WI: UK Labour Gov't in WWI

Firstly, is it possible for the Labour Party, less than twenty years old at the time, to have become the party in power at the start of the Great War? If so, what effect would this have had on the course and outcome of the war?

Would the UK have switched parties during the war? If the UK started with a Liberal government as in OTL, could Labour have gotten in at the switch, rather than the Conservatives?

How would a Labour government have dealt with the peace negotiations? Would the treaty still have planted the seeds of WWII?
 
OT's Liberals officially renaming themselves something like 'Radical and Labour Party' is possible, but that's almost certainly just a peoples' budget party with a different handle, not a genuine democratic socialist organisation with a conference of trade unionists writing the parliamentary manifesto.

I think there is no way to get a British Labour government without serious changes to all Europe by 1900.
 
You really need some way to fragment the Liberals well before the war to make this doable. Not impossible, but not the most likely event.
 
OT's Liberals officially renaming themselves something like 'Radical and Labour Party' is possible, but that's almost certainly just a peoples' budget party with a different handle, not a genuine democratic socialist organisation with a conference of trade unionists writing the parliamentary manifesto.

I think there is no way to get a British Labour government without serious changes to all Europe by 1900.

I would second this

The Labour Party was really only getting going in its own identity in this period, as opposed to being a confederation of interests, including elements affiliated with the Liberals.

You also have to remember that WW1 was its first real test, and that saw the Labour Party split along ideological lines - with MacDonald taking the pacifist tradition into the wilderness, and Henderson taking the line that industrial labour needed to co-operate with government for the national interest

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
If the Labour Party were formed in the early 1880s with the first Labour MPs elected in 1885. In subsequent general elections the trend is for the number of Labour MPs to increase steadily, though there could be small setbacks, so that by 1914 there is a Labour government in power, either with an absolute majority or in alliance with the Liberals.
 
So, if this were in the Before 1900 forum, it could be plausible? Could the Labour Party have been formed earlier?

OTL, a *Labour Party almost formed in 1893/4 when the SDF and ILP unsuccessfully tried to fuse- both parties voted for the move but it never quite came off. Earlier then that is very difficult tbh- even if you were able to keep the movement unified (which is a massive ask considering the sorts of people who were involved, as Hubert Bland remarked, the first reaction on becoming a socialist was to ‘shut oneself up as it were in a little mansion of one’s own and with a few eclectic friends to think scornfully of the world outside’), the new party would never get anywhere politically- the numbers of adherents were tiny.


Maybe if the Labour Party were to grow out of the SDF ?

That's the best option, but the SDF was unelectable as was. Throwing out Henry Hyndman in the 1880s might allow it to be a slightly broader church, but when the Party tried that Hnydman simply ignored their vote and carried on regardless.

I think that tbh, a Labour opposition in 1914 is just about possible if you can somehow destroy the Tories over Tariff reform, have the Liberals swing right and Gladstonian to absorb the Free Traders and then kick out the Lib-Labs on the other flank- but even that's a massive stretch and it doesn't get them closer to Government.
 
For some reason, Chamberlain comes to mind as a mechanism for divinding the Liberals and sending Labour to the fore. he did have a knack for eventually splitting any party that he joined. I cant think of any specific way to do it, but if he remains in the Liberal party and they wind up in government shortly before 1900, i can see him pushing an issue which has "imperial preference" type effects. Liberals fragment and coalsece as labour, and defeat the tories just in time for the first world war (assuming Franz ferdinand's assassination doesnt get butterflied away).
 
There were 670 seats in the British House of Commons before 1918. In general elections from 1885 to December 1910 between 81 and 85 Irish Nationalists were returned at each election. That leaves 585 to 589 seats to be divided between Conservative and any allies, Liberal and Labour. In a theoretical, but very unlikely, equal three party split Labour would be the largest party if they win 196 or 197 seats.

Labour would have to do roughly as well as it did in the 1923 general election in OTL. The result for that election was Conservative 258 seats, Labour 191 seats, Liberals 159 seats and others 7 seats to make a total of 615 seats. That election was Labour's best result to date.

in order to reach the minimum necessary to become the largest party in the House of Commons, Labour would have to break out of mining seats and other heavily working class areas, and win in mixed working class/lower middle class seats.

