Labour wins 1983 election in U.K., goes forward with nuclear disarmament... Then what?

[Callmesalticidae]

During the 1983 election, Labour proposed unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from the EEC. What might the consequences have been if this went through?

If it takes some finagling in the 1970s or Thatcher's first term, or some modification of other parts of Labour's platform, in order to make a Labour win possible, then that's fine. I'm pretty much only concerned with what this means for other countries. For example, does this weaken NATO? Would the USSR think that the UK had "backed down" and thereby feel more emboldened?

(The effect, if any, on the USSR is probably my main interest. Here in the US there's a big "Reagan is responsible for the Soviet Union's collapse" mentality, but that's pretty silly, at least with the "and he did it all on his own" undertones that I was given as a lad, and I'd like to explore how the picture looks from the perspective of other countries, by making one of their biggest partners suddenly back away a bit at the last minute.)

 

[marathag]

During the 1983 election, Labour proposed unilateral nuclear disarmament and withdrawal from the EEC. What might the consequences have been if this went through?

a No Confidence Vote followed by new election and Thatcher back in

 

[Salvador79]

I cannot pronounce myself on the likelihood of this in Britain (but we also shouldn't according to the OP), and I can only venture general speculations about the Soviet Union. I have quite a clear view on what this might have meant on the German political landscape, though.

I don't think anyone in the Soviet Union would feel very emboldened by this move. There was an officially tolerated, sponsored and orchestrated anti-rearming peace movement in less Moscow-loyal Eastern Bloc countries like Romania, and the way this went so much better than other official demonstrations clearly showed that secret services all across the Eastern Bloc that their populations were keen on peace and would readily jump on a peace train, too. The Soviet leadership would continue its military investments because Reagan's programs alone were enough of a perceived threat to the balance of mutually assured destruction, regardless of what the Brits did.

But EVEN IF they didn't, and that's a very big IF, the Soviet economy was in a dire situation in the 1980s anyway. They were losing ground technologically, their terms of trade beyond their bloc "partners" were deteriorating, raw resource prices of which the SU's territory was rich had fallen spectacularly, and the prices of loans on capitalist markets were rising. None of this would change just because less resources would have to be invested into military technology and could thus be directed to, say, consumer goods. Military technology was the only sector where Soviet R&D was competitive anyway...

Also, a more relaxed world political climate would only have benefited those who wanted a reformer like Gorbachev at the helm. With Gorbachev still coming to power and implementing his reforms, it's a given that the Eastern bloc satellites will try to break free and succeed, and then Russia is following suit.

I'm not 100 % certain with regards to the above. But where I am fairly certain is what this would have meant for the German political landscape. We had many hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, demonstrating in Western Germany against rearming. This movement was closely connected and intertwined with other movements like the anti-nuclear power movement, the environemntalist movement in general, and movements for more direct democracy, feminism etc., many of which saw the Green Party as their parliamentary arm. If Labour had won in Britain on such a platform, and then went through with such measures, this would be an absolutely unprecedented triumph for the movement in the entire continent. It would boost their confidence greatly, and would have implications on all sorts of other political domains in which they were active. Quite generally, an end to Thatcherism in Britain and a switch to whatever kind of flavour of Labour would contribute significantly to an entirely differen narrative of what the 1980s politically stood for. IOTL, it was the decade in which neo-liberalism triumphed, in which the Western model unambiguously won over the Eastern model, and in which civic protest movements of all sorts were loud and visible and managed to insert their goals into public discourse, but failed to achieve any of them in immediate politics. With the change the OP alludes to, this narrative might change significantly, towards a narrative of a "third path" between American capitalism and Soviet communism becoming victorious: this would be a narrative with which both euro-communist groups and the electoral groups who supported Mitterand's leftist coalition and Britain's Labour Party on the one hand and civic protest movements closer to the Greens and certainly demonstrating against Mitterand's and any Labour PM's energy and infrastructure policies, on the other hand could both identify with. What with Chernobyl still happening and everything, it might mean Germany's Greens edging towards a double-digit electoral outcome in 1987, which might either have cost Kohl his majority for a second chancellorship (which would influence the course of German unification in 1990 considerably), or, if it is all to the SPD's detriment, would have shifted the weights within Western Germany's left-of-centre parties substantially. Foreign policy-wise, I don't think that this was a time in which a German government would waver in its Western orientation, even though the voices in favour of leaving the NATO (the protesters' demand was to "abolish it", but of course that's not for the FRG to decide...) would be slightly louder.

