So Belgium is Communist now? So I guess the East-West divide of OTL is even more blurred ITTL than it already was.
The North Star is Red: a Wallace Presidency, KMT Victory, Alternate Cold War TL
- Thread starter TastySpam
- Start date
Oh no, the Communists only got 34% and weren't included in government.
Also, 201 chapters in 100 pages and about 16 years. Betting by 2000 we'd be at 600 or so chapters.
Oh, my bad. I must've made a mistake. My apologies for the misinterpretation. Was the Congo communist now then? Still impressive that over a third of the Belgians voted for the Communist party.
I think if there's one thing for certain ttl is that nothing is certain, a sure thing doubly so. For all we know the fact that the FBI has been waging war on their own people will come out the week before Siler's up for reelection and it'll go the other way.
Chapter 202 - Her Majesty's Not Entirely Loyal Opposition
Her Majesty's Not Entirely Loyal Opposition
Britain wanted out of the wars. They didn't quite want out this way. The bulldozing of Jordan as British forces fled within weeks of the new Liberal government taking power was expected, but definitely seen as a humiliation by many British, especially more right-wing British. The fall of Iraq later than year was a further blow to British self-image. The image of British officials being murdered in Tanganyika by Aminist troops was played almost daily on right-wing tabloids, in particular the newly founded Sun and the older Daily Mail. Criticism from Great Britain's domains was vociferously negative, with the Australians, Rhodesians, and South Africans regularly firing invective against the British foreign ministry. Moreover, with right-wing bureaucrats resigning in protest, the new government had to rely on relatively inexperienced hands. The withdrawal from Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and East Africa was anything but orderly. Moreover, although other British colonies went towards peaceful independence, some mistakes were made, largely at the pressure of foreign nations.
For example, Northern British Cameroon was expected to join Nigeria (the primarily Muslim region favoring integration with Muslim North Nigeria, not French-speaking, Christian French Cameroon). However, at the behest of French representatives pressuring the British, the British foreign ministry acceded to French demands to simply weld together both French and British Cameroon entirely. Similarly, during the general flight of the British from the Middle East, the British military regrouped in the Gulf State principalities, hoping to secure them. However, unbeknownst to the British, the Gulf Arab states had already asked for Indian peacemakers to help defend their nations /in cooperation/ with the British. However, when the Liberal government heard that additional troops had arrived, they simply saw it as a sign to withdraw the British presence entirely, much to a rather surprised Gulf Arab and Indian reaction.
That being said, the inexperience of the British foreign ministry sometimes meant they had remarkably prescient judgement. For example, in granting Britain's West Indian colonies independence, instead of creating a West Indies Federation as had been requested by most nationalists, the British actually correctly judged that Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago were too large to easily fit into the Federation, opting instead to grant independence to Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the West Indies Federation separately. The British foreign ministry also saw Apartheid in South Africa and the white minority government in Rhodesia and Nyasaland as untenable in the long-term. That being said, it was the belief of the British foreign corps to simply stay out of South African affairs - while the Liberal government horrified much of the West by openly condemning both.
The extremely young new cabinet saw itself rather confused as what to do on Northern Ireland. With the Irish People's Republican Army becoming increasingly radical and increasingly disliked in Northern Ireland, British army veteran Gusty Spence, radicalized by his service in Iraq fighting mostly North Chinese-backed Communists, founded the vociferously anti-Communist and Ulster Volunteer Force, which despite being almost entirely Protestant and disdainful of Catholicism, had more or less a working relationship with the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Rather disturbed by the increasing brutality of all three groups, the British government responded by simply declaring all three illegal. However, they also failed to enforce these orders, fearing a deployment of the British Army would inflame violence. The result would be Northern Irish anti-communists flocking towards both groups, mutually disdainful of the British government, which quickly declared themselves the only possible protectors of their respective communities, a worrying trend to some British analysts who pointed out that the PIRA and UVF actually very strongly disliked each other even as they worked together for now. Despite espousing Maoist rhetoric, the primary funder of the IPRA quickly became a different nation - one perhaps more responsible for Britain's domestic chaos than any other - Pakistan.
