WI: Bonar Law and Carson were arrested and charged with sedition in 1913

Thomas1195

Banned
The Tory campaign against Irish Home Rule in 1912-14 used extreme rhetoric and encouraged insurrection in Ulster. The party leader, Andrew Bonar Law, associated himself with Sir Edward Carson and was particularly inflammatory in his speeches at a time when the Ulster Volunteer Force was arming itself and drilling as a militia. Some examples include an infamous speech given at Blenheim Palace (I'm quoting from The Strange Death of Liberal England):

The Government's policy, he said, was part of a "corrupt Parliamentary bargain," and it had no right "to carry such a revolution by such means." Circumstances being what they were, he told his fifteen thousand hearers, he could imagine no lengths to which Ulster Unionists might go where the Unionist Party, and the public at large, would not follow them in sympathy.

A message sent to Belfast in July 1913:

Whatever steps you may feel compelled to take, whether they are constitutional, or whether in the long run they are unconstitutional, you have the whole Unionist Party, under my leadership, behind you.

And (probably the most damning) a speech given in Dublin in November 1913:

I remember this, that King James had behind him the letter of the law just as completely as Mr. Asquith has now. He made sure of it. He got the judges on his side by methods not dissimilar from those by which Mr. Asquith has a majority in the House of Commons on his side. There is another point to which I would specially refer. In order to carry out his despotic intention the King had the largest army which had ever been seen in England. What happened? There was no civil war. Why? Because his own army refused to fight for him.

It's not particularly uncharitable to interpret his words and actions as advocating armed rebellion against the Crown, using extra-parliamentary means to subvert Parliament and deny its sovereignty, and telling the army to disobey orders. If Asquith had been a more bloody-minded man and decided to have Law and Carson arrested and charged with sedition? What would the consequences have been?
 
Arresting the Leader of the Opposition, while already facing a serious crisis in the form of Home Rule implementation, regardless of their provocations, seems like a recipe for, well:

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A vote of no-confidence probably breaks out almost immediately as horrified back-benches and Labor think the Prime Minister has gone off his rocker. Its not as though the Liberals' coalition was particularly strong; it'd only take a few defections to cause the government to collapse, and the Unionist cause wasn't exactly unpopular in Britain proper. If anything, you've just handed the Conservatives their opportunity, in the shock of the scandal, to snatch back control of the government and pledge to support those who "Quite contrary to being traitors, their only crime being an expression of absolute devotion to Crown and Country." (Not actual quote) and push through other parts of their agenda (Restore veto to House of Lords to prevent such 'irresponsible behavior" by the PM in the future, increase a protective tariff to reiterate the importance of Imperial unity, ect.)
 

Thomas1195

Banned
A vote of no-confidence probably breaks out almost immediately as horrified back-benches and Labor think the Prime Minister has gone off his rocker. Its not as though the Liberals' coalition was particularly strong; it'd only take a few defections to cause the government to collapse, and the Unionist cause wasn't exactly unpopular in Britain proper. If anything, you've just handed the Conservatives their opportunity, in the shock of the scandal, to snatch back control of the government and pledge to support those who "Quite contrary to being traitors, their only crime being an expression of absolute devotion to Crown and Country." (Not actual quote) and push through other parts of their agenda (Restore veto to House of Lords to prevent such 'irresponsible behavior" by the PM in the future, increase a protective tariff to reiterate the importance of Imperial unity, ect.)
What if Asquith arrests Bonar Law and Carson, but still comes up with some form of partition like IOTL to tame the Ulster Unionists?

Labour and the lower class would not care, as long as you constantly throw social reforms improve their lives. Actually they did not care much about non-social issues.
 
What if Asquith arrests Bonar Law and Carson, but still comes up with some form of partition like IOTL to tame the Ulster Unionists?

Labour and the lower class would not care, as long as you constantly throw social reforms improve their lives. Actually they did not care much about non-social issues.

... you're still trying to arrest the leadership of the most powerful opposition party in the country (Pretty much as powerful as you; indeed, if I recall the Unionist Party will actual get more popular votes if not seats in an election during this period) for nothing more than words. That's going to raise despotic alarm bells on mere principal, especially among labor (After all, what's stopping some of their more communist cleaning rhetoric from being interpreted as similarly treasonous in the future?), and it will look like its for the sake of Irish Nationalists, who's own reputation for legality isent exactly spotless. Such extreme measures for so little flat out is beyond the Pale (to use an apt turn of phrase) for British political culture.

Trying to pair it with a compromise partition, despite the fact IRL they couldn't work it out and said arrests will likely make everybody more hard-line and less willing to compromise, not more, would just be schitphrenic. Asquith would have just alienated literally everybody if he took that route, so his government fall. Likely Unionists win control in a scandal-induced landslide and Law gets a royal pardon if any charges manage to stick

At that point, Home Rule becomes a dead letter for the foreseeable future and, lacking credibility in opposition, the Liberals see a large chunk of the last decade of reform swept away. Especially since this probably causes the Irish rebellion to flare up, only this time w/ the government siding with Ulster and being able to claim some emergency powers and have convenient "white noise" that keeps the nation's attention off the less 'sexy' changes they make.
 
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