Liberty in the UK

What's this?

Its a timeline based on an idea I've had for a while.

What, US political ideas in the UK?

Not exactly?

What then?

It's a TL based on the rise of a Libertarian Party in the UK. From grassroots disgruntlement to 10 Downing Street.

Ooh, sounds interesting

I hope it is...
 
It's a TL based on the rise of a Libertarian Party in the UK. From grassroots disgruntlement to 10 Downing Street.
Obligatory post.

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Still, may well be interesting. Although I'm struggling to see how it can be done.
 
The two had a detailed discussion about the seriousness of Britain’s decline since the death of Winston Churchill. Lord de L’Isle had just received a letter from Michael Ivens [the director of the anti-union pressure group Aims of Industry], asking him to consider leading a new association pledged to support individual freedom and to resist ever Bigger Government. As a result of the long flight, Ross and Norris McWhirter were invited to Lord de L’Isle’s home at Penshurst Place in Kent for a further discussion. It was on the hottest day of the year, Thursday 12 June 1965. At a light lunch on a small round table that Lord de L’Isle had acquired at an auction at Chartwell, home of Sir Winston Churchill, plans were hatched to convene a meeting of fifty prominent people from politics, business, the armed services, the church and the professions at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on Thursday 31 July.

These were the original council members of what was then called the National Association for Freedom. They included figures as varied as Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, the constitutional expert Lord Blake and the cricketer Alec Bedser. [3]

(Originally from Wikispooks. Alteration made from 1975 to 1965 to fit in with ATL)
 
The two had a detailed discussion about the seriousness of Britain’s decline since the death of Winston Churchill. Lord de L’Isle had just received a letter from Michael Ivens [the director of the anti-union pressure group Aims of Industry], asking him to consider leading a new association pledged to support individual freedom and to resist ever Bigger Government. As a result of the long flight, Ross and Norris McWhirter were invited to Lord de L’Isle’s home at Penshurst Place in Kent for a further discussion. It was on the hottest day of the year, Thursday 12 June 1965. At a light lunch on a small round table that Lord de L’Isle had acquired at an auction at Chartwell, home of Sir Winston Churchill, plans were hatched to convene a meeting of fifty prominent people from politics, business, the armed services, the church and the professions at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on Thursday 31 July.

These were the original council members of what was then called the National Association for Freedom. They included figures as varied as Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, the constitutional expert Lord Blake and the cricketer Alec Bedser. [3]

(Originally from Wikispooks. Alteration made from 1975 to 1965 to fit in with ATL)
Ah NAFF. I remember them from some research I did for a scenarios set in '70s Britain after a fascist coup.
Will they still be mandating identity cards for anyone with Irish connections?
 
The two had a detailed discussion about the seriousness of Britain’s decline since the death of Winston Churchill. Lord de L’Isle had just received a letter from Michael Ivens [the director of the anti-union pressure group Aims of Industry], asking him to consider leading a new association pledged to support individual freedom and to resist ever Bigger Government. As a result of the long flight, Ross and Norris McWhirter were invited to Lord de L’Isle’s home at Penshurst Place in Kent for a further discussion. It was on the hottest day of the year, Thursday 12 June 1965. At a light lunch on a small round table that Lord de L’Isle had acquired at an auction at Chartwell, home of Sir Winston Churchill, plans were hatched to convene a meeting of fifty prominent people from politics, business, the armed services, the church and the professions at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on Thursday 31 July.

These were the original council members of what was then called the National Association for Freedom. They included figures as varied as Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, the constitutional expert Lord Blake and the cricketer Alec Bedser. [3]

(Originally from Wikispooks. Alteration made from 1975 to 1965 to fit in with ATL)

If you're going to shift from 1975 to 1965, then there are going to be major, major changes to who is involved (and I'm sidestepping the issue of plausibility, or that of reliability of your source material) and what the circumstances are. 1975 saw an economic crisis, with recent memories of OPEC, oil crisis, inflation running at 20%, industry in a mess, Ulster aflame, IRA bombings both in the Province and the mainland, fears of race riots, and etc. In 1965, there was a much more optimistic outlook, and there just wasn't the same feeling of disgruntlement. If you shift from 1975 to 1965, then you've got a wholly different feeling extant.

Alec Bedser, for example, will have been reasonably recently retired from playing cricket, and is running a successful stationers that is just starting to mint it. More particularly for him, his involvement in NAFF came about because of his wanting sporting tours to South Africa. In 1965, there was no problem with teams touring South Africa. The Basil D'Olivera case doesn't arise until 1968 (in which Bedser had a truly shameful hand). Before this, Bedser frankly didn't give a stuff about these matters. After the D'Olivera case, he became radicalised in terms of sporting links with South Africa. Your shift in date takes him out of the equation.

You can't just transfer 1975 into 1965 and have nothing else change.
 
well, since you ask . . .

It strikes me that the U.S. Libertarian Party very astutely works one and only one side of the street. Meaning, party advocates keep an eagle eye for abusive governmental policy but turn a blind eye toward abusive corporate power. So, maybe a UK Liberty Party more in the direction of Anar Cap? And maybe with the more realistic twist that we're not so much against big corporation per se, but anything even halfway to an oligopoly, we're all over it! ;)
 
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shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Libertarianism with English characteristics isn't hard to achieve in the UK, and given the influence of Hayek on Thatcherism and the Conservative right during the late 60s and through the 70s, Hayek's work being picked up by the Tories in a big way earlier wouldn't be out of the question. The problem however lies in the premise, I.E. a PoD in the mid-60s based around some businessmen who want a junta and trying to segregate Libertarianism into its own distinct party when in reality it would require a PoD that allowed for Attlee's postwar consensus to fully develop and ripen and the inevitable backlash to be one that comes organically from the Tories turned to Libertarianism derived from Hayek.
 
If stuck, you essentially have two options. You've got your POD, essentially NAFF somehow becoming more politically significant (we've leave to one side how plausible or otherwise that might be).

1. Just go along with that POD, work out what the next stage would logically be, and don't worry where the thing will end up. Assume you're just driving with no particular destination in mind, but just looking at the scenery as you pass.

2. Pick an end point, a destination (say, the rise of a Libertarian party sufficiently strong to take power in the UK.) Work out what needs to happen to enable that to take place (effectively, you'll have to destroy the Labour and Conservative party as viable governments), and then work out how these enablers might arise. You're going to have to be careful about which people you use as your driving forces; as you may have noticed, there's quite a few people who know a bit about the 1970s UK situation, but they will be people who can help make the TL much more plausible by pointing out that, to take a random example, Enoch Powell is not going to support a different set of laws applying purely to Northern Ireland. And be aware that events don't happen in isolation; if, for example, you choose to advance the NAFF cause by having a variant of the 1984 Brighton IRA bomb be more successful and wipe out much of the Conservative Party leadership, then there will be consequences for NI, and international relations.
 
Thank you so much for all the advice. I think the best thing to do is to start again from the present day and go back in time.

Thanks once again :)
 
well, since you ask . . .

It strikes me that the U.S. Libertarian Party very astutely works one and only one side of the street. Meaning, party advocates keep an eagle eye for abusive governmental policy but turn a blind eye toward abusive corporate power. So, maybe a UK Liberty Party more in the direction of Anar Cap? And maybe with the more realistic twist that we're not so much against big corporation per se, but anything even halfway to an oligopoly, we're all over it! ;)

I am in the US and know several Libertarians who are for the abolition of corporations on the grounds that they are created by the State and limited liability is a State-granted privilege, not a common-law right. That would convert most large companies into very complex partnerships.
 
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