In OTL 3 Independent Labour MPs were elected in the 1892 general election, out of 9 candidates ( http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1892. These were all lost in the 1895 general election.

The Liberals split in 1886 over Home Rule for Ireland. The Liberal Unionists were a combination of the right-wing of the party and Chamberlainites concentrated in the Birmingham area. There would need to be a major issue which would lead to a left-wing split from the party sometime between 1885 and 1900, with the Liberal left-wingers coalescing with Labour.

If the Conservatives win a majority in the 1885 general election, there would be no Irish Home Rule Bill in 1886. If Gladstone resigns as Liberal leader in 1885, the two most likely contenders to succeed him would be Spencer Cavendish, the Marquis of Hartington (at this time a member of the House of Commons), and Joseph Chamberlain. Both men were opposed to Home Rule and became Liberal Unionists in the 1886 Liberal split.

A possible scenario is growing demand from the left-wing of the Liberal Party from 1885 onwards for Irish Home Rule. A possible leader for the left-wing Liberals is Henry Labouchere.

The Conservatives are defeated in a general election in 1891, and the Lberals win a majority of seats in the House of Commons. In that election the official Liberal Party policy is not to introduce legislation to give Home Rule for Ireland, though about 20 to 25 percent of the party supports Home Rule.

By now Hartington has become the Duke of Devonshire and is a member of the House of Lords, so presumably is no longer Liberal Party leader. Chamberlain is the leader and becomes Prime Minister.

Chamberlain does not appoint Labouchere to his government. Labouchere and the left-wing/radical Liberals introduce a bill in the House of Commons to give Home Rule to Ireland. It has the support of 70 to 80 Liberal MPs and the Irish Nationalists but is defeated by the votes of most Liberals and the Conservatives.

These Liberals become increasingly dissatisfied with the Chamberlain government and its imperialist policies. By the next general election in 1896 or 1897 they have formed themselves into a new party, let us say called the Radical Party. They fight the election in alliance with the ILP and the two parties together win say between 20 and 60 seats.

There is a steady drift of Liberals to the Radical Party. This is accelerated in the early 1900s when Chamberlain splits the Liberal Party over tariff reform and imperial preference. A minority follows him and joins with Conservative tariff reformers. A significant number of free trade Liberals join the Radicals, while in the middle a shrinking number of free trade Liberal remain in the party, though bolstered by a small number of free traders crossing over from the Conservative Party.

Sometime in the 1900s the Radicals and Labour merge to form one party, perhaps called the Radical Labour Party (RLP). With the Liberal Party in electoral decline, the RLP wins either a majority of seats, or is the largest party, in a general election sometime between 1908 or 1909 and July 1914 and forms a government.
 
...By now Hartington has become the Duke of Devonshire and is a member of the House of Lords, so presumably is no longer Liberal Party leader. Chamberlain is the leader and becomes Prime Minister

Why can't Hartington lead from the Upper House ala Rosebery?

pipisme said:
There is a steady drift of Liberals to the Radical Party. This is accelerated in the early 1900s when Chamberlain splits the Liberal Party over tariff reform and imperial preference. A minority follows him and joins with Conservative tariff reformers. A significant number of free trade Liberals join the Radicals, while in the middle a shrinking number of free trade Liberal remain in the party, though bolstered by a small number of free traders crossing over from the Conservative Party.
Sometime in the 1900s the Radicals and Labour merge to form one party, perhaps called the Radical Labour Party (RLP). With the Liberal Party in electoral decline, the RLP wins either a majority of seats, or is the largest party, in a general election sometime between 1908 or 1909 and July 1914 and forms a government.

It doesn't sound like this party has a socialist platform, though it would have to have a formal alliance with the trade unions (not that the unionists of the time were overwhelmingly socialist, just that they found it easy to join with the Fabians, etc. And the Fabians had originally favoured the radical Liberals).
 
