Social Effects of no WW1 on the UK?

[Thomas1195]

the newly enfranchised women were voting Conservative.

It was so for most of the 20th century. But it was the fact that the Tories gave them the right to vote.

However, if the Liberals did so during the 1920s, they might have also expanded national insurance to cover those other than wage earners (women, children...). IOTL, unlike in Weimar Germany, the national insurance scheme barely expanded until 1945.

Maybe, absent the war Asquith could be persuaded, that there he could find the "advantage" of a new, additional 'voters-pool' for the Liberals, whereas the irish members of the House of Commons are reduced due to "Home Rule" ?

Or Asquith simply replaced by Lloyd George or Grey following election loss, both of whom supported woman suffrage.

 

[Thomas1195]

It was broadening it to those worthy of it. Three fifths of adult males in 1914. But giving it to everybody?
The fact that it works elsewhere does not matter - we are British and we are Different.

OK - jokes aside, universal suffrage will happen. But I think that female suffrage could happen earlier.

It would happen following a general strike. There was a large scale strike being prepared just before the war IOTL, and Britain never had a J.E.Hoover

 

[TruthfulPanda]

Was the general strike over the franchise?

 

[Thomas1195]

Was the general strike over the franchise?

No, but it might evolve to. I mean, the government might have ended up doing so to appease the workers.

In A-H, there was such a strike in 1907.

Britain, unlike the US, never had Pinkerton, FBI, or John Edgar Hoover to break them from both outside and inside.

 

[TruthfulPanda]

If so he might well have been disappointed.

Opinion polling was barely starting then, but such research as was done suggested that most of the newly enfranchised women were voting Conservative. This, of course, was why a Tory government would give them the right to vote at the same age as men in 1928.

Is it possible that women voted Conservative - and not Liberal - as the Liberals had self-destructed by that point?
That women got the vote when voters had a choice between Tory or Labour ...

 

[Mikestone8]

Is it possible that women voted Conservative - and not Liberal - as the Liberals had self-destructed by that point?
That women got the vote when voters had a choice between Tory or Labour ...

Conceivable but far from guaranteed.

The Liberals had already lost their overall majority in Parliament, and between Ireland and the threat of a general strike were likely to lose even more ground at the next election. And there's no reason to suppose that this trend would apply only to male voters.

 

[NoMommsen]

If so he might well have been disappointed

Well possible, though ... could have anyone known or even guessed it 1914/1915 ?

Opinion polling was barely starting then, but such research as was done suggested that most of the newly enfranchised women were voting Conservative. This, of course, was why a Tory government would give them the right to vote at the same age as men in 1928.

Is it possible that women voted Conservative - and not Liberal - as the Liberals had self-destructed by that point?
That women got the vote when voters had a choice between Tory or Labour ...

Do you have a source for that ?

If I compare the electorial behavior in Germany, when women had the full right to vote in 1919 (National aka Constitutional Assembly) as well as 1920 (1st Reichstag) it seems they voted at their frist opportunity rather for the party "giving" them the right to vote (SPD and Liberal Democrats), while at the second opportunity they seems to have "shifted" from Liberal more to the conservatives (the "Left" (combined SPD, USPD and in 1920 also KPD) were more or less the "same" 187 seats in 1919 and 190 seats in 1920).

Compared to british 'circumstances' you would have the party "giving" the women the vote (Liberals) instead the party more thoroughly denying them partition in the political life (Tory).

Also, you have lesser possible (female) voters for lLabour, as they would more likely NOT come from a "working class"/"low(er) wages" background (... as many women did in Germany in 1919 and 1920).

Also in 1918, when women (though still only if "qualifying" by age, property, 'income' measured in ability to pay rent) in Britain could vote the first time, the 'Liberals' and what they stood for were split up into 'Coalition Liberals', 'Liberals', Coalition National Democrats, Independants Liberal' and 'National Democrats'.
There simply was no other choice that Tory and/or Labour.


And given, that the Torys 'raised' their popular vote even well below doubling it (as the electorate as a whole was raised in 1918 somewhat shortly above dubling) and Labour increased its share almost 7-fold - all compared to the last pre-war election - I would wonder, if this female electorate actually voted "more conservative".

 

[fasquardon]

Is it possible that women voted Conservative - and not Liberal - as the Liberals had self-destructed by that point?
That women got the vote when voters had a choice between Tory or Labour ...

I can't really speak about the situation in Britain, but I know that in France at this time women leaned more towards conservative candidates (which is one of the reasons why women got the vote so late in France - the opportunistic left was afraid of being voted out and the far right didn't like the idea on principal, leaving only the reformist right and the far left to support the idea).

fasquardon