Hanging Together - A Guide to 21st Century Federalism in the "United" Kingdom

Bulldoggus

Banned
Fuck it, by popular demand I’ll try desperately to write the in-universe afterword tomorrow/on Monday. I thought that doing that (the plan for the first draft) was too on the nose, but if it’s what everyone wants...
Very nice. I'm a fan of this. You know, someday I'll have to do a Divided America thing.
 
As an American who has no knowledge of British politics, this was a relatively entertaining timeline. Personally I'm all for greater Federalism, yet even I can see that the British system is somewhat of a huge mess. What makes this TL good though is that this is a path that is not far-fetched and can easily happen in the future with the right set of circumstances. Would definitely like to see a sequel and how Europe goes from here, maybe something in relation to the current Catalan independence movement.
 
I might, although it may be something of a different format than usual.

Go for it!

As an American who has no knowledge of British politics, this was a relatively entertaining timeline. Personally I'm all for greater Federalism, yet even I can see that the British system is somewhat of a huge mess. What makes this TL good though is that this is a path that is not far-fetched and can easily happen in the future with the right set of circumstances. Would definitely like to see a sequel and how Europe goes from here, maybe something in relation to the current Catalan independence movement.

Thanks :) and yeah I've tried to make it both plausible and fun! And yeah I am tempted, sort of split between writing an afterword a few years in the future or maybe even a sequel...
 
Party Rundown
Major Parties

Conservative and Unionists: George Smith might be resigning over his failure to prevent Blair from calling a referendum on Scottish EU membership and last week he had to go down to Cornwall and negotiate with Dick Cole to prevent an armed insurrection in Cornwall and aaaaaaaaaa

Labour: John Cryer is going to be challenged for the party leadership again because Ed Balls apparently has nothing better to do now that Yvette Cooper has couped him in the Yorkshire Assembly - of course he's yet to actually win a by-election and enter parliament so it could just be another publicity stunt...

Liberals: Not really do anything at the moment; flirted with monetarism a bit under David Laws, but now they're back in the hands of the "radical" wing under Norman Lamb - I know, I know, literally who is that - basically the same bland centrists as always.

BIP: After picking up ten seats at the last election and propping up George Smith's minority government the party was "betrayed" by the Tories... they're set to win 20+ seats at the next election... their official "paper" literally called their leader a "cuck" last year...

Regional Parties

SNP: Anthony Blair and Michael Gove are one step away from painting themselves blue and invading the North or some shit... I don't know or care, we'll probably get a UDI when Smith refuses to recognise the independence referendum result. That should be fun.

Plaid Cymru: As boring and irrelevant as always. [Insert joke about Welsh language initiatives for the five millionth time here]

Mebyon Kernow: Cole must have been watching old newsreels of the IRA because he and his "Radicals" just literally tried to take over Cornwall by force and have erected their own "border".

Yorkshire Party: Not really making any headway, although they briefly reported that Ed Balls was considering defection to them. Turned out to be a publicity stunt. Classic Ed Balls.

London Forwards: So Brian Paddick has now gone full on libertarian, demanding corporation tax in the city be cut to 10 fucking percent... this party won one seat at the last London elections, now the polls show Paddck is going to be the next Mayor of London. This is an irrelevant party. Wtf is happening??? Does no one else remember when Brian Paddick was just that one London Liberal who got expelled for being too close to Ths City?

Cornish Independent-Liberal League: Literally the only party worse than the London Party, they only exist because some independents keep getting arsey about actually joining the Liberals but still want to be on their "list" for Cornwall's PR elections. A bunch of hacks, basically, but with funny accents.

Northern Ireland Parties

DUP: Nigel Dodds made a really off-colour joke about MK "Culturally Appropriating" armed insurrection and political violence from the people of Northern Ireland. Yeah. Maybe this awful leadership explains why Kate Hoey and Jim McAllister are both threatening to leave the party...

Sinn Fein: Gerry Adams made a laughable attempt to launch a career in the Republic which failed, so that's something at least.

Ulster Unionist and Conservatives: Taking a leaf out of the Scottish Unionists' playbook the UUP are slowly merging into the Tories - who could resist that GIDS charm and all that Tory donor cash after all?

SDLP - Fianna Fáil: Unlike Sinn Fein the SDLP has rocketed to success on the back of doing well in the Republic... probably because they joined the biggest party there and sold out to them totally rather than sticking to their principles, but you know, success is success!

Alliance: DID WE TELL YOU? NAOMI LONG WAS A GUEST AT LAST YEAR'S DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION! Yes, ok, maybe it was because she was invited by mistake because they thought she was Laws, but still!

