Thatcher w/o Reagan

What would a Thatcher Premiership look like in a TL without a President Reagan? My leading questions here are, to what degree did the Tories fortunes and policies in the 1980's stem from a close relationship with Washington, and to what degree was this strength derived from having an ideologically close friend in the White House?

Here's a rough TL to imagine this question in:

1975 -- Thatcher beats Heath for the Conservative Leadership (as OTL)
1976 -- Ford defeats Carter, and is (re)elected
1979 -- The Conservatives win a majority in Parliament; Thatcher becomes PM (as OTL)
1980 -- Jerry Brown wins the US Presidency
 
What would a Thatcher Premiership look like in a TL without a President Reagan? My leading questions here are, to what degree did the Tories fortunes and policies in the 1980's stem from a close relationship with Washington, and to what degree was this strength derived from having an ideologically close friend in the White House?

Here's a rough TL to imagine this question in:

1975 -- Thatcher beats Heath for the Conservative Leadership (as OTL)
1976 -- Ford defeats Carter, and is (re)elected
1979 -- The Conservatives win a majority in Parliament; Thatcher becomes PM (as OTL)
1980 -- Jerry Brown wins the US Presidency

Jerry Brown winning in 1980 is ASB.
 
In 1980, without Reagan and assuming things go similarly to OTL, you'd see President Bush 8 years early as a 2-termer. Their relationship would be cordial but more distant than Thatcher-Reagan, as was the case IOTL. She'll still get support on all the joint files, the Falklands, Soviets and apartheid. They'll be following the same fiscal policy for one thing.
 

Thande

Donor
While it might be different to OTL due to Bush getting in earlier, OTL Thatcher was initially unsympathetic to Bush as she accused him of basically abandoning the US-British relationship in exchange for reaching out to a rather lukewarm West Germany.
 
I think it was more the abandonment of the personal relationship, which Thatcher represents as Bush distancing himself from Reagan (not that they were ever particularly close within the GOP spectrum or personally, BTW) and this as a public way to do it. Not that it would have mattered if she hadn't made a frenemy of Kohl. :rolleyes:
 
Fine, a Democrat then, preferably one liberals can feel good about -- say, Gary Hart...

If everything goes according to OTL a Democrat winning in 1980 is ASB. Also, no New Democrat will win the nomination: they were leaderless for 16 years and did not have the strength to toss out the New Dealers who regained control in 1973.
 
RogueBeaver said:
If everything goes according to OTL a Democrat winning in 1980 is ASB.

Except not everything went according to OTL -- as the OP states, Ford beat Carter in 1976, meaning the Republicans have held the White House for 12 years as of 1980; it's their election to lose...
 
ITT; people that can't imagine a 1980s America without a conservative in the White House :rolleyes:

To the OP; I'm not sure how big of a difference things would be either way. Thatcher's Britain enjoyed a good relationship with the US in the Reagan years, but I don't see that not being the case with anyone else in the Presidency. Diplomatic relations are much bigger than just two people after all.
 

Thande

Donor
I think it was more the abandonment of the personal relationship, which Thatcher represents as Bush distancing himself from Reagan (not that they were ever particularly close within the GOP spectrum or personally, BTW) and this as a public way to do it. Not that it would have mattered if she hadn't made a frenemy of Kohl. :rolleyes:

I'm basing this on Thatcher's book. She regarded Bush's foreign policy, which played down Britain and nuzzled up to West Germany after the latter had been cold to Reagan, as a betrayal of the past eight years. She didn't really have any respect for Bush until the Gulf War.
 
To the OP; I'm not sure how big of a difference things would be either way. Thatcher's Britain enjoyed a good relationship with the US in the Reagan years, but I don't see that not being the case with anyone else in the Presidency. Diplomatic relations are much bigger than just two people after all.

Yeah, this is what I'm seeing too, especially as the Falklands War's unlikely to be butterflied in any serious way...
 
Liberals feel good about New Democrats? That's a first. :p

If a Dem wins in 1980 then the official relationship will be there, less of a personal relationship. No OTL candidate would share Thatcher's view on SA, so there might be more pressure to accede to the Commonwealth's desires on the issue. Specifically a compromise with the 3 negotiators, or N3: Gandhi, Hawke and Mulroney, on sanctions.
 

Meko

Banned
RB is right - to Liberals, New Democrats aren't really Democrats, they are just Republican-Lite.
 
Well, obviously it depends on what kind of Presidents are in the White House during Thatcher's time in office. We could theoretically have four during that period instead of the three of OTL. (Or, at a minimum, two)

If they're mostly Democrats/moderate Republicans, then I can see the relationship there being weak, and Thatcher's relationship being fairly combative at times. Even with Bush IOTL, things were fairly strained - 'no time to go wobbly' etc - and she had a fairly low opinion of Bush. (in stark contrast to Major) Particularly if there's any hint of a detente line setting in, I can see the personal relationships being pretty weak ones. Particularly if whoevers in the White House pushes back, then the relationship there will not be a very 'special' one.

I wonder what this would do to the whole Thatcher mythology and British Conservatism.

Domestically, Thatcherism pre-dated Reaganism and it's concerns were, while in some cases ostensibly similar, specifically British; Thatcherism was also easily the more radical of the two. I can't see anything substantial changing in Britain, excepting low-level inherent butterflies of course.
 
Last edited:
Top