Challenge: A European-strength communist party in the postwar UK

Thande

Donor
Most Western European countries (especially France) have significant hard-left communist parties alongside their larger, more moderate social-democratic or labour parties, typically taking 5-15% of the vote. Your challenge (with a POD after 1945) is to get the UK to have a similar party alongside moderate Labour, rather than in OTL Labour managing to keep a large part of the hard-left vote together with moderates. This communist party needs to be at least as significant as the Greens, BNP or UKIP are in the modern UK.
 
I agree that it would require the hard-left members of the Labour Party to join with the Communists.

Even with this and with them getting 10% of the vote for instance, in the UK electoral system this would not mean much, you could well end of up with the Communists still getting no seats in the Parliament. However, in the UK electoral system the presence of 3rd parties tends to more so affect the ideology of one of the main parties. A strong Communist party would in the short-term make Labour unelectable, due to lost left-wing votes, however in the long-term Labour would move left to regain these votes (in turn perhaps losing votes and support from its right-wing).
 
If the electoral system needs to be changed first, would this help:

Hung parliament, with Liberals joining a coalition to form government (likely Lib-Lab).

Liberals only join on condition that the system is made more proportional.

This then gives a better chance for a stronger communist party if there is a split in Labour.

Am I right in thinking that the German system is 50% PR, and 50% constituency? If so, maybethis could be the model.

Could the Liberals force this through, or would it be ASB for the government party to boost the fortunes of the Liberals?
 
If the electoral system needs to be changed first, would this help:

Hung parliament, with Liberals joining a coalition to form government (likely Lib-Lab).

Liberals only join on condition that the system is made more proportional.

This then gives a better chance for a stronger communist party if there is a split in Labour.

Am I right in thinking that the German system is 50% PR, and 50% constituency? If so, maybethis could be the model.

Could the Liberals force this through, or would it be ASB for the government party to boost the fortunes of the Liberals?



Not totally ASB but I think probably unlikely. There would be considerable numbers of people in both Labour and Tories whow would prefer to see the opposition party in power, then to have a free rein when they get in power, rather than see a system which in all likelihood both parties would have to always negotiate with the Liberals or some other centre party.
 
I'm not sure it's possible within the bounds of our current system. If hardline Labour members joined the Communists, the Tories have a grip on power for decades. Bad news for everyone really.
 
I'm not sure it's possible within the bounds of our current system. If hardline Labour members joined the Communists, the Tories have a grip on power for decades. Bad news for everyone really.


True, but I think for this to happen the Tories would have to move significantly to the left of even where they were under a relatively centrist MacMillan, so you would probably end up with very similar policies to what happened under Labour in the 60's and 70's OTL.
 
This isn't really possible with a post-1945 POD, probably not even with electoral reform. I think it would be just about concievable in the Inter-War period but even then it would need some fairly extraordinary circumstances.
 
Commie's influence was very heavily based on their "heroes of anti-Nazi struggle" image. As with all successfull PR campaigns, it is not important if this image was truthful. Without successfull Sealion it would not be possible for left to gain this kind of fame.

Speaking about electoral system, Canada managed to create 4-party Parliament with First Past The Post (FPTP) system, but this aberration is largely explained by sheer size of the country, where Liberals (centrists with slight leaning to the left) and New Dempcrats (similar to Brit Labour) alternating as "natural government party" in certain electoral areas, leading to something known as "strategic voting". This backfires sometimes, if Libs and New Dems both field powerful candidates in certain area and underdog Conservative ends up winning the district with nary 25% of voters voting for him/her.
 
This isn't really possible with a post-1945 POD, probably not even with electoral reform. I think it would be just about concievable in the Inter-War period but even then it would need some fairly extraordinary circumstances.

Oh, I don't know... I can certainly see the hung Parliament happening, given that - well - it did. I'm thinking here of the Labour government, 1974-70, but specifically '76 onwards. Labour had been hanging on since 1974 with a majority of just three, which was gradually reduced by by-elections: by 1976, Labour was a minority government.
In OTL, the 1977 Lib-Lab pact was required in order for Labour to stay in power without another election. What the Liberals asked for in exchange was referenda on devolution for Scotland and Wales, and the use of PR for European elections.

Possible, we could have the Liberals demand more - maybe not an outright demand of "introduce PR or else", but maybe an agreement to hold a referendum on the idea. If it then went through, the way would be clear for smaller parties to gain a place at the table...
 
Aside from the tight electoral system that would have contained a strong CPGB, can I introduce some possible factors.

First for this scenario to work you might have:

The CPGB would have to soften some of its policies such as accept parlt democracy (for the while) and be quite nationalistic. Both fairly possible.

You could see the CPGB replacing Labour in the English inner suburbs of the cities, Wales and Scotland as a proto nationalist party and maybe some rogue and disgruntled rural areas where there is plenty of erm rogue and disgruntled farm workers.

Take a rough figure of 5-10% nationally and you can see that it would instantly weaken Labour, strengthen the Tories.

Although you might have seen a revival of the Lib-Lab electoral coalition. Rememeber from the 30s to the late 60s, the Liberals were very much a local and thinly supported party.

This CPGB would have thrived from 1942 to say the Budapest uprising, then decline for a short revival during the 70s and early 80's, before being splittered and absorbed, as has happened for so many other European Communist Parties.

But can i say that the ability of the CPGB to be as electorally strong would not have come from the Communist themselves, as they were a fairly parochial bunch of people who were increased in negative politics (its the class system, its capitalism). Also more devoted to their industrial policies, ie taking control of the unions. A strong CP would ahve emrged from voters seeing them as the fulcrum of their political aspiratios than any thing CP members would or would have be able to do.
 
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