In 1955, massive race riots broke out in Notting Hill, a neighborhood where hundreds of West Indians had moved into - an incident quickly used by Winston Churchill for the better-than-expected Tory performance in the 1955 elections. This incident was ultimately buried in history simply by the sheer fury that blew up in Britain. The Indian government, desperate to prevent Pakistani refugees flooding into Northwest India as a result of the Sifar Revolution, began bulldozing refugee camps and simply diverting refugees to other nations. The problem was very few nations were willing to take them. The short-lived Labour government of 1963, desperate to live up to its Cold War responsibilities, gave ships free pass to land refugees in the United Kingdom, totally unprepared for the sheer number that had come. Merely in 1963, over 900,000 Pakistani refugees flocked to the United Kingdom. The Labour government actually invested significant resources in housing and job training, so even as public outrage exploded on the right and in certain communities, the mass migration had not yet impacted most British. However, problems were brewing. First, the new Liberal government, thoroughly a cosmopolitan and liberal party, simply denounced those who demanded that the United Kingdom exclude anticommunist refugees on the basis of their race. However, with a primarily bourgeoisie voting base, the Liberals were loathe to actually spend money to integrate the new refugees. In fact, in order to end mass deficit spending after the 1963 oil shock had torn through the global economy, the Liberals actually significantly cut spending, including almost all refugee resettlement programs and additional public house construction.
Increasingly, massive makeshift refugee camps were sprouting up in Great Britain's port cities, outraging local residents. Joblessness exploded, both as a result of the oil shock, austerity programs taken in response to the oil shock, and simply welcoming large numbers of new people into labor force. Worst of all for the British, given the nature of the Sifar Revolution, the refugees were largely deeply devout and relatively uneducated (by 1960 Pakistani standards) rural peasants, which meant both a massive culture clash (between Christians and Muslims and between industrial and agrarian peoples) and widespread difficulty adjusting to the industrial British economy, leading to mass unemployment and for the young men, crime. Nativism naturally exploded. The combination of ferocious austerity, social liberalism (the Liberal government pushed through legalized abortion, divorce, homosexuality, and other reforms), and mass immigration tore British politics apart.
Liberal popularity absolutely plunged in the first year of their government, with polling indicating an almost immediate drop from 35% of the vote to 25% - enough to lose almost all of their seats under first-past-the-post. Interestingly enough, a quick package of tax cuts paid for by declining military expenditures kept their middle-class base loyal, but working-class and right-wing voters both revolted. Realizing that the next election could see a Liberal wipeout, one thing that the Liberals could agree upon was reforming the first-past-the-post system. Indeed, a bill was passed reforming the British Parliament to an "additional member" system (largely comparable to mixed member proportional representation", with a minimum proportional threshold of 5% in each region (or one constituency won). Oddly, the Tories didn't ferociously oppose the bill, after having in 1964, come in second in the popular vote but coming in a distant third in actual seats. With the arguments of pro-Imperialist Tories seemingly vindicated by the chaotic retreat of the British Empire (notably, they denied any role in the wars that led to such retreat), the Tory hard-right would come out on top in what was a small Tory caucus (99 MPs) of hardline rightists. The only real debate was whether it would be a pro-EU candidate or an anti-EU candidate - ultimately, a pro-EU right-winger, Hexham MP Geoffrey Rippon, triumphed over Enoch Powell. Labour felt much better about things, viewing themselves as the natural party of government, with a likely Lib-Lab government (with Labour in charge) coming. In Labour, the Labour right had been devastated by their crushing defeat after merely one year of government. In the end, the rightists were the majority, but couldn't even imagine themselves leading the party after such a shellacking. Instead, they opted to permit the rise of MP Barbara Castle, a left-winger, as the next leader, figuring that a woman couldn't possibly be elected Prime Minister in Britain, and that party leadership would pass back to them.
