Could the British Empire be Reformed? if so how?
- Thread starter Churchill
- Start date
I would give a few options.
An Imperial federation, as was the wont of many Victorians. It would have given the colonies a say in Westminster and self-government domestically. I think it would have worked as well.
Curiously, I think the BUF would have saved the Empire. Their strategy of Britain first, Empire second, foreigners nowhere and creating an Empire-wide corporate state may have worked. It would not have been pretty though.
The only other way is an EU-type organization in which Britain is a member. This would hardly be an empire though.
Powell was far too late to save the Empire. By that point the winds of change had occured and the Empire was finished. That aside, the man never had enough support.
An Imperial federation, as was the wont of many Victorians. It would have given the colonies a say in Westminster and self-government domestically. I think it would have worked as well.
Curiously, I think the BUF would have saved the Empire. Their strategy of Britain first, Empire second, foreigners nowhere and creating an Empire-wide corporate state may have worked. It would not have been pretty though.
The only other way is an EU-type organization in which Britain is a member. This would hardly be an empire though.
Powell was far too late to save the Empire. By that point the winds of change had occured and the Empire was finished. That aside, the man never had enough support.
How restored? And when?
A central government located in London after World War I is probably impossible. Both Canada and South Africa were set on gaining as much autonomy as possible and would not take well to London interference in Dominion affairs.
Now some kind of federal EU/NATO group is most certainly plausible, but I doubt a right wing government would be the right the one for the job. India comes to mind, and unless you wish for Britain to unleash horrors upon the africans and the indians to try and keep them in line, I would suggest a far sighted leftist government.
boredatwork
Banned
unlikely - any moderately democratic approach will lead to indians dictating the laws for everyone else due to sheer weight of numbers. Any other approach will be viewed by the Indians as denying or diluting their franchise.
A smaller federation - including the UK, Ireland (as much as it pains me to write that), Aus, NZ, Can, etc might work - there'll still be issues with relative voting rights, but the racism and vast disproportionality of influence vs size won't be quite as glaring.
how reformed are you thinking here - a United Dominions (essentially something like the US with dominions instead of states)? Or something like a beefed up commonwealth?
Seems that anything truly unified that doesn't allow the dominions/colonies as much influence on UK policy as the UK has on theirs isn't going to last in the long run.
A smaller federation - including the UK, Ireland (as much as it pains me to write that), Aus, NZ, Can, etc might work - there'll still be issues with relative voting rights, but the racism and vast disproportionality of influence vs size won't be quite as glaring.
how reformed are you thinking here - a United Dominions (essentially something like the US with dominions instead of states)? Or something like a beefed up commonwealth?
Seems that anything truly unified that doesn't allow the dominions/colonies as much influence on UK policy as the UK has on theirs isn't going to last in the long run.
Anaxagoras
Banned
The gist of my Rule Britannia TL is that, because of a relatively easy victory in WWI, the Empire did not suffer the massive human and financial losses it did IOTL and the Dominions did not lose the respect for Britain as they did IOTL. Consequently, the Statute of Westminster in the early 1930s was not the device for breaking up the Empire that it was IOTL, but was rather a legal mechanism for creating the Imperial Federation that was dreamed of by many people, both in Britain and in the colonies, in the early 20th Century.
I could see a chain of small events which would reform a British Empire of sorts. A different, better, Malaya/DEI campaign would be a great start, and avoiding Rommels drive to El Alamien would be another good thing. The cluster of events from 1955-8; Nasser going to the SU for arms/finance, Suez war, 1957 Defence White Paper, CENTO abortion, renewing US-UK nuke sharing killed off any chance for a reformed empire in any shape or form.
What I could envisage is a strong British world presence through the Commonwealth and CENTO, members of which could be firm British clients/partners. Such arrangements could appeal to members by linking them with the British and giving them much more leverage from such an arrangement than the US or SU would offer.