Minor Parties

Ecology: Just passed a motion to charge 25p rather than just 5p for the use of plastic bags, and another requiring dogs to be vaccinated against disease. The face of dangerous Ecological radicalism everybody...

Green Radicals: So now that they've seceded from Ecology in the West Country and gutted it they're apparently supporting Dick Cole's Generalplan Ost in the hopes that Cornish rule is more left-wing... This is why Rees-Mogg keeps winning...

Democratic Labour: Dick Taverne is still their only important member and even he isn't important. Yet they still keep winning Council seats in Lincolnshire. Madness.

CPGB - Alliance for a New Britain: So the Tankies finally split off to go do something irrelevant on their own over the name of all things, leaving just the Eurocommunists who are actually to the right of Labour and meaning this party's name now literally means nothing as not a single real Communist is in the party. Probably going to change their name to just New Britain at some point and accept that they've been capitalists since the 90s...

Socialist Workers' Labour Party: If George Galloway does defect because John Cryer is removed as leader (which he probably won't be) then the tankies will have had more success in their first year on their own than the CPGB has had in over fifty years...


Credit to @BrotherSideways for the format!
 

Sideways

Donor
Green Radicals: So now that they've seceded from Ecology in the West Country and gutted it they're apparently supporting Dick Cole's Generalplan Ost in the hopes that Cornish rule is more left-wing... This is why Rees-Mogg keeps winning...

This actually kind of happened in our area. About a decade ago, the South Devon and Torbay Green Parties split, the Torbay lot kept the printer. I think I'm technically under a blood oath to rid the world of the Torbay insurgents.
 
I thought that during the election, when there were slight upsets with Labour or the Lib Dems.

"Guys! We have to focus on the realm enemy!"

"The Torbay Green Party?! Where?"

At least it's only a schism with a neighbouring area. Unlike Brighton, where they schismed within the same area. Whilst they were in power. Nice to know that the Greens are a mainstream, establishment party now. :winkytongue:
 

Sideways

Donor
I just realised that I didn't give final thoughts on this.

Cevolian, you are a highly creative and interesting writer. The character of your protagonist came across a lot better, you caught the personalities of the people you profiled and you caught the feeling of the country. I'm really pleased that this now exists as a finished work and to the extent that I may have pushed you forward to finish this off, I'm very happy this happened. It was always one of my favourite TLs that vanished. I hope university treats you well and I hope we'll see more of your stuff when you are settled.
 
I know I am late (as always) but...


I never saw that coming.

I do love a good twist :winkytongue: and as has been said above I thought it was a good way to display how divergent this world really was!

I just realised that I didn't give final thoughts on this.

Cevolian, you are a highly creative and interesting writer. The character of your protagonist came across a lot better, you caught the personalities of the people you profiled and you caught the feeling of the country. I'm really pleased that this now exists as a finished work and to the extent that I may have pushed you forward to finish this off, I'm very happy this happened. It was always one of my favourite TLs that vanished. I hope university treats you well and I hope we'll see more of your stuff when you are settled.

Thank you very much :) those are some very kind words! I definitely think I captured the world and the characters I've created better in this version, and I'm so glad that you and so many other people enjoyed it. You definitely did push me towards finishing it, but that's something for which I'm very grateful to you! I started writing the original TL at a time in my life where I was very stressed out about a lot of things (far too much to go into detail about here though I know I mentioned a few in the PMQs thread) and I'm glad I finally got around to finishing off a story I've wanted to tell in various forms for almost as long as I've been on this site.

University is very strange, but I am settling in I think, and hopefully when the hecticness subsides I will be able to work on my next project, be that one of many ideas floating around in my head, a reboot of something old, or something new entirely. :)
 
A very good TL. Not only was the devolved and messy structure of Britain well-done, but so was everything else. I find myself wanting to know more about the Pakistani situation and how India is involved in this, and how IBM is in the phone-making business and if any other old companies like Xerox are in the computer-making business. It serves as a great look into an element of an alternate world.
 

Md139115

Banned
I hate necros, but since everyone is discussing the relative strengths and weaknesses of American and British federalism, I feel the need to interject.

Really, the reasons why federalism is breaking down in the US are that:

1. American politicians are power-mad lunatics. Seriously, there must be something in the water here...

2. Control of a state government is the perfect way to combat the ultimate evil (i.e. the other party) at all levels of American government.

3. The state borders have not, in many cases, changed in 200+ years. Even Britain has had the sense to update it's political subdivisions more often than that! If America were to start from scratch today, the state map would be unrecognizable.

Aside from that, American federalism is probably the single most effective feature of our government, and probably has headed off way more civil wars than it has caused... :rolleyes:

I am confident that our more erudite and circumspect British cousins can avoid these pitfalls though.
 
Top