WI: Clement Attlee wins the 1951 general election?

[Tabs]

I’m shocked that this isn’t brought up more on this forum. But Labour winning the 1951 election has always fascinated me, and I’d like to see what the effects of their victory would’ve been. They did win the popular vote, after all. Any margin of victory will suffice, as long as Attlee is the winner.

Any POD would suffice, though an interesting one would be if it’s due to there being no Korean War, as that seems to have contributed to his defeat. While I’m mostly interested in domestic policy, I’d also be interested in hearing the potential effects Attlee’s continued premiership might have on British foreign policy, if there is any difference at all.

 

[Juumanistra]

I suspect one of the reasons why it's a relative rarity is because it almost certainly butterflies the Suez Crisis of 1956. And if you're butterflying Suez, you're rewriting most of modern British history for the next twenty-five years, because Suez drove -- one way or another -- so many of the events in the years that followed. Which is great for a core TL component, but given the amount of work required, "Attlee wins in 1951" is incredibly hard to do well as a small or background-level effect in a TL.

Beyond that, for the British aerospace sector -- the only area I know enough to warrant commenting on -- I don't think it'd make a bit of difference. While there's plenty of opportunities to monkey around with and do different things, Labour has too many other spending priorities to produce meaningfully different results. So *Blue Streak and *TSR-2 will still be killed on the altar of cost, just with the justification being social spending rather than orthodox economics. (Though the latter will invariably still play a role, as Britain's fiscal condition will also not be meaningfully different.)

 

[Amadeus]

I suspect one of the reasons why it's a relative rarity is because it almost certainly butterflies the Suez Crisis of 1956. And if you're butterflying Suez, you're rewriting most of modern British history for the next twenty-five years, because Suez drove -- one way or another -- so many of the events in the years that followed. Which is great for a core TL component, but given the amount of work required, "Attlee wins in 1951" is incredibly hard to do well as a small or background-level effect in a TL.

Beyond that, for the British aerospace sector -- the only area I know enough to warrant commenting on -- I don't think it'd make a bit of difference. While there's plenty of opportunities to monkey around with and do different things, Labour has too many other spending priorities to produce meaningfully different results. So *Blue Streak and *TSR-2 will still be killed on the altar of cost, just with the justification being social spending rather than orthodox economics. (Though the latter will invariably still play a role, as Britain's fiscal condition will also not be meaningfully different.)

Would an Attlee victory butterfly Suez? I think Eden would still lead the Conservatives to victory in 1955.

 

[Tabs]

because it almost certainly butterflies the Suez Crisis of 1956

Hm, this I didn’t know. My apologies for the ignorance but, how does it butterfly away the crisis? I’d expect attlee and labour to lose 1955 even with a win in 51, as I doubt they’d get a strong majority.

 

[Derek Jackson]

I think that winning 1950 by a reasonable majority is probably easier to picture for Attlee

 

[Simreeve]

If he can avoid the introduction of bread rationing (something that had been avoided during the War itself) while in office before then, that might help him to win.

 

[Juumanistra]

Would an Attlee victory butterfly Suez? I think Eden would still lead the Conservatives to victory in 1955.

The 1955 general election was prompted by Churchill's retirement, wasn't it? There's no guarantee that an election would be called in 1955 without Churchill as PM. And if the Labour government elected in 1951 lasted its full five years, your next general election is going to occur during OTL's Suez Crisis. Assuming that Attlee somehow does everything that Eden did -- which is itself highly unlikely -- would he ordered something as consequential as Operation Musketeer on the eve of an election? I'd suspect not and the results of that election could in turn affect further changes. (What kind of government -- and what kind of policy planks -- arises when elected with the Suez Canal closed?) And the more you butterfly away the Suez Crisis as we know it, the greater the delta from history as we know it. And the more work for the budding TL-writer having to wrestle with it.

Hm, this I didn’t know. My apologies for the ignorance but, how does it butterfly away the crisis? I’d expect attlee and labour to lose 1955 even with a win in 51, as I doubt they’d get a strong majority.

I was perhaps not as clear as I should've been. You probably don't butterfly away Suez -- Nasser's still going to be himself and nationalizing the Suez Canal is a fairly obvious policy choice -- but you butterfly away the British response as we know it. As said above, I'm not sure you can rely upon a 1955 election, let alone a Tory victory. And even if you do, does Eden, as PM for 18 months, necessarily make the same decisions as Eden the man who had been in charge of British foreign policy throughout Churchill's second premiership? As the Suez Crisis was, to a certain extent, a failure of British foreign policy to that date. I think it's fair to wonder if an Eden with fresher eyes might've made different choices. And if he did make different choices, you're back to butterflying away Suez as we know it, and with it big chunks of the basis for British foreign and defense policy decisions made in its wake.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

A narrow win just produces another election in 1953, after the coronation, so you need a larger majority which is a bigger POD.

