Challenge: Save as much of the British Empire - 1945 onwards.

KCammy

Banned
Save as much of the British empire as you can into the present day.

However, you may only describe events happpening after 1945, in other words, the POD cannot be after 1945.
 
IMHO 1945 its too late to save the Empire ...

EDIT: Barring some ASB discovery ala Fusion or something like that ... and even then ...
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Post-WWII is far too late to save the Empire.

Forging a strong Commonwealth, on the other hand, certainly is not out of the question.
 
OK. While China is weaker, the deal on ceding Hong Kong is extended to the leased areas in return for som economic investment (may require Nationalist victory), thus allowing Hong Kong to remain British.
 

abc123

Banned
Save as much of the British empire as you can into the present day.

However, you may only describe events happpening after 1945, in other words, the POD cannot be after 1945.

Well, IMO keeping of all current commonwealth realms ( except Australia, Canada and NZ ) shouldn't be so hard to do. After all, only a political descision of HMG is needed for that. Malta and Singapore, maybe even Sarawak and Sabah also aren't impossible to keep in the Empire.

HK is a rather tricky stuff...

But that's the maximum of plausabile solutions IMHO.
 
Any one ever seen a Time Line for Neil Shute's "In The Wet" about a stronger Commonwealth.
In the End The Royals leave england for the Commonwealth, appointing Goveror-Generals for England & Scotland
 
I've always wondered about trying to hang onto Nigeria given the natural resources. As stated earlier, all of the small island nations staying as parts of the empire seems fairly easy to me. Perhaps Suez taking a different turn would lead to a different situation in the Middle East or East Africa, that may make trying to hang on to some pieces of empire more attractive.
 
You cannot keep a directly controlled empire after WW2, but you can have a lot of countries as client states of Britain. Indeed the weakness of Britain could be a plus since they aren't likely to want to flood countries with troops like the US and Sovs. Countries could be involved in tight military and commercial arrangements with Britain and the Commonwealth as a substitute for empire.
 

abc123

Banned
Indeed the weakness of Britain could be a plus since they aren't likely to want to flood countries with troops like the US and Sovs. Countries could be involved in tight military and commercial arrangements with Britain and the Commonwealth as a substitute for empire.

I agree.
Allmost all African and Asian colonies aren't profitable to be colonies any more. Also, their large population growth makes them hard for keeping order.
So, their natural riches can be exploated by british TNCs and they don't have to be colonies, stronger Commonwealth is enough...
 
You cannot keep a directly controlled empire after WW2, but you can have a lot of countries as client states of Britain. Indeed the weakness of Britain could be a plus since they aren't likely to want to flood countries with troops like the US and Sovs. Countries could be involved in tight military and commercial arrangements with Britain and the Commonwealth as a substitute for empire.

Perhaps if Suez goes down worse and leads to more of a break between Britain/France and the US, we could see a sort of 'Anglo-Indian' 3rd grouping of ex-British empire states, possibly including Portugal and her colonies, and either including France or allied to a 'Franco-European' grouping in Western Europe.
 
Keeping some of the island colonies and territories like Mauritius, the Seychelles, Antigua and so on should be rather easy provided that there is the political will to do so. OTL the Seychelles asked for integrated but this was rebuffed by the British government. Malta even had a referendum on its integration into Britain.

Singapore might be doable too with enough political will. Hong Kong requires a treaty of sorts with China.
 
Keeping some of the island colonies and territories like Mauritius, the Seychelles, Antigua and so on should be rather easy provided that there is the political will to do so. OTL the Seychelles asked for integrated but this was rebuffed by the British government. Malta even had a referendum on its integration into Britain.

Singapore might be doable too with enough political will. Hong Kong requires a treaty of sorts with China.

Malta's referendum only failed on turnout. Apart from small islands, I really can't see this working, not in the climate of the 50's and 60's in the UK. Malta, yes, Gibraltar - of course, Cyprus - maybe (most as the lesser of three weevils), some of the very small islands, maybe. Anywhere with a large and non-white population, sadly no.
 
Perhaps if Suez goes down worse and leads to more of a break between Britain/France and the US, we could see a sort of 'Anglo-Indian' 3rd grouping of ex-British empire states, possibly including Portugal and her colonies, and either including France or allied to a 'Franco-European' grouping in Western Europe.

Doesn't a split between the US and western Europe drastically ramp up the chances of the Soviets trying their luck with an invasion of West Germany, or some other flash area that only the united opposition of the first world kept them out of? Is a third (non-Chinese) faction with a post-1945 POD even possible?
 
Malta's referendum only failed on turnout. Apart from small islands, I really can't see this working, not in the climate of the 50's and 60's in the UK. Malta, yes, Gibraltar - of course, Cyprus - maybe (most as the lesser of three weevils), some of the very small islands, maybe. Anywhere with a large and non-white population, sadly no.

Agreed that the political climate was not right for this to happen. The problem is that come the seventies Britain lost faith in herself and looked to Europe and NATO and so much in bettering herself.
Perhaps Thatcher could have done it if more colonies had been kept until the 1980s, but even then I don't see moronic semi racists Tories like Alan Clarke approving of this.

We need a different Britain from 1945s onwards to see this happening.
 
Singapore might be doable too with enough political will. Hong Kong requires a treaty of sorts with China.

Where Singapore's concerned, it's tricky. The push was for full self government as soon as possible and local governments which didn't make this their priority were subject to collapse.

WW2 really completely undermined British reputation in SE Asia.
 
Perhaps if Suez goes down worse and leads to more of a break between Britain/France and the US, we could see a sort of 'Anglo-Indian' 3rd grouping of ex-British empire states, possibly including Portugal and her colonies, and either including France or allied to a 'Franco-European' grouping in Western Europe.

Suez has to go differently/better. Nasser went to Britain to by arms and Britain refused to sell unless he dropped his opposition to the Baghdad Pact. So he either does that or the war goes Britains way, forcing this demand and Britain becomes more influential in the Mid East and delays the Soviet first foothold.
 
Saving the empire is pretty much out, apart from islands and small territories with unfriendly neighbors as mentioned by others.

However delaying the firesale around '60 might be possible ...

If India went to hell in a handbasket shortly after independence, that cause all parties to slow down and rethink for a few years ...

Maybe if they had tried some kombination of princely and ethnic/linguistic based states, things just might have been a whole lot less stable ....
Though that would undoubtably require a pre-WW2 POD.
 
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