WI Populism catches on the UK?

Usually when we talk about populism in general, the most common question is "what if populism catched on in america", with figures like Huey Long. Since this is a oversaturated scenario and we got a populist in white house, what if during the populist wave of the 1930s-1960s the United Kingdom got a populist prime minister? Who would be the best candidate? A thing I want to make clear is that we are talking about democratically elected populists, like Perón or João Goulart, not a dictatorship.
 
If Oswald Mosley had not converted to Fascism and remained in Labour I think he would have the best shot at being a populist PM (democratically elected, not a dictator)-most likely in the post war era. I can think of some other candidates who might be described as populist- Enoch Powell in the late 1960s, and arguably Lloyd George if the Liberals were a stronger force in the 1930s. Obviously those figures vary immensely in their political views and the degree to which they could be described as populist, so its very difficult to judge if they would have any similar effects on the development of British politics.
 
If Oswald Mosley had not converted to Fascism and remained in Labour I think he would have the best shot at being a populist PM (democratically elected, not a dictator)-most likely in the post war era. I can think of some other candidates who might be described as populist- Enoch Powell in the late 1960s, and arguably Lloyd George if the Liberals were a stronger force in the 1930s. Obviously those figures vary immensely in their political views and the degree to which they could be described as populist, so its very difficult to judge if they would have any similar effects on the development of British politics.

A labourist Mosley, the Conservative Enoch and the liberal Lloyd George, three populists for three ideologies, awesome.

How would the government of them looks like? Could they have cults to their personalities like populists usually have ?
 
A labourist Mosley, the Conservative Enoch and the liberal Lloyd George, three populists for three ideologies, awesome.

How would the government of them looks like? Could they have cults to their personalities like populists usually have ?
Lloyd George is probably the least populist of the lot, and given his own personal baggage, it would be difficult for him to build a cult of personality in the 1930s-though one could argue he had it at the end of the Great War. As with all of these what precisely the government would be like is very much dependent on the circumstances that they come to power in, but assuming Lloyd George somehow becomes PM in the early 1930s after the depression hits, he would be pretty strongly in favour of implementing the proposals in his 'Yellow Book' which were very much similar to Roosevelt's New Deal. He was also a supporter of appeasement for quite some time, and was known to praise Hitler several times, so his foreign policy could very well be just as bad as Chamberlain's, if not worse.

Powell had a hard core following-but mostly after his 'Rivers of Blood' Speech in 1968. There are a couple of PM Powell TL's out there- the most famous being 'If Gordon Banks had played'. Some potray him as a qausi-fascist, which isn't all that accurate. What is more likely is that a lot of the monetarist reforms eventually pushed by Thatcher would get implemented a decade earlier, which could generate considerable unrest. I'm sceptical his immigration policy could be anything near as hardline as he might want it to be, as the Wets in his party would not allow it. Depending on the timing of his premiership, you might just end up with a severe recession and a group of core supporters who are largely disappointed by his failure to live up to the hype on immigration. He'd probably lose re-election, if his party even let him get that far.

It's difficult to say what precisely Mosley would be like as remaining in Labour would probably change his attitudes somewhat over OTL, but I think he always had certain authoritarian tendencies regardless of what party he was in. He'd likely concentrate power in a smaller inner cabinet of ministers- as envisaged under the Mosley Memorandum, and large scale rallies and speeches might very well be a hallmark of his campaigning style, as they were IOTL. Maybe some semi-nationalistic policies are pushed under the label of 'patriotism'. Other than that, a lot of the post-war nationalisations and Keynesianism that was adopted by the Attlee government would also be put into place under Mosley.

One important thing to remember is that Mosley was a protectionist. Pre-WW2 he saw the British Empire as the basis of a self-sufficient trade bloc, but after, he saw that it was in decline and so looked to Europe as an alternative. So strangely, it could be that Britain would be involved in the European project right from the start. Prime Minister Mosley could be regarded as one the main founders of this TL's equivalent of the EU.
 