I have read that Atlee only stayed on as Labour leader through the 1955 election to block Herbert Morrison from becoming leader. Atlee is very unlikely to still be PM in 1956. That would mean him being PM longer than Thatcher or Blair, and Atlee was getting fairly old.

 

[Michael Canaris]

Would Eden even want to assume the Conservative leadership upon a further dejected Churchill’s retirement and longer Labour government? Having twice served as foreign secretary is already quite illustrious enough for many; I could see him finding the slog of winning office on domestic policy when his heart is caught up with the limelight rather tedious, so by the 1950s the premiership is a prize which I imagine would mainly tempt him if offered on a silver platter from time in office. An early rise of SuperMac or perhaps someone like Derick Heathcoat-Amory could be interesting to me, especially since R.A.B. Butler has become rather hackneyed.

 

[gaitskellitebevanite]

I’m shocked that this isn’t brought up more on this forum. But Labour winning the 1951 election has always fascinated me, and I’d like to see what the effects of their victory would’ve been. They did win the popular vote, after all. Any margin of victory will suffice, as long as Attlee is the winner.

Any POD would suffice, though an interesting one would be if it’s due to there being no Korean War, as that seems to have contributed to his defeat. While I’m mostly interested in domestic policy, I’d also be interested in hearing the potential effects Attlee’s continued premiership might have on British foreign policy, if there is any difference at all.

Agree, Labour winning the 1951 election as a 'what if' isn't discussed nearly enough - or what if Labour had won the 1950 election by a slightly larger margin, enough to last a full term, I did start writing a TL based on that: https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-together-redux-a-british-politics-tl.505728/

The excuse Attlee gave for calling the election was his concern that the King's Commonwealth Tour might be interrupted by a snap election, given the government's precarious parliamentary majority after the 1950 election (in the event the King was too unwell to travel and Princess Elizabeth took his place, only for her father to pass away whilst she was in Kenya) . Think probably the best POD is to have George VI die just before the election, causing the election to be postponed until February-March 1952. The electorate would be less prepared to change head of government having just lost a head of state, and the extra 5-6 months would give the Liberal Party enough time to stand more candidates (at the time Liberal voters were largely anti-socialist, and voted Tory when there was no Liberal candidate).

Part of the problem Labour faced in 1950-1951 is that it had been so successful at implementing its manifesto pledges in 1945-50 that it in effect ran out of policies. Labour's 1951 manifesto was remarkably thin compared with that of 1945, with the party's main policy proposals being the nationalisation of the sugar beet and cement industries.

 

[gaitskellitebevanite]

Labour were in favour of retaining rationing for a longer period, so food rationing probably wouldn't end until after the next election in 1954/5/6. Churchill would have stood down as Tory leader at some point during the 1951 parliament, perhaps just after the coronation, with Eden almost certainly his successor.

In OTL Attlee remained leader through the 1951-55 parliament largely to prevent Herbert Morrison getting the job, and most likely he would have done the same had he been in government. Morrison's last job in government was as Foreign Secretary in 1951, a job he was totally inept at. Would he have remained as Foreign Secretary had Labour remained in office? Attlee's first choice for the job when Bevin died had been Jim Griffiths, who turned it down, his second choice would have been Aneurin Bevan had he not already been critical of Britain's rearmarment programme in response to the Korean War, either would have made a better Foreign Secretary than Morrison.
The 'coming man' of the government in 1950-51 had been Hugh Gaitskell, who would probably have supplanted Morrison as Attlee's 'heir apparent' even more rapidly than he did in opposition. Had Attlee stood down in 1951-56 Gaitskell would probably have succeeded him.

 

[Analytical Engine]

Assuming Labour stays for a full term, ITV might well not emerge for a while later.

 

[Marc Anthony]

So no matter who the British prime minister is during the nationalisation of the Suez canal by Nasser. Let's assume he doesn't launch operation musketeer, how would that affect the west's reaction to the Hungarian revolution?

 

[stodge]

As an alternative, what if Attlee had waited until early 1952? Both Morrison and Gaitskell were supposedly horrified by Attlee's decision to call the election when they were in North America.

Let's say they hold fire until May 1952 and Labour wins a small majority. Morrison had won plaudits for the Festival of Britain but he hated being Foreign Secretary. Gaitskell would have looked increasingly the heir apparent and perhaps Attlee retires in 1954 leaving Gaitskell to become Prime Minister.

On the Conservative side, Churchill finally retires after three successive defeats and Eden takes over.

Gaitskell would still have faced a challenge from the Bevanites despite the election win but I suspect he would have seen off both Gaitskell and Morrison by promoting younger Labour MPs into Cabinet after becoming prime minister.

Would Gaitskell have defeated Eden at a 1956 election (just before Suez)?