margin. Clarke gloated in parliament the following day, and a number of angry SNP members were escorted from the House of Commons.

Capitalising on his success Clarke began overtures to the European Union who now accepted Britain’s economic recovery as sufficient for her entry into the Union, all that had to be done was for Clarke to put it before the people in a referendum. He was confident once again, but the 2007 EU membership referendum resulted in a “No” vote winning with sixty percent support. There was still a considerable amount of resentment amongst the English and Northern Irish for an EU which supported Ireland’s Claims to Fermanagh and Armagh.

Clarke was wary to roll back the resocialisation of the past decade and a half, although through some prescient cuts back to the state owned industries he was able to grant people a popular tax cut in the middle of the premiership, bolstering faltering poll numbers after the failure of the EU referendum. He was a moderate at heart, and didn’t want to tread on people’s toes whether they were in his party or not. Whilst he had been a vibrant opposition leader, he seemed increasingly tired as time went on.

2008 saw three killed and twelve injured in an IRA attack in Liverpool, made in protest of the British Government’s continued deployment of troops on the supposedly demilitarised border between the breakaway republics and Northern Ireland. Both sides of the conflict, fearing an end to the ceasefire, called for a talk in Belfast.

In the negotiations both groups agreed that it made no sense to continue with a state of vague peace whilst still being at war. There was an organised prisoner trade and a declaration of amnesty for terrorists and war criminals from both sides. Whilst unpopular at the time, the September Agreement would become Clarke’s lasting legacy. As long as they did not join Ireland, Britain recognised Armagh and Fermanagh, and the IRA would cease activities other than those of the twin republics’ official military. Peace came to Ireland at last, if in a strange manner.

Clarke faded and tired more as his time as Prime Minister dragged on. Gordon Brown had risen to the leadership of the LSDC, and was presenting a programme of further devolution and a full scale federal system. Clarke, on the one hand, hadn’t actually delivered a third way, but Brown on the other hand was presenting nothing radically different to what Clarke had already done. Brown and Clarke were tied until the 2010 financial crash occurred a few months before the general election.

Clarke was slow, not knowing whether to call for austerity or public spending, and Brown beat him to choosing the latter. Clarke’s attempts to go down the same path did not do well, and the top tier of the party seized power at CLACHQ and forced an austerity programme into the new election manifesto. The left lambasted the centre right for causing the harshness of the collapse on the British people, and Clarke’s popularity plummeted, Clarke was not re-elected in the 2010 General Election.

Ken Clarke.png
 
Gordon Brown.png

Tenuously Prime Minister after a hard fought Race, Gordon Brown inherited four bitter and mutually angry nations, an economy slowly falling apart, and an unstable political situation as many protested in favour of the legalisation of the National Democratic Party (particularly the charismatic leader of The British Democratic Nationalist Party –or BDNP—Theresa May). With protestors flooding the streets demanding that the government allow “Real Democracy” to resume, Brown warily submitted. His party accepted a bill authored by the BDNP to repeal the ban on the National Democrats.

With this out of the way, Brown began to pump money into the economy, expanding the public sector to soften the blow of the snowballing recession. This worked to initially prevent the situation from getting out of hand, but in the long run it was never going to work out to prevent any effects from being felt. With the economy getting worse discontentment with the two traditional parties began to grow.

Brown’s biggest challenge abroad was the collapse of the US backed Republic of Iran in 2011, and the emergence of the “Organisation of Syndicates for an Independent Revolutionary Islamic Socialism” (or OSIRIS). It was a hybrid of a worker’s movement fighting Iranian economic injustice and an Islamic Extremist uprising against foreign intervention in the country. Their war on the west commended with the execution of the American ambassador to Iran on the 12th of August, and their sudden explosion as a popular militant movement.

