WI: Clement Attlee wins the election... in 1935?

Assuming the gains by Labour was even greater than OTL, and Attlee takes the premiership instead of Baldwin, how does he act domestically and in regards to Hitler and Mussolini?
 
Assuming the gains by Labour was even greater than OTL, and Attlee takes the premiership instead of Baldwin, how does he act domestically and in regards to Hitler and Mussolini?

It is true that Labour gained over its dismal 1931 showing, but still the race was not at all close. Labour won only 38 percent of the vote to the Conservatives' 47.8--and that doesn't even include the Conservatives' allies (Liberal National and National Labour). In terms of seats won, it was even more lopsided: 387 for the Conservatives compared to 154 for Labour (and there were also 33 Liberal National and eight National Labour MP's aligned with the Conservatives).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1935

In short, you need some POD that changes the results quite drastically.
 
It remains something of a mystery to me why and how the Conservatives retained power throughout the 1930s. One (one who, like me, is an American evidently sadly ignorant of the nuances of British politics:eek:) would think that the Depression would depreciate their political stock and strengthen the position of Labour considerably. Given that they were able to win handily in 1945, despite (or perhaps because of?) Churchill's leadership of the War Cabinet and to alternate in power with the Conservatives off and on for decades thereafter, it is clear enough there isn't some deep antipathy to their vision and program that makes the larger British public inherently averse and limits them to a minority niche--at any rate not between 1945 and 1979. So why not in '35, or some years earlier?

I have to speculate. For one thing they did have a brief flirtation with power after WWI, in the early '20s I believe, and I gather this did not go well for them or their credit.

For another, politics in the broadest sense in the 1920s and '30s was polarized between extremes the Western world did not tolerate after '45; to the left of Labour's center were radical Communists, to the right of moderate Tories who led that Party were people who admired Hitler and Mussolini--if not perhaps their persons or exact methods, certainly their results.

If the Tory years of the '30s had been accompanied by harsh police methods of suppressing certain forms of dissent, I could understand (if not forgive!) But as far as I have ever noticed no such thing happened in Britain; somehow they were winning with Labour free to agitate and campaign as they desired.

I gather that the Conservative governments undertook a certain amount of social welfare programs ad hoc, which is only sensible of them after all.

So I throw my hands up and figure that the Tories were delivering governance that seemed reasonable enough to enough of the working class majority of Britain that they saw no advantage in fighting to put in a government of their own, against the sure displeasure of the better-off segments of society.

So, how can you change that?

I would guess there are quite a number of ATLs positing some form of Labour victory in the '30s, but I have only been following one, this fairly recent one which you'll note does not make Attlee but rather Stafford Cripps the PM:

Comrade Cripps: A Very British Dictator

The divergence there seems to be that the Tories of the '30s (pretty similar line up to OTL) veer more rightward, putting more reliance on hard-right-reactionary people, and so apparently the balance of electoral power veers to the Labour/Communist alliance. The thread has not been updating lately; at last post, Labour had just recently won its way into power.

I feel I am in a poor position to judge how likely it might have been that the Conservatives would drop the ball in this way; I ventured the suggestion in comments it seemed a bit like giving them the Idiot Ball. OTL they had the wit to keep their fingers on the national pulse and to avoid alienating the poor too much. I'm still interested in where the TL will go though (the title makes me apprehensive to be sure!)

Another approach, which also would not put Clement Attlee in particular at 10 Downing, would be to have an ATL Comrade Smith--someone either obscure in OTL or nonexistent, who by virtue of uncommon organizational and rhetorical gifts raises the image of the Labour party and tips the balance in their favor earlier. But then we'd expect this paragon, rather than anyone we've heard of OTL, to hold the office of PM, wouldn't we?

Well, perhaps Crd Smith is a woman, and having only recently given women the franchise and having just the first wave of female MPs in this generation, Britain is not ready for her to run the government outright, and she is forced to put forward a front man--with Attlee being the man for this job? Or Smith, of whatever gender, might also be African or Indian, or otherwise considered too unBritish to hold the position.

But I'm pretty sure you want to talk about what Attlee would attempt on his own hook, not as the front man for some ATL and quite likely ASB super-socialist!:p

A variation on this theme is that Labour has a better reputation, due presumably to having done better in the previous Cabinet back in the '20s. Again though this changes the stage on which the players act.

If we can't or won't change the characters of the actors in the '30s perhaps we can change the stage they act on? Suppose a kind of Soviet Wank, for instance, wherein the USSR as it develops in the '20s and early '30s is more attractive? This is not easy to do in a plausible way of course, unfortunately. Stalin was of course an uncommonly ruthless and vicious man, but the question is, is this the sort of leader the Bolsheviks would be most likely to acquire anyway, or did he "betray the Revolution" and take the USSR down an avoidable path? Also you want the focus of the ATL on Britain, whereas a better USSR not only moves the spotlight there, but insofar as it changes the balance of power in British domestic politics it will everywhere else too--France, Germany, the USA, even perhaps Japan would probably go more or less leftward at the same time, particularly when the Depression hits. It might be possible to write around, and explain why the outcome in the other countries still parallels OTL but Britain is different. Even so this would put an Attlee government on a different world stage than OTL

In the end, you'd have to know a lot more than I do about just why the Tories were the winners in these years, and figure what could happen to change that.
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Given that somehow or other Clement Attlee is PM in 1935, what next?

I gather that Attlee was in 1935 still a pretty strong pacifist--it is up to you whether or not that changed earlier as part of what made his party electable. And that he differed from many other Labourites in being more strongly attached to continuing the Empire in some form or other. OTL the collegial way his Cabinet ran meant that decolonization went ahead anyway under the appropriate Ministers.

The Cripps TL by Comisario I cited above is probably a decent take on what a Labour government elected in the mid-30s would do. Taxing the rich, issuing credit for purposes of infrastructure refurbishing, including housing development for the workers, along with a military buildup. The latter is a way of roping the better-off classes in, but also prudent in view of Hitler coming to power in Germany. Since '35 is earlier than Comisario had Labour take the helm it is possible the Spanish Civil War might be quashed completely, or anyway Sanjuro's coup attempt is reduced to a putsch and the Spanish Republic maintained. Either via League of Nations leadership or on its own behalf Hitler is called to heel--perhaps not effectively but the supine behavior of OTL seems unlikely and if Britain cannot check Hitler from his succession of successes in Europe at any rate these failures will make the urgency of a rearmament program clearer.

I might be too inclined to make an earlier Labour victory too rosy a scenario; they might fail to sustain their support and the Conservatives might make a comeback just in time for the war. Labour might lose power precisely over issues such as standing up against the Nationalist coup in Spain or attempting to stop Hitler from reentering the Rhineland or the Anschluss or dismembering Czechoslovakia--we still might have a newly in office Chamberlain declaring "peace in our time" coming back from Munich, only to resume rearmament once the worth of Hitler's word becomes clear. If a Labour Britain can face down Hitler's designs on the Czechs, odds are Hitler's power is broken right there--but if he goes ahead and takes Bohemia anyway and the outcome is not war, or Britain is at war but France is not, then Britain alone is in a poor position to dislodge him--perhaps if the Soviets come in the story is different but in the late 1930s the Soviets did not border on the Third Reich anywhere either. Britain with a Tory government was conservative enough to deal with Poland; a Labour Britain might seem unacceptable for Poland's reactionary leadership to deal with.

In the end it is up to you to come up with the scenario whereby Labour, with Attlee as their leader, comes to power at all, and in what sort of world this can happen. What happens next will have to follow from that, not OTL.
 
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