WI: Thatcher Was Assassinated

In 1984, Margaret Thatcher narrowly escaped death when a bomb at the hotel she was staying at went off a couple of rooms away from her. Considering the impact she had not only on the Conservative Party, but on British politics as a whole, what do you see resulting from her death?
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
If she survives Tebbit becomes Prime Minister. Otherwise another right winger.
Given how Tebbit would have been caring for his wife, who was paralyzed in the blast, and coping with his close colleague (and dare I say friend) being blown up, he's not going to be mentally fit for the job, and would likely recognize or be outright told this once the Leadership begins and he's having to deal with the stress. He'll probobly retire to care for his wife, much like he did IoTL.

Whitelaw will be PM for the interim period, as Thatcher's Deputy Prime Minister and the Lord President of the Council. Heseltine will be likely to win the subsequent Leadership Contest, or failing that a dry like Howe.
 
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There would be a huge cultural impact. Margaret Thatcher would be one of two British PMs to be assassinated, and the only one of the two by terrorists. The other case was really weird, involving mistaken identity supposedly, and has been dropped down the memory hole. The UK has much less of a record of politicians assassinated than the US, despite the IRA and other terrorist groups.

Think of what happened when Princess Diana died in a car accident, or the reaction in the US to the JFK assassination. And IOTL the second half of Thatcher's tenure as PM was much less impressive than the first half. She hasn't worn out her welcome yet.

The approach to deal with the Irish problem changes in a way that is unpredictable.

The Tory leadership is actually more predictable. Tebbit would prefer to concentrate on taking care of his wife IOTL. Whitlaw would head a caretaker government, but the problem with him moving into the position more permanently is that by this time he was a peer. It was a hereditary peerage, so he could renounce it, but probably wouldn't have been inclined to do this. Instead you would probably get a Howe -Heseltine leadership contest, and Heseltine hasn't broken with Thatcher yet, with Howe winning.

Major becoming PM when he did is butterflied away, because he was pretty much made the head of a "stop Heseltine" movement when most of the other candidates for that role, except for Hurd who also ran, had removed themselves in the preceding Cabinet struggles. He could well have become PM later. With no Westland or break with Thatcher, Heseltine is a plausible successor to Howe in fact.

There are butterflies affecting the opposition parties. The Tories get a big electoral boost in 1987, which is comparable to the 1964 elections in the US. This is gone in 1991 or 1992. This election may go like in IOTL, but the performance of Labour, even if is the exact same as IOTL, just looks better because without the 1987 gains no one is expecting them to win. New Labour doesn't necessarily get butterflied away but it happens differently. Same with the formation of the Liberal Democrats.
 
One things for sure the assassination of Thatcher would produce a massive crackdown on paramilitary activity once the shock of it wore off. How that would affect what follows I don't know.
 
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