A race to the coast began between US forces and OSIRIS, with troops trying to get to carriers with their equipment, and various foreign dignitaries and local collaborationist politicians, out of the country before the enemy could get their hands on it. Operation Gulf was largely a success, but the Iranian President was caught and beheaded on an internet broadcast, whilst millions of dollars of military equipment fell into OSIRIS’ hands. In the Northwest of Iran and the south of the Caucasus a loosely OSIRIS aligned Aerbaijani Independence movement began to flare up as well, making progress thanks to Russian financial aid. Parliament rejected Brown’s proposal of joining a coalition of France, the USA, and the Caucasians in moving in to stop OSIRIS. The memory of the Iran Invasion was too fresh for parliament to want to become involved again. However, Parliament was more willing to become involved in Eastern Europe.

Since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the Russian Union (run by a cabal of far-right extremists and ex-KGB and army officials from the USSR) had become increasingly aggressive. After the formation of the Eastern European Compact, a military alliance to rival NATO, the Visegrad Pact, and the Finno-Baltic Defence Organisation, Russia had begun to sponsor a pro-Hungarian revolt in Romania as well as a pro-Moldovan secessionist movement. British troops became involved along with French, German, and Italian forces in 2013, ensuring that Romanians were not killed by the advancing Hungarian Liberation Army in Western Ukraine. They expanded their focus in 2014, creating an EU controlled zone between the Hungarian and Moldovan rebels to prevent Russia using it as a passage to ship weapons into the Yugoslavian Republic of Serbia (where the government was supressing a Bosnian rebellion with ethnic cleansing).

At one point, after President Biden suggested US involvement in Romania, it seemed as if the USA and Russia might go to war. This crisis was averted during emergency talks, in which Russia conceded that it would not support the genocide ongoing in Serbia, and allowed coalition troops to be deployed in Bosnia to prevent further deaths. The Bosnian situation was resolved with a ceasefire in late 2014.

However Brown remained in a precarious position as the 2015 General Election drew closer; The CLA lost huge swathes of voters to the National Democrats, who inched further and further up the polls from January 2015 onwards. At the start of the year it seemed as if Brown would win another LSDC Majority, or perhaps a coalition with the SNP and SJA, and by September the prediction was a hung parliament, the CLA’s position as the official opposition even seemed questionable.

The Nationals called out and campaigned on Brown’s questionable economic policies and the fact that Britain had the slowest recovery rate in Western Europe, and supported a stronger foreign policy against both OSIRIS and Russia. The CLA by contrast seemed like little more than a slightly more moderate (but otherwise identical) and pro-European LSDC.

Come election night, the liberal domination that the country held dear would come to a paradigm shifting end.

Gordon Brown.png
 
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And now for election night, and the vignette that inspired this whole thing!

Election night had finally come around, and David was beyond tense. The Shadow Home Secretary knew vaguely, that he might not even make it back into the opposition if things went sourly for the Conservative-Liberal Alliance. The polls were split; everyone knew that the Labour and Social Democratic Coalition would win a majority, that had been certain for months, but whether or not the CLA would remain the majority opposition party was uncertain.

There was every chance, and it sickened David to think of it, that the National Democratic Party would come second for the first time since the nineteen seventy nine General Election, and the subsequent coup. He ran his hand through his hair and stared out from his office window towards the remains of the Palace of Westminster. The Nationals did that, he thought, and God knows they’d do it again if they got even half a chance. Maybe that was too harsh, but the fact was that there was still a lot of cross over between the Nationals of the seventies and the Nationals of the twenty first century.

An aide brought him a cup of coffee and he drank it quickly. It was late at night and he should really have been in his constituency, but since it wouldn’t be announced until the next morning anyway he’d decided to buzz back off to Westminster to get some final preparations put in place in case of a hung-Parliament or a total CLA electoral collapse. He could be back in Oxfordshire in less than an hour if the result looked like it was about to come in suddenly.

It had actually been Gideon and Nick’s idea for David to plan things out in Westminster, most things were, and he hadn’t really had that much choice on whether or not to accept the suggestion. David often wondered how much happier he would be if he could shaft Gideon and be Prime Minister, Nick might even still be his deputy; for a Liberal he seemed like a pretty good chap. David sometimes wished the Liberals weren’t in Affiliated Coalition with the Conservatives… forced the party to be too left-wing on the economics front. Gave the Nationals a leg up as “a genuine right wing choice”.