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One important thing to remember is that Mosley was a protectionist. Pre-WW2 he saw the British Empire as the basis of a self-sufficient trade bloc, but after, he saw that it was in decline and so looked to Europe as an alternative. So strangely, it could be that Britain would be involved in the European project right from the start. Prime Minister Mosley could be regarded as one the main founders of this TL's equivalent of the EU

Could this labour Mosley stop the de-industrialization of UK?
 
Could this labour Mosley stop the de-industrialization of UK?
I'm not a expert on economic history, so I'm not sure I could really say with any degree of accuracy- but my instinct would be no. Industrial decline was of course not a purely British phenomenon, but one that took place across the western world. The UK was particularly poorly hit because it hadn't really had an opportunity to modernise its industry in the same way that, for example, Germany had. The Attlee government didn't really get the chance to make the investment needed to correct that because the country was bankrupt after WW2, and had no money left after its significant expansion of the welfare state. I'm not sure what else a post war Mosley government could do but rely on US loans as the UK did in this period IOTL- I suppose he would have resisted American attempts to get the UK to open its economy up to foreign investment-but I cant imagine that would end up much better than OTL, in fact it could make the situation substantially worse.
 
Lloyd George is probably the least populist of the lot, and given his own personal baggage, it would be difficult for him to build a cult of personality in the 1930s-though one could argue he had it at the end of the Great War. As with all of these what precisely the government would be like is very much dependent on the circumstances that they come to power in, but assuming Lloyd George somehow becomes PM in the early 1930s after the depression hits, he would be pretty strongly in favour of implementing the proposals in his 'Yellow Book' which were very much similar to Roosevelt's New Deal. He was also a supporter of appeasement for quite some time, and was known to praise Hitler several times, so his foreign policy could very well be just as bad as Chamberlain's, if not worse.

Powell had a hard core following-but mostly after his 'Rivers of Blood' Speech in 1968. There are a couple of PM Powell TL's out there- the most famous being 'If Gordon Banks had played'. Some potray him as a qausi-fascist, which isn't all that accurate. What is more likely is that a lot of the monetarist reforms eventually pushed by Thatcher would get implemented a decade earlier, which could generate considerable unrest. I'm sceptical his immigration policy could be anything near as hardline as he might want it to be, as the Wets in his party would not allow it. Depending on the timing of his premiership, you might just end up with a severe recession and a group of core supporters who are largely disappointed by his failure to live up to the hype on immigration. He'd probably lose re-election, if his party even let him get that far.

It's difficult to say what precisely Mosley would be like as remaining in Labour would probably change his attitudes somewhat over OTL, but I think he always had certain authoritarian tendencies regardless of what party he was in. He'd likely concentrate power in a smaller inner cabinet of ministers- as envisaged under the Mosley Memorandum, and large scale rallies and speeches might very well be a hallmark of his campaigning style, as they were IOTL. Maybe some semi-nationalistic policies are pushed under the label of 'patriotism'. Other than that, a lot of the post-war nationalisations and Keynesianism that was adopted by the Attlee government would also be put into place under Mosley.

One important thing to remember is that Mosley was a protectionist. Pre-WW2 he saw the British Empire as the basis of a self-sufficient trade bloc, but after, he saw that it was in decline and so looked to Europe as an alternative. So strangely, it could be that Britain would be involved in the European project right from the start. Prime Minister Mosley could be regarded as one the main founders of this TL's equivalent of the EU.


