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I know the topic of Sealion is loathsome in alternate history circles, but being British myself I'm quite fascinated (and horrified) by it. If you look closely, very closely, its legacy can be seen across Southern England with various crumbling defence structures hidden in undergrowth awaiting to live a purpose that thankfully never happened. Indeed on my local rail line to Central London, there are two annoymous huts before the bridge that carries the line over the River Thames, that apprently have small slits in their walls which were to house machine gun emplacments- defending the bridge into Central London from invasion.

Now we all know Sealion didn't happen because it would have been near impossible for the Nazis to pull off, but lets say that it did happen in 1940, they managed to encircle London, but the Royal Navy cuts off their supply lines and in a war of attrition, the command and control struture for the invading Nazi army quickly collapses and 10s of thousands of Nazi troops are stranded in Great Britain. Say the political implications in Berlin are so severe that they've lost a sizeable chunk of Germany's armed forces that it leads to grave political instability for the Nazis. What happens then to Britain? Does it still fall into the long "post war sleep" it did in our timeline? Putting its feet up and turning to Atlee and socialism? Does British patriotism see a renaissance? Or is Southern England so damaged from the fight that Britain simply never recovers? Again, I'm not asking if Sealion would work, just asking the social-politcal implications in the UK if it happened and failed miserably.

My theory is as follows,

Without so much of its troops, the Eastern front plays into the Soviet's favour. Perhaps Stalin sees the chance of exploiting Hitler's weakness and attemps to march on Berlin.

With so many Nazi troops lost in Britain, many probably just disband from the army and try to settle in the UK. Perhaps Britain has a higher ethnic German population than today from Nazi officers abandoning their posts once the food and ammo runs out in the invasion.

I would say Britain becomes more bullish as a nation; the war did not drag on for years in our timeline, and the nation would view itself as what lead to the sudden destruction of the Nazi empire. Churchill would make a speech stating "It was the might and resolve of Great Britain that defeated the Mr. Hitler, not the tank and machine gun." If America still, even during invasion did not show any signs of helping Britain I wouldn't be suprised if anti-American sentiment grew quite strongly in Britain-at least initally.

Meanwhile, mass modernisation plans would be desprately needed in Southern England and would happen 10 years earlier in the 1940s rather than 1950s, as happened in our timeline. Infrastructure would be damaged much more in our timeline, as bridges, roads and key railways would be destroyed thrawt the invasion attempt.

If the Nazi goverment collapses, possibly due to Soviet invasion, I could see Europe becoming a neo-"Great Game" battleground between the British and the Soviets without American influence, who will still be isolationist. It would be interesting to know if the Cold War would still have happened with Britain and Russia being the two survivors that brought down the Nazis. I still think the Cold War would happen and would drive Brtain and America together by the 1950s.

A general election would be called in Britain in 1940, or 1941-seeing as the last one was 1945. If the British sentiment really was more bullish and vicious, could Churchill had won? Even slimly? If so, this changes British socio-politcs drastically; the NHS probably becomes an insurance based system, or at least free for the least well off. The "New Towns", such as Stevenage, Hemel Hampstead and Crawley won't be built and British cities continue to expand as the "Green Belt legislation" is not passed-at least straight away. The London Underground Northern Line might actually reach Bushey Heath.

Colonialism wouldn't end quite as soon as our timeline, but in this instance how would the British react to American passive agressiveness to Empire? Would they pay less attention? Would Britain and America be involved in small skrimishes to keep either one of them gaining a foothold in a tiny island in the South Pacific? Would a British Labour government side with the Soviets in the Cold War?

Apologies for innacuracy, my history knowledge is not as extensive as I would perhaps like it to be.
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