David flicked on the flat screen TV in his office and saw Andrew Neil just as he introduced a brand new guest. And there he was; that smug bastard Rees-Mogg, deputy leader of the Nationals. He was sat there in the chair grinning as the two spoke. The BBC didn’t like the Nationals, or at least David was certain they didn’t agree with them, but even the anal Reese-Mogg knew how to be amiable it seemed. Of course he might just have been smirking at some pedantic correction he’d made.

“Well Andrew I wouldn’t say that! The party might be the descendant of the Second National Coalition, but we don’t want a dictatorship and, if you remember, that coalition only formed as a response to the undemocratic policies of the Heath government.” Mogg said.

“Yes that might be so, but do you not think it would be a bad message to vote for a party that has such a history?” Neil asked.

“Not at all, Andrew. The Party was been thoroughly reformed and, if you remember correctly, Mrs Thatcher ended the dictatorship as soon as the economic crisis, string of international incidents, and political dissent threatening the country had ended.” Mogg replied.

“Ah yes, Mrs Thatcher’s breakup of the anti-Heath anti-Coalition General Strike in nineteen eighty. That sort of anti-unionist and anti-socialist policy has been carried over to today, hasn’t it?” Neil said.

“Yes, it has. That might cause tensions with Labour if we are the official opposition after the election, which I hope we are, but I think that a strong difference between government and opposition is a healthy thing, and we will not let our contempt for their dangerous views get in the way of being an effective part of this great country’s great system.”

“Ah so you’ve completely rejected the notions of a National Democratic Victory then?” Neil asked.

“Haha. A victory would be a miracle at this stage. The public are, rightly, recognising that the populist remnants of the Coalition, and I am of course talking about the CLA, are not a fit party for position in government or opposition, but not all of them have. The party’s leader and I agree on the fact that the right’s vote has been split, but she and I are confident that we will make up for that in the next election after the CLA’s true colours are shown.” Said the Nationals’ Deputy Leader.

“Shown their true colours?”

“Oh yes!” Once they’re out of the official opposition I’m sure we’ll see the CLA voting largely with the Socialists, and people will finally see that, apart from their sensible economics, the CLA are largely as irrational as their supposed enemy. David sucked in a sharp breath but kept on watching.

“You of course mean the recent shift for the CLA under Gideon Osborne to a position of social liberalism, in particular their support of same-sex marriage and refusal to boycott the cross-party committee on marijuana legalisation.” Neil commented.

“Of course. The CLA show their true colours when they refuse to defend the traditional values of this country. It disgusts me that they would abandon principle in this way…” David turned the TV off.

The fact that the voters were choosing men like him and the bitch he answered too disgusted him. They were right-wing morons yes, but they were capable. They’d proven they were capable in seventy nine when Mountbatten and Thatcher’s National Party had called the first CLA (Heath’s Conservative-Liberal National Emergency Coalition) “illegitimate” and suspended democratic government in order to “safe-guard the voters’ choice of a right-wing party” and to “break up the pro-soviet socialist unrest”. And now the party’s new leader was clearly modelling herself after Thatcher.

He shuffled the papers on his desk but couldn’t bring himself to draft any kind of official statement for the party. What worried him more than anything was the potential for political violence; of all the other traditions in the UK that the dictatorship had killed the culture of peaceful election seasons was the one David missed the most. As the seat announcements came in former National Front thugs, now almost all part of the pro-National Democratic militias, would come out and fight unionist and socialist thugs. Only the CLA explicitly told its members to stay out of it all.

He sighed as he watched some of these groups already swelling in front of the ruins of the Palace of Westminster. It had been pro-National forces that had blown the palace up, in a false flag operation that finally gave the dictatorship a reason to come into existence and seize power in Britain. The police would probably be able to deal with them; water cannons would definitely be used, and maybe live ammunition if the protestors brought it in first. That, for David, was the only good legacy of the dictatorship; the strong police force to crack down against political violence.

He looked down at the piece of paper in front of him, and began to draft.


Twelve hours later and he walked back into the office after returning from his constituency the victor of yet another election. He lived in a firm CLA safe seat so that wasn’t really a surprise, but these things always left him nervous for a little while. He slumped back in his chair and the same aside brought him a cup of tea.