 

[Derek Jackson]

This is more plausible in 1984, no Falklands war and alliance failing, possibly due to Owen

 

[Politibrit]

Realistically, Labour wouldnt win in 1983. It could have found itself as the largest party in a hung parliament had the Falklands been lost/never happened- but largely because FPTP would work heavily in their favour in a three way race with the Tories and the Alliance than because of any real appeal they had. From there, there is an outside chance of some kind of Tory-Alliance arrangement falling apart, and the Liberals throwing their weight behind Foot in a confidence and supply arrangement, and an outside chance that such a deal would include unilateral disarmament. There was more Liberal sympathy for that part of Labour's foreign policy than the other controversial bits. This is basically doomsday for the Tories, so as Derek says, there is no way the election wouldn't get put off to 1984 in this scenario.

The other possibility is that the Thatcher government collapses in the first couple of years of the parliament, when she was historically unpopular, but before the Alliance really got going. You'd probably need a far closer outcome in '79 to make a no confidence vote feasible, but an election in '80 or early '81 could return a comfortable Labour majority-which would give them enough of a free rein to enact their programme-which might not be quite so left wing had the Labour right perceived there was any real chance of winning.

Without having huge expertise on the subject, I'd say disarmament might have less impact than expected. The nuclear deterrent wasn't doing anything the US wasn't doing already as far as the Cold War was concerned, and of itself wouldn't indicate that the UK was abandoning the US. The bigger impact would be in other Labour policies in this area, like the removal of US bases and nuclear missiles, the possible withdrawal from NATO, and the general shift towards the kind of conciliatory approach towards the USSR that was adopted by other western European nations at this time.

If Labour wins a majority in the early eighties, then we will see most of that stuff implemented, but if they are beholden to the Liberals later on, then we probably just get the less controversial things, and even then probably through some kind of compromise solutions. I can certainly see disarmament in the late eighties being spun as 'the Cold War is ending, these weapons have served their purpose' rather than in explicitly unilateralist terms. And given the manifesto Labour stood on, the narrative would be more one of things not being as bad as first thought than an unmitigated disaster for NATO.

 

[Callmesalticidae]

What with Chernobyl still happening and everything, it might mean Germany's Greens edging towards a double-digit electoral outcome in 1987, which might either have cost Kohl his majority for a second chancellorship (which would influence the course of German unification in 1990 considerably), or, if it is all to the SPD's detriment, would have shifted the weights within Western Germany's left-of-centre parties substantially.

I'm not familiar with German politics. Do you mean that Germany wouldn't have reunified (shocking, but maybe just because my post-unification, U.S.-raised mind has an oversimplified understanding of German attitudes toward reunification), or that the character of that unification would have been decidedly different?

 

[Nebogipfel]

But where I am fairly certain is what this would have meant for the German political landscape. We had many hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, demonstrating in Western Germany against rearming. ... Quite generally, an end to Thatcherism in Britain and a switch to whatever kind of flavour of Labour would contribute significantly to an entirely differen narrative of what the 1980s politically stood for.

I think you vastly overestimate the impact of British politics on 80s FRG. Thatcherism did not influence German politic much in the first place (we were quite happy with the way things worked back then), the main impetus for the 'roll back' and neoliberalism came from the US. We talk about the early 80s. Britain was regarded as a place of permanent economical and political crisis back then not just in Germany, definitely not as any kind of model. So a triumph by Labour - which was not held in high regard even by the (very snobbish)(West)German left back then at all - would change basically nothing.

