Hello all,
I've been posting a few infoboxes from this TL over on the Infoboxes thread and I think it's got to the stage where there are enough updates to justify its own thread and, frankly, it's getting a bit of a hassle having to remember to link to all the ones in the series whenever I post a new one. People will notice a few similarities with my previous TL the Anglo-Saxon Social Model, which began with Irish Home Rule succeeding and having vast knock on effects. Here, Home Rule comes about in the 1880s but with a few important differences. Unlike ASSM, which really was a Britwank where the 'good guys' won, I want to leave this one a bit more ambiguous about whether it's 'better' than OTL, even if it will still be pretty Britwanky (because why not?).
A lot of this TL is still very much a work in progress (for instance, I've really not decided what I want to do with the USA at all) so updates will come in the form of infoboxes on elections, political parties and 'great men' and without a chronological sequence just yet. Hopefully world maps will pop up soon and maybe some culture updates when I get an idea.
With that in mind, it's worth going over the POD(s) for this again:
I've been posting a few infoboxes from this TL over on the Infoboxes thread and I think it's got to the stage where there are enough updates to justify its own thread and, frankly, it's getting a bit of a hassle having to remember to link to all the ones in the series whenever I post a new one. People will notice a few similarities with my previous TL the Anglo-Saxon Social Model, which began with Irish Home Rule succeeding and having vast knock on effects. Here, Home Rule comes about in the 1880s but with a few important differences. Unlike ASSM, which really was a Britwank where the 'good guys' won, I want to leave this one a bit more ambiguous about whether it's 'better' than OTL, even if it will still be pretty Britwanky (because why not?).
A lot of this TL is still very much a work in progress (for instance, I've really not decided what I want to do with the USA at all) so updates will come in the form of infoboxes on elections, political parties and 'great men' and without a chronological sequence just yet. Hopefully world maps will pop up soon and maybe some culture updates when I get an idea.
With that in mind, it's worth going over the POD(s) for this again:
- Gladstone remains in retirement after 1874. No Midlothian Campaign means a much smaller Liberal majority in 1880 with Hartington as PM and not Gladstone.
- The 1885 election leaves the Liberals and Conservatives level-pegging in terms of seats, allowing Parnell to play them off against each other rather than supporting the Liberals.
- The Phoenix Park murders are butterflied away so Frederick Cavendish remains the Liberal choice as Chief Secretary for Ireland and Hartington doesn't turn conclusively against Irish nationalism.
- The Home Rule bill is prepared by a cross-party commission and ends up effectively recreating Grattan's Parliament (although they don't call it that...), with legislative independence but the London-appointed Chief Secretary and Dublin Castle still having significant influence (although that will change). In practice, Ireland is independent but shares unified executive structures with GB in foreign, trade and migration policy (this was Salisbury's preferred option OTL until the mid-1880s). The cross party nature of the bill means it alienates fewer Liberals and gets the backing of sufficient Conservatives to squeak past the Commons and the Lords.
- Ireland and Great Britain remain technically in the UK until that splits apart in 1923. The shared unified structures do remain, however, and develop.