“Thank you Frank, take the rest of the day off.” David said wearily. He was tired himself, but unlike Frank he had to be up until the election result was announced. He’d had a quick nap at home and on the way back, but now the final results were coming in and all the senior shadow cabinets members had been ordered back just in case.

David flicked the television back on and felt as if he hadn’t left since his angry little outburst at Jacob Rees Mogg earlier. The final results were coming in and a tired, flustered, Andrew Neil was there announcing them. There was a wide range of guests up there including, David noticed, the CLA’s own Nick Clegg, LSDC deputy leader and current Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, and National shadow chancellor Douglas Carswell.

“I’m going to have to stop you there Mister Carswell,” Neil began, “We’ve just had the result of a CLA victory in South Ribble, meaning that there are no seats left. With the final result I can tell you that, for the first time since the nineteen seventy three Labour and Tory collapses, and the divided parliamentary situation after the seventy four general election, Britain has a hung parliament. This is entirely against what the polls predicted, something which will no doubt come into question in the months to come. The current seat count for the three major parties is at two hundred and seventy eight for the Labour and Social Democratic Coalition, one hundred and forty three for the Conservative-Liberal Alliance, and one hundred and ninety for the National Democratic Party. We’re now going to a specialist analyst to examine the results.”

The screen changed quickly from Carswell’s excited face, to a stern faced analyst. The Hung Parliament, David mused, was probably what the ignored texts from Gideon were all about.

“Thank you Andrew.” She began, “As you can see from this result parliament is thoroughly split. Just thirty nine seats remain, with eighteen of those going to Northern Irish parties. The other twenty one were split between the SNP with ten, Plaid with three, the Green Party with three, and the Social Justice Alliance with five. No one party can make a majority, and even with all of the “left” parties forming an alliance with the LSDC they would not have a majority. The only result can be a coalition between two of the three major parties.”

David was in shock at the result.

“We could see a CLA-National Coalition with three hundred and forty one seats, giving them a slim majority of fifteen, or a LSDC-CLA coalition with four hundred and twenty one, giving them a super-majority of ninety five seats. The possibility of an LSDC-National Coalition is off the table considering their widely difficult policies. The CLA will play king-maker here; do they side with old enemy or current electoral rival?”

“Thank you.” Andrew Neil said as his face returned to the screen, “Now we will have words from each of the three party’s leaders.”
Gideon appeared first.

“This is a monumental result, and one that will certainly have some serious repercussions down the line. For now the party leadership is trying to arrange what we view as the best possible partnership. I’ll let you know when Mister Cameron responds to my texts.” Gideon laughed and waved his phone at the camera as it cut to the dour face of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

“Obviously there is only one outcome that we favour here; an LSDC-CLA alliance. Whilst our parties have had differences in the past we know that the CLA front-bench traditionally leans closer to us than the Nationals. I would implore Mister Osborne to corral the more extreme right wing elements of his party into joining a grand coalition against the fascist Nationals.” Gordon Brown said with a frown. David was shocked that he’d actually called the Nationals fascists. Not that they didn’t deserve it.

“That was quite the statement from the Prime Minister.” Neil laughed, “And now for the Fuhrer herself.” Neil would get a suspension for that, David thought, but he’d probably survive it.

The screen switched again and the triumphant face of Theresa May appeared.

“Thank you for your comments Mister Neil.” She spat, “Britain teeters on a knife edge now, we need strong leadership to deal with the recession, the tensions in Ulster, Fermanagh, and Armagh, the continuing wars in Iran and the Caucasus Federation, and finally a harder line against Russia and Serbia!. The Nationals will bring that leadership; we shall restore unity, faith in traditional values, and pride in this great nation. Our party has a troubled past yes, some call us fascists, but we have a reputation for restoring order and safety to our country! I strongly hope that the CLA will see reason and join us. To quote the great Mrs Thatcher, “Britain needs an iron lady”. I hope that lady will be me.” Mrs May raised her chin in noble defiance and looked directly into the camera.

As the camera switched back to a still half-shocked Andrew Neil, David knew exactly who the party’s increasingly right-wing backbenchers would vote for, and he knew that it was the end for his country.​
 
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