 

[Salvador79]

I'm not familiar with German politics. Do you mean that Germany wouldn't have reunified (shocking, but maybe just because my post-unification, U.S.-raised mind has an oversimplified understanding of German attitudes toward reunification), or that the character of that unification would have been decidedly different?

The latter. i'll elaborate tomorrow.

 

[Salvador79]

I'm not familiar with German politics. Do you mean that Germany wouldn't have reunified (shocking, but maybe just because my post-unification, U.S.-raised mind has an oversimplified understanding of German attitudes toward reunification), or that the character of that unification would have been decidedly different?

It might have been decidedly different with, say, a chancellor Vogel. IOTL, the SPD in the West and the re-founded SDP in the East supported the idea of a constitutional convention for the unified German republic, which could draw on the experiences of both Westerners and Easterners. Kohl, in his party's tradition of iron loyalty to the Western allies begun by Adenauer already, would have none of that and insisted on the "joining the FRG under the article 23 of the Grundgesetz" line. Now, we don't know if an SPD chancellor Vogel would not have preferred "joining under article 23", too, if he had been in power. But it's not a certainty. A new constituent assembly in the heady days of 1990 could bring forth many interesting changes from OTL for post-1990 Germany. Also, if the West German government with which all the negotiations would have to be conducted had indeed been a red-green coalition (difficult to imagine for that time period, I know), I'd expect the internal party-political dynamics in Eastern Germany to go fundamentally different, too.

I think you vastly overestimate the impact of British politics on 80s FRG. Thatcherism did not influence German politic much in the first place (we were quite happy with the way things worked back then), the main impetus for the 'roll back' and neoliberalism came from the US. We talk about the early 80s. Britain was regarded as a place of permanent economical and political crisis back then not just in Germany, definitely not as any kind of model. So a triumph by Labour - which was not held in high regard even by the (very snobbish)(West)German left back then at all - would change basically nothing.

While I agree on some points, I must differ on others.
I find it difficult to localise exactly where the main impetus for the rollback and neoliberalism came from. There were changes going on in the economic faculties, there were changes in the FDP and in the CDU at the time, Reagan may have played a more important role here than Thatcher, I'd agree, but in the time period of the Bundestag which I speculated about possibly being affected by the butterflies (i.e. 1987-1990), Finance Minister Stoltenberg began the first tax cuts, already with a neoliberal rhetoric attached. IOTL, this could draw inspiration from both Reagan + Thatcher. If ITTL, it was only Reagan, I don't think that this would have no effect at all on the power of the message which stemmed from it being perceived as the inevitable wave which would wash over us anyway. With no European country going that road of "reform", it might have been perceived as an American oddity (like the compulsion to continue the war in Vietnam a decade or 15 years earlier, which few Europeans thought understandable).
The West German left was a lot more diverse back then than it is now. I don't know about the SPD's position on the matter, but the Greens and associated civic protest movements would never have to look up to British politics as a shining example to still draw a great impulse from British nuclear disarmament. Just think how important the same groups have always held the Austrian plebiscite with which Austria had decided never to introduce nuclear power - and that never meant that German anti-nuclear activists or "the German left" ever considered Austrian politics as a model to emulate generally. Far from it.

 

[Opunium]

It might have been decidedly different with, say, a chancellor Vogel. IOTL, the SPD in the West and the re-founded SDP in the East supported the idea of a constitutional convention for the unified German republic, which could draw on the experiences of both Westerners and Easterners. Kohl, in his party's tradition of iron loyalty to the Western allies begun by Adenauer already, would have none of that and insisted on the "joining the FRG under the article 23 of the Grundgesetz" line. Now, we don't know if an SPD chancellor Vogel would not have preferred "joining under article 23", too, if he had been in power. But it's not a certainty. A new constituent assembly in the heady days of 1990 could bring forth many interesting changes from OTL for post-1990 Germany. Also, if the West German government with which all the negotiations would have to be conducted had indeed been a red-green coalition (difficult to imagine for that time period, I know), I'd expect the internal party-political dynamics in Eastern Germany to go fundamentally different, too.