An interesting thing to note is that if Mosley stays in Labour it probably means Labour at least somewhat accepted the Mosley Memorandum and thus would adopt many of their post-war ideas earlier, as Richard Cross said about the Memorandum, "this brilliant memorandum was a whole generation ahead of Labour thinking". Hell, Mosley stated this himself when he wrote his autobiography in '68. He was spouting Keynesian economics before Keynes was. Not that I wholly agree with Keynesian economics but there is no doubt the idea took off in the West, even in America with the New Deal
 
I recall hearing that Hitler actually thought that Mosley was a bit of a moron, in that his boots-and-uniform schtick was largely alien to British culture, and therefore wouldn't get him very far in winning over public opinion. I know it's not really kosher to quote Hitler as a respected authority on anything(unless the citation is meant to demonstrate how horrible he was), but he probably did have a fairly good handle on populist dynamics, and his observation about the non-militaristic nature of the English is not without support from more repsectable commentators(it's a big theme in Orwell, for example).

So, Mosley being Mosley, I'm wondering how much populist potential he really had. I think you might need a more rumpled, civilian figure, to appeal to the British. Lloyd George would probably fit the bill there.
 

manav95

Banned
I recall hearing that Hitler actually thought that Mosley was a bit of a moron, in that his boots-and-uniform schtick was largely alien to British culture, and therefore wouldn't get him very far in winning over public opinion. I know it's not really kosher to quote Hitler as a respected authority on anything(unless the citation is meant to demonstrate how horrible he was), but he probably did have a fairly good handle on populist dynamics, and his observation about the non-militaristic nature of the English is not without support from more repsectable commentators(it's a big theme in Orwell, for example).

So, Mosley being Mosley, I'm wondering how much populist potential he really had. I think you might need a more rumpled, civilian figure, to appeal to the British. Lloyd George would probably fit the bill there.

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Or a comedian controlling an outrageous bear
 
I think it's very easy to overstate the extent of Mosley's popularity and the hold he had over the public. At it's peak the BUF only had 50,000 members at most. If we allow for a multiplier of three keen followers for every member, that amounts to 200,000 hardcore supporters. Obviously, 200,000 fascists is a sub-optimal amount of fascists but, to put it in perspective, that is under 10% of the membership of the Conservative Party at the time. Also, it's worth noting that the number of anti-fascist counter-demonstrators at the Battle of Cable Street outnumbered the actual fascists by nearly 10-to-1.

I agree with people who have been mentioning Lloyd George as an answer here but if you're going to do a TL with him in this role then the POD will have to be further back than the 1930s. By then, as people have already observed, he was already too divisive a figure to attain a prominent position. I would suggest maybe something like having him not oust Asquith in 1916 so that the Liberals aren't divided going into the 1920s (although then you'd have to explain why they didn't just split then anyway...). Perhaps Lloyd George negotiates a grand bargain with MacDonald (another candidate for a cult of personality in the 1920s - not that history remembers him that way) and creates a merged party of Labour and the new liberals?
 
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I recall hearing that Hitler actually thought that Mosley was a bit of a moron, in that his boots-and-uniform schtick was largely alien to British culture, and therefore wouldn't get him very far in winning over public opinion. I know it's not really kosher to quote Hitler as a respected authority on anything(unless the citation is meant to demonstrate how horrible he was), but he probably did have a fairly good handle on populist dynamics, and his observation about the non-militaristic nature of the English is not without support from more repsectable commentators(it's a big theme in Orwell, for example).

So, Mosley being Mosley, I'm wondering how much populist potential he really had. I think you might need a more rumpled, civilian figure, to appeal to the British. Lloyd George would probably fit the bill there.

The problem with Mosley trying to get Britons to accept Fascism is that Britain won the Great War. In order to "peacefully" succumb to radical ideologies like communism and fascism you need to have the environment in which the people feel that they have more to gain by taking a gamble than with staying with the status quo. In Germany and Italy, the status quo was shit and the people felt that they were cheated and were owed something more, in Britain the status quo wasn't perfect but it was certainly superior to whatever madness Mosley had planned and the British didn't feel that they were cheated out of something so there was no desire to go on a militaristic conquest. Britain is only going to turn fascist if they lose WWI or the peace they get is so shit that people feel that they might've well have lost. Either that or the entire military somehow falls in love with it and coup the government but you're not really getting populism at that point are you?
 
