John Major
Conservative Premiership, 1991-1995, won election 1991
John Major announcing his resignation in 1994.
John Major was partly a compromise candidate, but also won the leadership of the Conservative party as an extremely effective campaigner. Major promised there would be no further significant "Europeanisation" of the United Kingdom, explicitly promising to remain out of the fledgling Schengen Area and Euro currency projects, although made it clear it was in the UK interest to continue streamlining the European Single Market for the UK's export market and increasingly important financial markets. Defeating Iain Duncan Smith in the final round of voting, John Major became the next UK Prime Minister, as a socially liberal, economically conservative and a realist in Europe, seeking the trading arrangements without the European federalism. It was during Major's Premiership that the United Kingdom began being seen as a challenge to European integration for it's ability to object to any step towards greater political integration. This would result in the "Enhanced Integration" proposal to allow members to integrate further where a Union-wide consensus does not exist (*1), and the beginning of a two-step European Community, with an inner closely integrated group, and an outer lesser integrated group. Despite his image in Europe, his actions allowed him to reinforce his credentials as the leader of the Conservative Party. Conversely to this however, Major was also responsible for closer national relationships with several European nations, and France in particular from which resulted the accession of France to the Commonwealth of Nations, and the reciprocal UK accession to La Francophonie. The close relations between France and the United Kingdom, and by extension with Canada, Australia and New Zealand brought about a new wave of military, and espionage in particular, harmonisation and intelligence-sharing.
One part of the legacy of Major is the response to the volcanic eruption on Montserrat in 1995. Royal Navy ships assisted in the evacuation of Plymouth, and the wider island, following the eruption which quickly made much of the island uninhabitable. Many Montserratians left the island for other islands in the West Indies, but the sheer amount of Montserratians due to the virtually complete evacuation overwhelmed most of the small Caribbean islands. Most Montserratians therefore left for Great Britain, where ex-pat communities established themselves in London and several other "mainland" British cities. The UK Government provided financial assistance to many of the local governments taking in Montserratians, to expedite integration given they were de facto internal/domestic refugees. The island remains under populated, historically speaking, as many former residents are yet to return given the widespread destruction. Another of his Government's international accomplishments came in collaboration with the French in seeking and finding a settlement to the breakup of Yugoslavia. This had seen extensive ethnic violence, but Franco-British diplomacy and actions kept major warfare between factions largely at bay, and at German behest, resulted in the later division of Yugoslavia. This resulted in a rump Yugoslavia containing Serbia, parts of Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia on one side, and newly independent nations of Slovenia and Croatia (including parts of Bosnia, later named Herzogovina) on the other side - the latter two of which would eventually accede to the European Community. In the middle lay a smaller
Republic of Bosnia - a Bosniak state, which to some level served as a buffer state between Yugoslavia and Croatia, with some Bosniaks fleeing ethnic violence rapidly making their way towards.
By the start of Major's time in Downing Street, there were far fewer de facto dependencies left then ever before; Antarctic Territory, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Diego Garcia, Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Mann, South Atlantic Islands, Pitcairn Islands, and the base in Cyprus (Akrotiri) - the Crown Dependencies largely treated the same as the other British dependencies despite the difference in the constitutional relationship. A simmering territorial dispute with Mauritius, de facto a British dependency since sweeping political violence in the 1960s and 1970s forced the return of the British military to maintain order, meant discussions over the future of the Indian Ocean dependency; the existence of a UK base in the British Seychelles meant that it was realistically only a US base despite assertions otherwise. The United States, able to smell the wind, had begun to move operations to the Harold Holt base in Australia anyway, and also had received permission to use the British Assumption Island base in the Seychelles as well as agreements with the United Arab Emirates (the former British Trucial States). The moves allowed Major to declare that UK defence interests no longer required the use of Indian Ocean territory and allow the return of the Chagos Islands in 5 years with an early (mutually agreed) termination of the lease with the United States, freeing up an awkward burden for the United Kingdom (*2).