I know next to nothing about modern Germany, and its kind of of topic, but it sounds really interesting. What kind of outcome could such a constitutional convention have? How would it change Germany post 1990?

 

[Salvador79]

To press that last point home once more:
A big part of the Greens' belated political breakthrough, i.e. their lack of success in spite of things like Chernobyl 1986, in the 1980s and early 1990s, and by implication also the toxicity of the intra-party debate between "fundamentalists" and "Realos", was that they simply had no big achievements to point to anywhere, which meant the general narrative of the likes of the Bild newspaper etc. to portray them as a part of the "lunatic fringe" ("Öko-Spinner") kind of worked. Disarmament wasn't flying in the 1980s; energy prices had fallen again to such low levels that a U-turn in energy policy was necessary was selling badly, too; yes, there was Chernobyl and people knew the woods were in a bad shape and the ozone layer, too, but with a few reforms (banning leaded fuel and fluor-chlor-carbohydrates etc.), governments reacted to that and while many people thought the problems were more serious indeed, there was also a great reluctance towards trusting these "lunatics".
Now, if Britain scrapped its nuclear weapons, you wouldn't need to consider Britain a shining example in general at all, but it would be a big first success, well of course not of the German Greens, but they would see themselves as part of a wider global movement here which had triumphed and pushed one country's government to come to their senses. I still remember our neighboring village had an official sign post erected at the village's entrance which read "community free of atomic bombs" (which was all fair and cheap because the US Army had never stationed nuclear warheads there anyway). The Greens ran on platforms demanding the absence of nuclear missiles on FRG soil as a first step towards total global nuclear disarmament back then (actually, much longer, but after the 1980s, people kind of stopped taking it seriously even within the party), and IOTL everyone else had an easy game portraying them as dangerous political hasardeurs who would threaten Germany's Western alliance. That would not fly quite so well if the Western ally Britain had gone ahead and disarmed nuclearily...

 

[Salvador79]

I know next to nothing about modern Germany, and its kind of of topic, but it sounds really interesting. What kind of outcome could such a constitutional convention have? How would it change Germany post 1990?

Difficult to predict exactly - because so much of a changed 1980s would have come before this unification.. so all I can offer is some of the things which were lively discussed in some parliamentary commissions and in those few segments of the media friendly to the idea:
1) Plebiscitarian elements. In those days, "direct democracy" was immensely popular with the left while also popular with some parts of the right. It was discussed a lot. So one thing which could have changed is referenda at the federal level.
2) Expansion of the list of enshrined and inviolable liberties and rights: there's a plethora of suggestions here, and while some would probably never have had a chance to achieve a majority in the earl 1990s, others might have worked.
3) Less federalism: This one isn't a given, but it's also not excluded. Federalism was never extremely popular in the FRG (except maybe for Bavaria), with many people seeing the Länder with their governments and parliaments as unnecessary bureaucracy and complaining about the "chaos" of federal diversity (this still applies, the narrative was extremely popular this year when COVID-19 regulations differed from state to state and town to town), and the GDR had been a very centralised state. The GDR was not very popular with its own citizens anymore, but its central government wasn't perceived as part of the problem by most of them. So, at the cost of having the CSU howling loudly and thinking aloud about Bavarian secession, there could have been a deep reform which might have abolished the federal structure altogether.
4) Presidency. While direct democracy and civil liberties were favourites of the left, and anti-federalism was a widespread populist sentiment, a stronger because popularly elected presidency (perhaps more akin to the American system) was something which parts of the right (e.g. the CSU) viewed favourably. With memories of Weimar faded, it would be a possibility, although maybe not a very strong one.

