Integrating the dominions into the UK

Yeah you really need a 19th century POD for this one, especially for Canada. British North America has to be actively managed in order to keep US influence there low; otherwise with the benign neglect of OTL American influence will be too strong for an effective integration.

As for Australia & New Zealand, integration is more feasible, but the distances involved would make some sort of devolution inevitable, which would lead the Scots, English, and Welsh to wonder why they couldn't get the same goodies as well. With an Imperial Federation, Scottish, English and Welsh devolution movements would be stronger.
 
Yeah and I've seen that kind of argument before, no time for it then, or now.

You didn't read what I said properly then. At no point did I say the empire was good. I'll repeat myself again. It was a mix of both good and bad and any attempt to characterize it as either wholly good or wholly bad is incorrect. There were crimes and there was also some good. That makes its history complicated. We have to treat the history as it is and not simply nitpick events that suit our agenda.
 
You didn't read what I said properly then. At no point did I say the empire was good. I'll repeat myself again. It was a mix of both good and bad and any attempt to characterize it as either wholly good or wholly bad is incorrect. There were crimes and there was also some good. That makes its history complicated. We have to treat the history as it is and not simply nitpick events that suit our agenda.

And overall the Bad outweighs any Good it did. The destroy populations, religions, cultures, famines, the playing one group off against another etc outweigh anything you can point to as Good.
 
And overall the Bad outweighs any Good it did. The destroy populations, religions, cultures, famines, the playing one group off against another etc outweigh anything you can point to as Good.

Personally, I haven't read enough to be able to say the bad outweighs the good or vice versa. There's just so much to go through that I think one would need a life's worth of research to be able to reach a firm conclusion. I'm not saying I disagree with you, Im just saying that I don't know enough to either agree or disagree with you.
 
Did any serious British politicians, in high leadership positions ever strongly champion closer ties than existed iOTL? These ties, to note, were very strong in informal ways, as opposed to formal structures like say a parliament.

I can't think of any.
 
What would New Newfoundland,Canada,Australia and New Zealand gain from this?

The question for most of the time when this was possible was actually "what would the UK gain from this".

Britain itself seems to have been the main opponent to the ideas to federalize the "white dominions" with the motherland, since any federal system would mean London (and London's politicians) giving up power to colonials.

Of course, with hindsight we can see that by trying to cling on to all the power, they weren't able to hold on to any power.

fasquardon
 
With a 20th Century PoD the best you can hope for is something like the Rule Brittania TL in which an early victory in WW1 butterflies Gallipoli and the worst of trench warfare, even then Britain is going to have to deal with the Dominions on a basis of equality and give up the role of top dog. As mentioned above Britain blew any chance of integrating Ireland in the 19th Century because of the pig headedness of Westminster in not granting the promised Catholic Emancipation following the Act of Union, and then failing to respond effectively to the Great Famine. Go back a century and similar cackhandedness resulted in the Revolutionary War. British politicians, and Churchill was a prime example, often had a haughty and condescending attitude to "The Colonials." The incompetence of British, and Dominion, officers that resulted in Gallipoli, Tobruk, Crete, Dieppe and the Malayan Debacle further poisoned relations and post war led to those nations seeing America as a better partner.

A "Commonwealth Federation" of some kind is possible but it needs a complete change of mindset among the British establishment that results in them paying attention to the concerns of the Dominions and treating them as equals.
 
Even if an Imperial Federation had been formed (and it likely requires a POD very early in the 20th C. or in the 19th), I really can't see it working except as basically "Commonwealth Plus."

It could possibly work as a collection of self-governing states that have common citizenship, freedom of movement, free trade, a common foreign policy, and an integrated military. Perhaps chaired by an Imperial Council and a chairman or secretary-general.

I also can't see it including any of the major Indian, SE Asian, Middle Eastern, or African possessions except maybe S. Africa. It'd basically be the current UK + Ireland, Canada, Australia, NZ, maybe SA, the West Indies, and various other possessions like Malta, Singapore, Mauritius, Fiji, etc.
 

Japhy

Banned
How feasible was the idea of integrating Newfoundland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as Home Nations within the United Kingdom? I think the ideal time for this would be after WW2 in order to counterbalance the strength of the US. The British connection was still very strong in the immediate post war era right through the 1950s.

Is there a reason that Newfoundland got added onto this after the collapse of its Self-Government and that other Dominion got left off the list?

End of the day, no there was not the feeling or connection in 1945 in any of the Dominions for this. Yes Australia offered territory for Operation Hurricane, that does not though, inherently mean they were ready to give up the Independence they had fought for and died for on the Kokoda Trail alone just because London is having even more delusions of grandeur then they showed at Suez.
 

Japhy

Banned
You didn't read what I said properly then. At no point did I say the empire was good. I'll repeat myself again. It was a mix of both good and bad and any attempt to characterize it as either wholly good or wholly bad is incorrect. There were crimes and there was also some good. That makes its history complicated. We have to treat the history as it is and not simply nitpick events that suit our agenda.

There was a hell of a lot more bad than good. Mass death and colonial rule over a fifth of the earth is not, in fact a good thing. And Canadians and Nigerians having Westminster systems in the end is not something that magically makes that better.
 
Australia and NZ is doable (but not necessarily easy) their trade was very much heavily dependent on the UK I think (they suffered when the UK joined the EEC), also more cultural similarities with UK compared to Canada. As for Canada: trade dependent on US, culture less close to the UK compared to AUS/NZ and more similar to the US.

Honestly I don't think the US would tolerate Canada as part of the UK, they would sooner annex it. I would guess if the UK tried to integrate Canada into it post-WW2 you would see the US do something like in the Suez crisis, threaten the Pound with collapse or something. Basically a strong diplomatic warning that it would not be tolerated and the British would get the message.
 

Pomphis

Banned
I cited the Statute of Westminster in response to your incorrect claim that the British never dealt on equal terms with the dominions or "domains" as you choose to call them.

IMO the problem/question is: would house of commons and house of lords ever agree to a situation where the "british" MPs and lords might be outvoted by MPs and lords from the dominions ? Could a party win a majority in the house of commons by supporting the idea that british voters would in future possibly be outvoted by voters from the dominions ? Basically the same question as whether an imperial federation would accept india as an equal member (and thereby become the indian empire).
 
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