WI: House of Commons passed 2nd Reading of Irish Home Rule Bill in June 1886

This Bill was defeated by only 30 votes [311 votes to 341 votes] at the end of the second reading debate on 8 June 1886. [1] What if enough MPs who opposed the Bill voted in favour and/or abstained to give it a majority? I assume it would have been rejected by the House of Lords. Would Gladstone have called a general election on the issue of peers versus the people, or governed with the support of the Irish Nationalists and waited for another five or six years before calling an election?

[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Ireland_Bill_1886.
 
Yeah the Lords would definitely reject it. I imagine Gladstone would carry on governing with Irish support, though doing so might divide the Liberal party even more over Ireland. We'd likely see the Unionist movement organising itself earlier than OTL, with Home Rule presenting more of a threat.
 

libbrit

Banned
If by some miracle it got through all stages of parliament, it would certainly have made for a different 20th century. I suspect Ireland would still have drifted away until it basically became a dominion, but its possible we might see an Ireland in the Commonwealth, possibly with the British monarch as head of state. I also doubt Northern Ireland would be part of the UK.
 
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