 

[Salvador79]

I know next to nothing about modern Germany, and its kind of of topic, but it sounds really interesting. What kind of outcome could such a constitutional convention have? How would it change Germany post 1990?

Now if you ask how all of this might change German foreign policy, I would tend to say that the modifications discussed IOTL would probably change very little.

But then again, I had to concede that a different 1980s could lead to very different debates in this constitutional convention. If the 1980s, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, would not be read as the victory of the West over the East, but as a liberation from a nightmarish confrontation of blocs which threatened the world with complete annihilation, and there would be talk about Europe as a neutral continent post-1989 etc., then constitutional guarantees against militarism, which are already present in the OTL Grundgesetz, could have been reinforced to such an extent that an involvement in, say, the Kosovo War in 1999, if it happens at all in this divergent timeline, would be impossible.

I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to say this is plausible. After all, even with a boost for the disarmament movement, the collapse of the communist bloc would probably still be seen as a triumph of the Western order, and people in the East would want to become like the West anyway, and seek inclusion into existing Western structures, and France would be more or less 100 % unlikely to disarm nuclearily anyway even if Britain did... so maybe the changes would be much more subtle.

 

[Nebogipfel]

A big part of the Greens' belated political breakthrough, i.e. their lack of success in spite of things like Chernobyl 1986, in the 1980s and early 1990s, and by implication also the toxicity of the intra-party debate between "fundamentalists" and "Realos", was that they simply had no big achievements to point to anywhere, which meant the general narrative of the likes of the Bild newspaper etc. to portray them as a part of the "lunatic fringe" ("Öko-Spinner") kind of worked..., there was also a great reluctance towards trusting these "lunatics".
Now, if Britain scrapped its nuclear weapons, you wouldn't need to consider Britain a shining example in general at all, but it would be a big first success, well of course not of the German Greens, but they would see themselves as part of a wider global movement here which had triumphed and pushed one country's government to come to their senses. I still remember our neighboring village had an official sign post erected at the village's entrance which read "community free of atomic bombs" (which was all fair and cheap because the US Army had never stationed nuclear warheads there anyway). The Greens ran on platforms demanding the absence of nuclear missiles on FRG soil as a first step towards total global nuclear disarmament back then (actually, much longer, but after the 1980s, people kind of stopped taking it seriously even within the party), and IOTL everyone else had an easy game portraying them as dangerous political hasardeurs who would threaten Germany's Western alliance. That would not fly quite so well if the Western ally Britain had gone ahead and disarmed nuclearily...

No, people didn't trust the Greens because of the oh so evul Bild-Zeitung (softcore Daily Mail), but simply because they were a bunch of mostly hard-lefties with relatively few moderates ('Realos') as public face in those days. They simply were fringe by 1980s standards, and people knew it. I was a politically very interested teenager at that time, and believe me, society back then was considerably more conservative than today, As was the Zeitgeist as such - there was a reason for the whole rollback thing. All your butterfly effects would just entropy away. Also, you should entertain the possibility that Foot's Labour party would not last very long (good bet, they were not very popular in the UK either and are still regarded as a joke today)

 

[Salvador79]

No, people didn't trust the Greens because of the oh so evul Bild-Zeitung (softcore Daily Mail), but simply because they were a bunch of mostly hard-lefties with relatively few moderates ('Realos') as public face in those days. They simply were fringe by 1980s standards, and people knew it. I was a politically very interested teenager at that time, and believe me, society back then was considerably more conservative than today, As was the Zeitgeist as such - there was a reason for the whole rollback thing. All your butterfly effects would just entropy away. Also, you should entertain the possibility that Foot's Labour party would not last very long (good bet, they were not very popular in the UK either and are still regarded as a joke today)