What I could envisage is a strong British world presence through the Commonwealth and CENTO, members of which could be firm British clients/partners. Such arrangements could appeal to members by linking them with the British and giving them much more leverage from such an arrangement than the US or SU would offer.
Destroy Germany and the US in the mid-19th century.
France gets bogged down in endless wars pacifying the former German territories.
No French assistance or investment in Russia (because no German threat to France), which therefore remains an agricultural state, and falls behind the West.
No US opening of Japan. Japan remains closed to foreigners for say another 20 or 30 years, and then is even further behind, maybe gets colonized.
AH (without any German links, and lots of German troubles) are the remaining Great Powers. Maybe Italy doesn't unite. In any case Britain can handle them.
And China, can get carved up between Britain and Russia, stay in warlordism, etc.
Which leaves Britain as the pre-eminent power until the mid-20th century or later.
Adding some more commitments to countries to weak to defend themselves, is supposed to help an over-extended and over-committed Britain how?I think the opposite is needed. You need to make British power more, not less, concentrated. Which means it needs to be stronger (in relative terms compared to rivals) if spread over the same amount of land/sea. Or it needs to be spread over less land/sea - i.e. abandon some liabilities.
Susano
Banned
That creates a West Lothian problem on massive scale. India has more inhabitants than the rest of that Federation together, after all. And iny our poposal Britain would keep its privileged role at least symbolically, why would India accept that?
It would have to be something like that, and yes, it would be no Empire.
I was only pointing out a movement which existed in mentioning the Imperial federation. I didnt say it was the obvious preferred option. That being said, I suppose you could have the franchise depending on the size of the economy rather than the population.
The only other way I think it would work would be a British/British Empire and a British Indian Empire seperate but interlinked in said EU fashion with Britain taking the White Dominions and the African colonies, India the Asian colonies. Sort of a modern day Western and Eastern Roman Empire.
Like I had in my New Britain timeline...Susano said:
I was only pointing out a movement which existed in mentioning the Imperial federation. I didnt say it was the obvious preferred option. That being said, I suppose you could have the franchise depending on the size of the economy rather than the population.
The only other way I think it would work would be a British/British Empire and a British Indian Empire seperate but interlinked in said EU fashion with Britain taking the White Dominions and the African colonies, India the Asian colonies. Sort of a modern day Western and Eastern Roman Empire.
Like I had in my New Britain timeline...Susano said:
Impossible for four reasons.Churchill said:
1.)There is no need for it.
2.)There is no serious political desire for it in Britain.
3.)No other nation at national level would seriously want it.
4.)Assuming all the other three points are correct, international opinion would be against it.
What Asian colonies? Malaysia won't want to be ruled by a bunch of wogs in Dehli, after all.
Malaya, Singapore, Straits Settlement, Brunei, North Borneo, Sarawak, and Labuan were the colonies I had in mind.
I agree it is very unlikely, but I was thinking of a way to retain British power and keep India in the Empire.
Susano
Banned
After British Colonial Adminsitration hindered economical development in India for a century? Yeah, Im sure India will just love this idea.
Okay, I can see a closer association of the UK and the White Dominions, theyr ecultrually linked, after all. But even in that the question of the at least symbolic focus on the UK remains, eventually, people will get fed up about that. But randomly throwing in colonies to one or the other side? Wont work, eventually theyll rise up, and rightly so. Besides, teh African colonies, too, would taken together outnumber Great Britain.
And Africa eventually wont like to be ruled from London. Thats the problem. You cant keep a colonial Empire because it IS focused on one particula rnation, that being the mother country. Hence you cant truely change it into a Federation, either. Either the (former) mother country will be upset about losing its special role as it should, or the other countries will be upset about it retaining its special role. And thats why that talk about saving the EMpire by Federation is IMO pure hypocrisy: Its mostly the Brits (bakc then in politics or nowadays here in AH) who advocate this, but in the end they dont want a federation, they basically want a system of tributary states, and then expect the people in those tributary states to like it!