The problem with Mosley trying to get Britons to accept Fascism is that Britain won the Great War. In order to "peacefully" succumb to radical ideologies like communism and fascism you need to have the environment in which the people feel that they have more to gain by taking a gamble than with staying with the status quo. In Germany and Italy, the status quo was shit and the people felt that they were cheated and were owed something more, in Britain the status quo wasn't perfect but it was certainly superior to whatever madness Mosley had planned and the British didn't feel that they were cheated out of something so there was no desire to go on a militaristic conquest. Britain is only going to turn fascist if they lose WWI or the peace they get is so shit that people feel that they might've well have lost. Either that or the entire military somehow falls in love with it and coup the government but you're not really getting populism at that point are you?
I agree Mosley becoming an elected Fascist PM would be very unlikely to say the least, but it would still be entirely possible for him to remain as he was in the 1920s and 1930s and become PM with some authoritarian tendencies, had he stuck with Labour or with the Tories. Shit, he even had offers to come join the Liberal party early on in his career, you could make him leader of pretty much any major party. He wouldn't recreate the Blackshirts or anything, but he would still be a thoroughly populist PM.
 
The problem with Mosley trying to get Britons to accept Fascism is that Britain won the Great War.

Actually, I would say that the main problem was that Mosley had no political sense. "One would have had to look a long time to find a man more barren of ideas than Sir Oswald Mosley. He was as hollow as a jug. Even the elementary fact that Fascism must not offend national sentiment had escaped him. His entire movement was imitated slavishly from abroad, the uniform and the party programme from Italy and the salute from Germany, with the Jew-baiting tacked on as an afterthought, Mosley having actually started his movement with Jews among his most prominent followers. A man of the stamp of Bottomley or Lloyd George could perhaps have brought a real British Fascist movement into existence. But such leaders only appear when the psychological need for them exists." http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_ter

Remember, Italy and Japan were among the victors in the First World War, and neither that nor monarchy secured them from fascism...
 
Actually, I would say that the main problem was that Mosley had no political sense. "One would have had to look a long time to find a man more barren of ideas than Sir Oswald Mosley. He was as hollow as a jug. Even the elementary fact that Fascism must not offend national sentiment had escaped him. His entire movement was imitated slavishly from abroad, the uniform and the party programme from Italy and the salute from Germany, with the Jew-baiting tacked on as an afterthought, Mosley having actually started his movement with Jews among his most prominent followers. A man of the stamp of Bottomley or Lloyd George could perhaps have brought a real British Fascist movement into existence. But such leaders only appear when the psychological need for them exists." http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/lion/english/e_ter

Remember, Italy and Japan were among the victors in the First World War, and neither that nor monarchy secured them from fascism...

Italy and Japan may not have lost, but they certainly didn't gain much, and in the case of Italy they were blatantly lied too and swindled out of what they were promised. Britain had no such thing, it was victorius and gained great colonial concessions and humiliated Germany, a potent rival.

As for Mosley lacking political sense, I'd say I disagree. His main problem lies in adopting a authoritarian ideology in a society that has both logical and emotional deterrence against such ideas. He was actually pretty ahead of his time with some of his ideas, although I disagree with them. It is often observed that many ideas in the Mosley Memorandum was essentially adopted by the Labour Party in all but name after the war.
 
As for Mosley lacking political sense, I'd say I disagree. His main problem lies in adopting a authoritarian ideology in a society that has both logical and emotional deterrence against such ideas. He was actually pretty ahead of his time with some of his ideas, although I disagree with them. It is often observed that many ideas in the Mosley Memorandum was essentially adopted by the Labour Party in all but name after the war.

It was not all that original, though, having largely been anticipated by Lloyd George's We Can Conquer Unemployment. And I agree with Orwell that while authoritarian ideas may have had a hard time in the UK in any event, linking them to Italy and Germany showed a lack of sense on Mosley's part. A successful fascism or quasi-fascism after all depends on national pride, which is inconsistent with a blatant borrowing from foreign regimes.
 
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