This is for my ASB TL United American 817. But I'm looking for help into reforming the British Empire that can last into the mid to late 1990s if not longer. I'm open to any ideas on the subject. These reforms though need to happen in a four year time period between 1943-47.
British Empire Reform help
- Thread starter Jim Smitty
- Start date
Generaloberst
Banned
So late in the game? I doubt it. At the time you suggest, the Indian Independence Movement is huge, and once India goes, the British Empire won't be far behind it.
best way to increase the life of the British empire is economics.
people with money in their pockets and full bellies are less lightly to rebel.
Getting rid of the Salt tax would be a good start.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_salt_tax_in_India#Effects_of_the_salt_tax
OTL Free trade is the biggest driver of prosperity.
Philippe Legrain
In this book
open world the truth about globalisation
claims that free trade is the best way of generating wealth.
http://www.philippelegrain.com/open-world-the-truth-about-globalisation/
people with money in their pockets and full bellies are less lightly to rebel.
Getting rid of the Salt tax would be a good start.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_British_salt_tax_in_India#Effects_of_the_salt_tax
OTL Free trade is the biggest driver of prosperity.
Philippe Legrain
In this book
open world the truth about globalisation
claims that free trade is the best way of generating wealth.
http://www.philippelegrain.com/open-world-the-truth-about-globalisation/
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(First i must admit to no knowledge of the TL beyond its an ISOT). It may be a bit machiavellian but why tell people the truth. What about a version of it? How quick would Gandhi be to lead the independence movement if he's told the world's largest democracy erupts into warfare. Bloody religious conflict; maoist uprisings; caste conflict; India v Pakistan; Pakistan v Bangladesh; mass starvation etc.
As for others - Idi Amin? Robert Mugade? Military juntas; Civil Wars; Economic stagnation; spiraling crime. A little darkening of the truth might give pause for thought and consideration of reform rather than independence...
A broken decimated place split between bigots and warlords, or united and peaceful under "one common enemy" or is that just a little bit too dark?
Thats a fair observation. Although its an ASB ISOT TL the writer is likely seeking non-ASB answer in this part of the forum. I am afraid there aren't any. By the 1940s Ireland is 9/10s of the way out of the door. The problem you have is that Ireland, on Britain's backdoor, gives a bad example to the rest of the Empire. Ireland had representation at Westminster and used it to get Home Rule (which wasn't enough for many people anyway). India is already on its way the door and has been since WWI. You can delay independence by perhaps another 10 years but not by much longer. Palestine is a funny one because the Empire wants shot of it as fast as possible. Canada, Australia and New Zealand are independent in every meaningful way. South Africa is on the verge of Apartheid which Britain can do little about in the 1940s.
The game's up without an ASB game changer...
HeavyWeaponsGuy
Banned
After WWII? By that point the tide of particularly important colonial nationalist movements (namely India) is already at the boiling point and the British are in no position to continue paying for the empire. By this point they're pretty much going to have to retreat on all fronts.
WWI pretty much sent Britain on a decline, WWII effectively finished it off.
WWI pretty much sent Britain on a decline, WWII effectively finished it off.
Define the British Empire.
It was never an actual 'thing'.
Do you mean British colonies abroad? Those still exist.
Do you mean Britain going around and talking about the British Empire? There you have to somehow stop our massive shift to the left in the 20th century. On this one I'm not sure of an actual date, I wonder does anyone have a clue, anti-oxford dictionary style: When was the last time a British government talked about the British Empire in a non-historic sense?
Do you mean the only actual empire part of it, the Indian Empire? There I think you'll need to do something to make Indian independence a bit more right wing dominated and have the royal family be more popular in India, then I don't see it as being too unfeasible you could have India officially keeping an emperor/press who also happens to be the British monarch.
Though the popular version of history likes to paint the end of British overseas colonies as Britan 'losing' them due to nationalist movements the truth tended to be quite the opposite, it was the British working class increasingly being able to utilise their vote that did it. This meant British politics moved sharply towards a more domestically focussed left and an idea of 'why spend money on poor people half the world away when we have poor people here?'
It was never an actual 'thing'.
Do you mean British colonies abroad? Those still exist.
Do you mean Britain going around and talking about the British Empire? There you have to somehow stop our massive shift to the left in the 20th century. On this one I'm not sure of an actual date, I wonder does anyone have a clue, anti-oxford dictionary style: When was the last time a British government talked about the British Empire in a non-historic sense?
Do you mean the only actual empire part of it, the Indian Empire? There I think you'll need to do something to make Indian independence a bit more right wing dominated and have the royal family be more popular in India, then I don't see it as being too unfeasible you could have India officially keeping an emperor/press who also happens to be the British monarch.
Though the popular version of history likes to paint the end of British overseas colonies as Britan 'losing' them due to nationalist movements the truth tended to be quite the opposite, it was the British working class increasingly being able to utilise their vote that did it. This meant British politics moved sharply towards a more domestically focussed left and an idea of 'why spend money on poor people half the world away when we have poor people here?'
It comes down to the question of what is meant by Empire. This is to late to keep a hold on India, Egypt/Sudan, and probably west Africa so if that is your intent stop reading now.
a earlier pod in the inter war period and you have a chance at the Imperial Federation type system. With the later pod then a formal Imperial Preference system negotiated during the war then implemented in the immediate post-war era and with luck you might be able to save South Africa. If you take the negotiations during the war idea then it can be stretched so that governments in exile take part in the talks and consider joining (Norway is the most probable). This would have the British Empire exist, but more as an economic union then a strong political or military one.
This late in the game, it too late I fear.
However to survive in any form you will need a change of outlook not only in the UK but also [and more importantly] the USA and the USSR no way can the empire survive with the US eroding it economicly and the USSR polititicly.
Good luck
However to survive in any form you will need a change of outlook not only in the UK but also [and more importantly] the USA and the USSR no way can the empire survive with the US eroding it economicly and the USSR polititicly.
Good luck
Alex Richards
Donor
At this point the best thing you can do is make efforts to create a Commonwealth that is more economically integrated. The Empire is doomed (though a longer period of decolonisation is possible), but it shouldn't be impossible for what comes out of it to be more than just a sort of vague 'cultural sphere' sort of organisation.
Just about agreed, remembering that this is a self-declared ASB timeline we're talking about. It would follow from this premise that the UK would have to be a lot less enthused about integrating into "Europe" than OTL.
It's altUK + altEEC OR altUK + altCW in any TL like this, assuming that WWII goes more or less as OTL, as seems to be implied by the POD's timescale.
Alex Richards
Donor
Oh indeed, though I think you might just be able to get both if the idea of the 'Anglo-French Commonwealth' in WWII went through, as France was always more eager to retain strong economic links with West Africa and so forth, so there's certainly a possibility of a sort of altEEC that includes a lot of the old colonies.
But that's very much on the limits of plausibility and requires a lot of things to go the right way for the British and French.
