Challenge: British Dictatorship

To go with the American Dictatorship thread.

Your challenge is to install a dictatorship in the British Isles with a POD after 1795, and before 1900. This can be any kind, from personality-cult to military junta to plain ole oligarchy, but the POD cannot be something like "1899, 31st December, a fly doesn't crap. 45 years later, Sealion succeeds. It was pre-1900!"
 
Napoleon (or the First French Republic) somehow, successfully invades Britain (after 1795 of course) and sets up a puppet English government. It gradually becomes more and more radical, and Imperial backing (Napoleon was never defeated ITTL) it invades Scotland and Ireland, both of which declared independence after England was invaded. So now there's a Republic / Kingdom of Britannia with a radical, despotic government in power. If it's a kingdom, it's an absolute monarchy with no parliament or constitution. If it's a republic, it's an oligarchy similar to the consul system of the FFR.
 
Napoleon invades the the UK and puts Henry Stuart Cardinal-Duke of York on the Throne(s) as Henry IX, maybe he can start an inquisition :D
 

Lovecraft

Banned
Well would would have been easy since the Monarchy and a Dictatorship are both autocratic essentially
 
Well it would have been easy since the Monarchy and a Dictatorship are both autocratic essentially
No, not really. There's plenty of differences between the two.


The Reform Act of 1832 isn't passed, possibly by having Wellington not be forced to resign in 1830. Assuming the revolutions of 1848 still occur, Great Britain is far more likely to be caught up in it. Toss in some stretches of plausibility, a couple extra punches to the influence of the monarchy, and you could easily conjure up a latter-day Cromwell for the UK. (What would become of the 1707 Act? Would it become the UR instead?)
 
The french invade during the revolutionary wars but are beaten back. In order to prevent this ever happening again, the british society militarise to a great degree, with parliament delegating many of its powers to the military supreme concil. The chief of which takes more and more power, as all of its foe are obviously in the pay of potential invaders and strive to leave england defenceless...

The rest is history
 

ninebucks

Banned
The french invade during the revolutionary wars but are beaten back. In order to prevent this ever happening again, the british society militarise to a great degree, with parliament delegating many of its powers to the military supreme concil. The chief of which takes more and more power, as all of its foe are obviously in the pay of potential invaders and strive to leave england defenceless...

The rest is history

What about the monarch? All it needs is for one monarch to take a dislike to this chief, and they can just invite somebody else to govern the country.

A British dictatorship, it seems to me, either relies on an abolished monarchy or at least a monarchy that is utterly interlinked with the ruling elite.
 
Err, I can't see chopping the head off the King/Queen winning the guy too much support...more likely than not it would make him seem like a bloodthirsty tyrant.
 
The problem with simply turning the british monarchy into an autocracy is that even before 1795 it had essentialy been turned into a parlimentry monarchy. The revoloution of 1688 had set the precedent for parlimentry supremacy over the monarch and royal involvement with poltics in the 18th century was patchy amd unstable. Neither George I or II spoke english and took a very limited position in government ,and even George IIIs role was limited as he aged. by 1795 the heir apparent was running things ,and the prince regent was far more concerned with his addiction to hedonism

Instead , i would prefer to put forward a far more radical thesis. Towards the end of the 19th century Immigration reached its peak ,producing very visable minority groups in London and the Major cities ,and a spate of Anarchist/ Anti Semitic violence. In OTL this was very short term and never amounted to much , but TTL is different.

As the century draws to a close previously factioned anti-immigration parties begin to merge under a young charismatic leader , Captain Haig. After becoming head of the Imperial Party(IP) in 1888 ,Haig makes rapid political gains by playing off the Irish Question and fenian attacks ,calling Gladstones attempts to pacify the country as "Selling out the Empire to the Barbarians". The final straw was an Anarchist assasination attempt on the queen in 1896. Although the queen was uninjured , Haig successfully uses the event to pass the Defence of the Relm Act (1897)(DORA) ,providing for sweeping powers to round up "Undesirables" ,Censor the press and curtail public meetings. Haigs new political power and the raising image of the IP secures him the position of Home Secretary ,in charge of the Police and the new "Special Constabulary"(SC) whose job it is to police radical political elements.

By the spring of 1899 the IP is facing challenges to the DORA in Parliament. Facing increasing domestic pressure ,Haig uses IP elements within the army and the paramilitary SC to stage a coup on Mar 15 1899,forcing the queen to make him prime minister and suspending parliament ,using elements of DORA to maintain Britain as a police State.
 
Assuming the revolutions of 1848 still occur, Great Britain is far more likely to be caught up in it.

There would have probably been a revolution of some variety before that. There's a reason why the Reform Act was passed when it was, and it wasn't because the political class was full-steam in front of it - it was largely because by that point the pressure was irresistable. Various politicians had been advocating for reform since at least the 1790's and the public eventually forced their hand.

A good POD would be to have William IV and Edward of Kent dying young and Ernst Augustus inheriting in 1830. 1830-32 were really the years when everything could have gone wrong but just about didn't. Having a reactionary as King at the fag-end of monarchical influence in politics would certainly be an interesting thing to see.
 
Err, I can't see chopping the head off the King/Queen winning the guy too much support....

It's obviously the tyrant's first move in trampling down the english liberties and tearing down the Magna Charta, with the help of barbarians and mercenary foreigners....

The proofs are there.....

So the execution of the traitor is fully justified.
 
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