WI - Successful Malta Integration with the UK?

Nick P

Donor
In 1960 Malta had a population of 327,000. Hong Kong had a population of 3,076,000.
If Malta was to get 3 MP's then Hong Kong would have 30. That's a whole political party of their own.

There would have to be some form of Federal Parliament to avoid Westminster becoming overwhelmed (sheer lack of space in the House for starters!). Devolution would definitely be on the cards.

And let's not forget the need to hand Hong Kong back to China in 1997 unless we arrange a longer lease on the New Territories.
 

Devvy

Donor
Considering how people in Britain complain about London hardly ever paying attention to areas that aren't London, how neglected would a Malta that was apart of the UK be?

Post 1999 Devolution, the main issue is people in England complaining about how Westminster never pays attention to them. The Scots, Northern Irish, and much of the Welsh affairs of interest (ie. education, healthcare, local transport, etc) are handled locally. No reason why Malta would be any different, might even speed it up if you have Northern Ireland and Malta already devolved.

PS (late edit), as a prime example, Crossrail was authorised in London for £16 billion. Crossrail 2 is already being lined up afterwards for god knows how many billions. But northern England electrification for (if memory serves) somewhere around £300-£500 million was cancelled "for cost reasons", even though a project of that scale would have had huge positive consequences for rail up north.
 
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People mention Hong Kong, but that is just impossible to say the least.

The issue is China hold all the cards with Hong Kong. Where does all the water, and power comes from? The mainland. The PRC, that's who. All Beijing have to do is cut the power, cut the water, cut the food supply, and then play the waiting game as the British and the US deals with a massive humanitarian crisis.

And...the British did not care about Hong Kong. Even after OTL Tiananmen Square, London kept a law that denied Hong Kongers full citizenship rights including the right of residency in the United Kingdom. The UK did everything in it power to keep the Hong Kongers out while everyone else was attracting Hong Kong immigrants as 97 roll around. (Canada and the USA have more Hongkongers then the UK.)

Hong Kong is almost in the same boat of Aden: A similar port city that the UK abandoned without caring for its inhabitants in 1963.

There is no way that China would not take Hong Kong. The entire legitimacy for any post-Qing government in China was based on reversing the 'Century of humiliation', so regardless of the form of government, any regime that does not take the cities back after the 99 year lease was up will lose a lot of creditability in the eyes of the people, and risk instability.

With Newfoundland and Labrador, London had in fact hoped they would join with Canada. (It would just be a financial burden the British government would hardly desire while it itself was in a state of austerity.)
 
If we could sort out an early enough POD we could get Malta, most Caribbean islands, Heligoland, Gibraltar, Taiwan, Newfoundland, Labrador, Aden, etc etc into the UK...

Might need to butterfly WWI and WWII though...
 
Knew I'd seen a thread about Newfoundland in the UK:
The Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies and Other Tales of British Newfoundland an AlternateHistory.com presentation by Dan1988

Unfortunately @Dan1988 has not finished it, but its a good read anyway.

Finished it yet. I still have a bunch of WW1-related posts to upload, and then after that I'm sounding out ideas, including (among other potential ideas) having Edward VIII not fall in love with Wallis Simpson but instead with Frederica of Hanover (which would spell bad news to anyone who knows an inkling of what happened when she was around in Greece). The point being trying to find a way to make an Operation Not-Sealion by making it so blatant during WW2, but gradually during the prior decade (and in fact there were supposedly instructions on Frederica to woo the then-Crown Prince - if followed, it would have very dire consequences for the Royal Family). So no Maltese integration for you ITTL, as I see it, either.
 
I’d guess they’d get grouped with any other South Atlantic islands which integrated (Tristan de Cunha, Ascension), but even with them that’s 8k. I’m not sure there’s a way round this. OTL the Scottish islands are 20k, and Orkney/Shetland is 30k, so I guess it’d just be one of those special constituencies which has a small electorate. No one else to merge it with without making a mockery of the principle of local representation.

It can be done. Look at the Chatham Islands 500 miles east of New Zealand's South Island. The population, mostly Maori, is about 600. Local administration is conducted by an elected Chatham Islands Council and Mayor. For parliamentary elections, the Chatham Islands population is regarded as part of the Rongotai electorate in Wellington and is represented by the MP for Rongotai. It is also represented by the Te Tai Tonga Maori member of Parliament.
 
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