However, the most dramatic party development would be in none of these parties. The new proportional representation certainly boosted the Liberals significantly, but others in British society realized they could have a bite at the pie too. The British National Party was in theory seeing quite dramatic growth. In the 1963 elections, the BNP gained under 3,000 votes. In the 1964 elections, they had surged to 1.8%, over 400,000 voters. Quickly seeing the moment, the BNP merged with several other far-right, neo-fascist, neo-nazi, and white supremacist organizations to form the newly founded National Front, led by the charismatic John Tyndall. Although completely uncompromising (Tyndall refused to walk back his praise for Adolf Hitler), Tyndall won a niche in an era of mass unemployment, crime, and austerity. With the NHS and public housing largely failing in the face of Liberal austerity, immigration became the natural explanation to many British - and no one was more radical than Tyndall. Labour simply sought to avoid the issue, gaining no supporters. The Liberals naturally championed an increasingly unpopular status quo. And the Conservatives promised a total end to immigration on the slogan "Keep Britain White" (a slogan used by Churchill in 1955) - but it was Tyndall's National Front that promised to "Make Britain White Again - By Any Means Necessary") Rather ironically, the National Front's white power concerts (named "Rock Against Communism") and their party coffers in general were extensively funded by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which believed that a potential rise in the National Front would actually help Communist Pakistan by proving its allegations about his international enemies correct (not to mention that such government would primarily victimized people who fled from Communist Pakistan.)
The Tories had their own supporters, of course. Sir Walter Walker, flush with CIA funding, would famously create "Civil Assistance", an unusual political organization which would eventually develop into a mass paramilitary and Conservative pressure group, which called on the government to crush striking Labour unions with force, and openly hinted that the British military should intervene in a coup to crush both the left and the far-right. Although never officially endorsed by the Conservative Party, it quickly became understood as a de facto youth paramilitary wing for the Tories, who would fight with both Labor unionists (aligned with Labour), Trotskyites/antifascists (who split from Labour after they realized entryism was obsoleted by proportional representation), and Neo-Nazis in the streets. Moreover, increasingly convoluted and specific rumors that a coup by Lord Mountbatten would imminently effectuate such a coup quickly motivated Tories, with younger Tory MPs openly begging Mountbatten to do so. The rumors were not proven, but the government had him drummed out of the military anyways, outraging right-leaning Britons even further.
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It's a bit of a paradox, progressive parties allowing the immigration into their country of people far more conservative than said country's own conservatives, that would be considered conservative and uneducated even in their birth country - I've heard more than once about people from a former underdeveloped country, that is now doing well, visiting distant relatives in another country, they often remark how their relatives seem to be stuck at least a generation behind those who actually stayed in, I don't know, Morocco or Turkey.
Over here in Italy, I'm afraid we're going to end up like France, with entire suburban areas turned into ghettos for increasingly more impoverished and radicalized minorities, I hope this ATL Britain will be able to avoid that fate - immigration can be both a blessing or a curse, depending on how it's managed, and I doubt those far right assholes (and Churchill) have any good ideas on the subject.
Over here in Italy, I'm afraid we're going to end up like France, with entire suburban areas turned into ghettos for increasingly more impoverished and radicalized minorities, I hope this ATL Britain will be able to avoid that fate - immigration can be both a blessing or a curse, depending on how it's managed, and I doubt those far right assholes (and Churchill) have any good ideas on the subject.
mial42
Gone Fishin'
This is going to make British politics even more "interesting" then they already are in this TL. A fascist party has already popped up; wonder what's next.
There's no possible way for this to end poorly.
Wouldn't be The North Star is Red without something like this happening.
They honestly go farther than even typical neofascism. They're like actual Hitler fanboys lol
mortonofski
Donor
Oh, Walter Walker and his merry men have arrived! Starting to get If Gordon Banks Had Played vibes...
I think I've heard of that before. Could you give me a summary of what happens?
mortonofski
Donor
Archived here, IGBHP is one of the things that got me into AH in the first place. POD is that England's keeper's stomach bug gets butterflied away in 1970, followed promptly by Ted Heath's election victory. Enoch Powell becomes Tory leader and later PM, and then things get worse (in part due to Walker and MI5 stirring the pot whenever things show the slightest sign of getting better).
I do admit, @TastySpam, I quite enjoy the juxtaposition of Civil Assistance and Communist Pakistan's ISI on (more or less) the same side.
The powerbase of the current government in Pakistan with the West being too "unreliable".
It's more probable that ITTL is a lot less calm as all the chaos in the world and the fact that around her there are not that many friends will be a lot frightening, plus all commitment mean that his military forces and interest are probably at high risk to be involved in such troubles.
Not only that but ITTL will be much more armed than OTL and with a lot more projection power due to the commitment...hell i expect that Italy has a nuclear weapon program as OTL