The independent Isle of Wight- a great tourist destination

WI The Isle of Wight became independent in the 1950s. They may have resisted an earlier attempt to abolish capital punishment (The Island having several jails and very conservative Prison officers as voters)

I imagine a place where there are still pounds, shillings and pence and where there are lots of steam trains
 
Ummm...what? Somehow I can't imagine the UK suddenly and voluntarily granting independence to an island so close to Britain in the early Cold War.

And was there actually any desire on Wight for independence?
 
Que?

Care to ellaborate on your idea of Wightian independence?

Also surely wouldn't a free Isle of Wight close a lot of the prisons? That's like Lichtenstien housing all of Austria's convicts.
 
Do we mean independence or Chanel Isles status? Hanging would probably go in the case of the latter as there would be the option of appeals to the Privy Council. Presumably the island would remain in the commonwealth and there would be certain rights of access by the military to ensure Portsmouth is safeguarded.

It would probably become of place of dodgy off shore investments, casinos and a place where substandard merchant ships are registered.
Didn't the Liberal Democrats consider dependency status when they were in power in the IOW. As it turns out the island is a place where Euros are accepted on buses. The customs arrangements would play havock with day trippers.

A slightly more plausible scwenario would be a more succesfull and militant Meybron Kermow in the South West
 
Isn't the Isle of Wight the Flordia of the UK? Conservative certainly but...conservatives usually tend to want to stick with their country
 
The IOW is still a bit out of touch.

I can't see it, unless it had a distinct populace (like the Anglo-French stock in the Channel Islands) and had once been in someone else's realm.

But I agree it'd be a lot like the CI, I o M, etc: very provincial at its core and therefore rather out of touch with Westminster values. OTL these places had to be leant on to legalise homosexuality etc.
 
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