Domestically, towards the start of Major's time in power, the cause of university education tuition fees was paramount. The rapidly increasing numbers of students attending university was both a cause for celebration, but also a financial blackhole. Reform of the financial model for higher education quickly spun out in to a reform of the wider system of devolution funding, as education was a mostly devolved topic to the Home Nations. The end result would see reform for several taxes controlled by either Westminster, with income tax now divided in to "Central Income Tax" (*3) and "Devolved Income Tax", and directed towards Westminster or the relevant devolved budget. This also formally shifted the much of the burden of university funding from Westminster to the devolved authorities - or in to a ring fenced "English & Welsh Budget" controlled by Westminster for England & Wales only affairs (*4), although the UK maintained the right to further subsidise university education where it saw appropriate, and this saw STEMM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, Medicine) maintain a UK subsidy. This introduction allowed the elimination of much of the devolved funding formula over the rest of the 1990s which ended up unexpectedly being popular all - popular in the devolved administrations for reducing their reliance on Westminster handouts (despite the tight financial borrowing rules, later regarded as a financial straitjacket), and popular in England for reducing the perceived burden of subsidising other areas of the United Kingdom.
Coupled to this, was the Major & Conservative led reform of the economy, as many state-owned companies were privatised. British Telecommunications was finally privatised, given the increasing competition from mostly unified cable company NTL as well as private operators such as Cable & Wireless. Electrical non-nuclear generators were privatised, with the transmission networks remaining state-owned, but reform of the water industry, however, remained elusive. Royal Mail took a slightly different approach, being broadly speaking "federalised"; the Royal Mail Logistics business unit looked after inter-regional and international mail movements, whilst individual Royal Mail business units existed in each Home Nation for the purposes of local delivery & collection, and could therefore be accountable to the local administration as well. Reform of British Rail occurred along similar lines, with much of it reformed in to separate business units based around Scotland, Wales, and several large English regions. The reform of local government saw the two-tier structures abolished in favour of new unitary authorities in order to "streamline" government and reduce perceived wastage, a model rapidly copied in Wales too (*4). Similar moves had already occurred in the other Home Nations, where Scotland had abolished it's twin-tier system, and the other Home Nations had never had such layers. In years later however, the drawbacks of such a localised unitary approach became visible, as frequently the lack of cross-border co-operation hindered oversight of topics on a wider scale such as public transport or strategic planning.
By 1995 however, with the economy still struggling to recover from a dip and one of the tabloid newspapers divulging that Major had had an affair in the middle of the Government's attempts to reform family and divorce law in England, things rapidly became highly embarrassing for Major. Major, instead of the Government, rapidly became the centre of attention, and Major chose to stand down in 1995 following the selection of his successor by the Conservative Party. With less than a year until an election was neccessary once again, the timing was less than ideal, but internally viewed as required. Following this, Major largely retreated from life in the Commons, although retaining a seat in the House of Lords for his high level public service, and has since become heavily involved in the governance and administration of English and Welsh cricket.
Notes:
(*1) As the UK has joined later (1980s), it's therefore allowed the initial 6 to integrate further without interruptions before the first enlargement, so I think the UK will still be trying to avoid further steps towards European integration over economics.
(*2) Chagos Islands in this TL were still hived off to form a military base like OTL, given that the US would largely be involved in funding it - I can see attitudes at the time being something like "if they want to pay for a base in the middle of nowhere, we'll take their cash". But this is bringing the Chagos Islands back to Mauritius; which is a de facto British dependency following political violence.
(*3) Wasn't sure what to call this "federal" income tax, as "national" is a bit awkward given that the Home
Nations are, well, nations in some contexts, and I can well see many UK politicians having a fit over the use of the word "federal". This is roughly comparative to OTL with regards to Scotland; some tax collection in Scotland goes directly to the Scottish Govt, whilst VAT revenue in Scotland is split 50-50 between Holyrood and Westminster.
(*4) Wales still without a devolved system, given the OTL level of disapproval with it from the Welsh (see the original referendum for starters), as well as Kinnock (a Welshman) being dismissive of Welsh devolution.
Yep!