I'm aware that from today's point of view, the zeitgest of 1980s Germany looks conservative, and I don't disagree that from OTL's 1980s' perspective, the Greens looked radical in large parts. Yet, on a single Sunday in October 1983, 1.3 million Germans demonstrated against the NATO Double-Track Decision. The Greens obtained a total of 3.1 million votes in 1987, which is not so much more. According to a Gallup poll from 1983, 67 % of the German population were against the new missiles. All three traditional parties (CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP), at least majorities in them as well as their leadership, were in favour, though The Greens were the only party opposed to re-armament at all. The FDP's coalition switch, Kohl's electoral success in 1983 and the ultimate failure of the movement to achieve anything meant that the topic was pushed out of the limelight of the political discourse. BUT, if this had not been a colossal failure, if Britain had decided to disarm (even if the Labour government would fall a few years later without having completed its promise of nuclear disarmament) the momentum would not have been lost, and if the Greens remained the only Bundestag party voicing this view of the majority (when SPD and FDP local party units began to rally against the stationing of the missiles and parts of the unions supported it, too), I think that would have been undoubtedly wind under their wings. How much? I don't know. They obtained 8.3 % of the vote in 1987 IOTL - is a double-digit result so unrealistic? I don't think so.
But, on closer inspection, Kohl would probably have won the 1987 election nonetheless, which would have killed most of the larger butterflies. His majority was more comfortable than I remembered. Flipping it would have required much more than just the momentum from British disarmament, you're right.

 

[Bloodraven]

But, on closer inspection, Kohl would probably have won the 1987 election nonetheless, which would have killed most of the larger butterflies. His majority was more comfortable than I remembered. Flipping it would have required much more than just the momentum from British disarmament, you're right.

Kohl doesn't necessarily have to lose the 1987 election for possible butterflies to change his political fate. IOTL after the election and until September/Oktober 1989 (September when Hungary opened its borders which helped Kohl politically) there was some CDU-internal opposition to Kohl as Kohl was seen to be dragging down the political fortunes of the CDU and unlikely to lead the CDU to victory in the next election. Behind the scenes CDU general-secretary Heiner Geißler sought to remove Kohl as party chairman (and chancellor candidate for the next election) and replace him with the popular Minister-president of Baden-Württemberg, Lothar Späth. IOTL nothing came of it, Kohl replaced Geißler as general-secretary and Späth didn't stand against Kohl for the election as party chairman at the Bremen party convention in September 1989; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Kohl#Internal_struggle_for_CDU_leadership . Kohl himself later said that he most likely would have lost the party-internal power struggle had the CDU/CSU lost its position as the strongest West German party in the 1989 European Parliament election and IOTL they only won that position by a very small margin.
A possible scenario is that IATL a stronger showing of the Green Party leads to slightly bigger losses for the CDU/CSU in the 1987 election and either Geißler and Späth successfully coup Kohl in the first months of 1989 (CDU lost big in the West-Berlin election in January 1989 and in the local elections in Hesse in early 1989 which strengthened the internal opposition against Kohl) or a stronger showing by the Green Party in European Parliament election means the CDU loses the position of being the strongest West German party and Kohl is shown the door by the party and Späth elected as party chairman and chancellor candidate for the next election.
So we have a possible German Unification under Chancellor Späth which opens up possibilities for divergences as Geißler was advocating for left-turn of the CDU (talking about multiculturalism for example) and has been characterized as a proto-Merkel in that regard, and he will probably have considerable influence under a Chancellor Späth as Geißler did most of the work against Kohl.
Additionally Späth IOTL had to resign as Minister-President in 1991 due to corruption allegations, he might not resign as Chancellor but a weakened Chancellor plus parts of the CDU electorate unhappy with the left-turn of the CDU might lead to the CDU losing the 1994 election and an SPD-Green coalition coming to power 4 years earlier under different leadership than in 1998 or possible a Grand Coalition in 1994 if neither CDU/CSU plus FDP nor SPD plus Green Party has a majority on its own (probably too early for a SPD-Green-PDS coalition or a SPD-Green minority government with toleration by the PDS).