Failed coupon electin, Britain moves further left in 1945

WI Churchill had persuaded Labour to continue a coaliton, maybe Morrison somehow becoming Labour leader.

I think that a very large effort would have been made by other forces to oppose conservatives. Given what happened in OTL I think it could have worked.



Imagine a resutl something like this

Common Wealth 250 (gain most of the seats from tories that Labour won in otl

Conservatives and allies 210 Loses all as many seats as in otl but mainly to further left

Liberals 12

Communists 30 (Mainly gained from Labour, note that the small number of Communists who ran in otl did quite respectably

Labour 138

I think there would be huge divisions in Labour. Technially the coaltiion would have the majority to carry on but...

Others 10
 
Everyone suddenly voting Common Wealth isn't going to happen. Labour had the presence on the ground and CW didn't. Never forget that, although history books and TLs like to pretend it isn't the case, the importance of a good on-the-ground campaign with knocking up, leaflets and constant presence is still vital to this day. That's why a lot of small but well-publicised parties (UKIP, Greens) just don't make the inroads they perhaps should. The Lib Dem collapse in 2010, after such good poll ratings, was in part due to their local machine being stretched past breaking point after every seat suddenly appeared to be in contention.

EDIT: And that's my thousandth post, apparently. Hurrah for blending in with everyone else!
 
The reason I am expecting Common Wealth to do wel lis that Labour would not be running candidates in Consrvative held seats under such an arrangment.

Labour had an organization. It would have been split. Officially itwould endorse conservatives in such seats but actually that is not what would have happened on the ground
 
The reason I am expecting Common Wealth to do wel lis that Labour would not be running candidates in Consrvative held seats under such an arrangment.

Labour had an organization. It would have been split. Officially itwould endorse conservatives in such seats but actually that is not what would have happened on the ground

Oh, that kind of coupon election. Well, that's pretty ASB in the first place. Labour would only lose seats in such a situation. Morrison, though on the right of Labour, wasn't some Tory stooge. He'd've sought to annihilate them as hard as Clem did.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
I suppose in theory, given the nature of the relations between the UK, US and Soviet Russia (under Stalin) Britain could very easily have ended up on the other side of the Cold War. With this support coming from the top down, from there its gradual reformism, as opposed to the bloody revolutions needed elsewhere. By the 70's the Trades Unions, with massive popular support, completely demolish the Tories and pave the way towards social democracy.
 
Politics...

The fact of the matter was that by early 1945, at which time victory over Germany seemed inevitable (Japan of course was less certain though wasn't of course an immediate strategic threat to the British Isles), politicians within and outside the Coalition on both sides wanted to get back to normal service.

From the Conservative side, you had Brendan Bracken and on the Labour side Aneurin Bevan each viciously attacking the other Party while ostensibly in the same Government.

Once the Germans had collapsed in the West by mid-April, the need for an immediate election was overwhelming. Churchill might have wanted to keep the Coalition going until the final defeat of Japan but again that wasn't seen as the primary strategic challenge to Britain.

There hadn't been a General Election since 1935 - ten years without an election was too long (many of the 1935 MPs were very old) so the need to have a contest was overwhelming.

Labour had developed links within the armed forces and were much more organised than the Conservatives and neither had appreciated the massive social changes the war had caused.
 
This was touched on in a thread the other day, about Attlee not being leader in 1945.

Morrison opposed leaving the coalition when Labour did, thinking it was far too early and convinced Labour would lose the election. I can see him agreeing to a coupon election rather than risk going back into Opposition (bear in mind, Morrison wanted to join a coalition under Halifax rather than Churchill in 1940 - his judgement was remarkably bad at times). Labour can always pull out later, once they're ready to fight a competitive election, once Morrison is certain of victory.

Labour certainly wouldn't lose any seats in such a coupon arrangement, at least not any amongst those who support Morrison's leadership and get the coupon (and he would not be unhappy to see the likes of Bevan cast out). The Communists will benefit, but to the tune of a couple of dozen seats, no more. Common Wealth is interesting, but certainly does not have the campaign machine to win anything more than a handful of seats - a general election is a very different situation to a bye-election, where campaigners can flock from all over the country to a single constituency. The best hope for an extra-coalition left is going to be a Labour split, with an oppositionist Labour under Arthur Greenwood.

(Of course, if Morrison is leader, he won't be the architect of the campaign - and as bad as his leadership skills were, his was a brilliant campaigner - so Labour has a steeper mountain to climb in a 1945 election anyway.)
 
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