Originally posted by Magniac
Why can't Hartington lead from the Upper House ala Rosebery
I forgot about Rosebery. Hartington could continue as Liberal leader when he becomes the Duke of Devonshire and a member of the House of Lords in 1891.

Originally posted by Magniac
It doesn't sound like this party [the Radical Labour party or RLP] has a socialist platform, though it would have to have a formal alliance with the trade unions
The RLP does not have a socialist platform, and only a minority of its members are socialists. Its political standpoint is what in OTL would have been called advanced/radical/progressive Liberal. It has formal links with the trade unions.

If most of the cabinet ministers in an RLP government at the beginning of August 1914 were Liberal cabinet ministers in OTL, with a few who were Labour in OTL, then if the Germans had invaded Belgium the majority of the cabinet would vote for war, though maybe by only a narrow majority. Lloyd George and Arthur Henderson would have senior positions in such a cabinet.

In OTL both the Labour and Liberal parties were divided into a majority who supported British intervention in World War 1 and a minority who opposed it.

Probably the RLP would be divided into a pro-war majority and an anti-war minority.
 
The RLP does not have a socialist platform, and only a minority of its members are socialists. Its political standpoint is what in OTL would have been called advanced/radical/progressive Liberal. It has formal links with the trade unions.

If most of the cabinet ministers in an RLP government at the beginning of August 1914 were Liberal cabinet ministers in OTL, with a few who were Labour in OTL, then if the Germans had invaded Belgium the majority of the cabinet would vote for war, though maybe by only a narrow majority. Lloyd George and Arthur Henderson would have senior positions in such a cabinet.

In OTL both the Labour and Liberal parties were divided into a majority who supported British intervention in World War 1 and a minority who opposed it.

Probably the RLP would be divided into a pro-war majority and an anti-war minority.

Two thoughts on this: Two posts up, you don't mention what happens to the non-radical Liberals (are they Liberal Imperialists in this TL?) who don't join the Tories. If they're a third party at the beginning of a great war will they get behind a Radical/Labour fusion government? Are they kingmakers?

A great war in this political environment seems like it'll inevitably lead to a Westminster Coalition much sooner than what happened in our Great War. Does it mean proportional representation after the war is unavoidable?

Also, the Australian Labour government was united through the early stages of OTL's war, only splintering over the issue of conscription. It's significant that all it's ministers and MPs supported the initial mobilisation--I think a UK party of a similar relatively non-socialist bent wouldn't divide as seriously as the Henderson and MacDonald party of our time early on in WWI, but would hang together until it became obvious there was no 'one big push' that would bring about an end to hostilities. Then it cracks.
 
Members of the British Parliament weren't paid a wage untill 1910 and before then Labour MPs lived off contributions from their supporters. In order to have a large numbers of Labour candidates contesting elections early enough to be a major force by 1914 the issue of paid MPs would need to be addressed several decades earlier than was the case.
 
Originally posted by Magniac
Two posts up you don't mention what happens to the non-radical Liberals (are they Liberal imperialists in this TL?) who don't join the Tories? If they're a third party at the beginning of a great war will they get behind a Radical/Labour fusion government. Are they kingmakers?

A great war in this political environment seems like it'll inevitably lead to a Westminster Coalition much sooner than what happened in our Great War. Does it mean proportional representation after the war is unavoidable?

The Liberals are a third party in 1914 with 63 MPs in the House of Commons. They regard themselves as upholding the values of classic liberalism against the collectivism of Radical Labour and the reactionary aristocracy-dominated authoritarian Tories. They are not Liberal imperialists and believe in the gradual but steady progress of the colonies towards eventual self-government. The Liberal imperialists have gone over to the Tories.

Though they are anti-militarist with a pacifist fringe, the majority would support a Radical Labour (RL) government's intervention in the Great War, though they would oppose conscription and censorship. With the government about 20 seats short of an overall majority, they support it on confidence votes.

In OTL Liberal Prime Minister Asquith did not form a coalition government with the Tories and Labour until 25 May 1915. Proportional representation is not inevitable and will come only if the political parties think it is in their own interest and/or from conviction. The Liberal party is the only one committed to PR, from a mixture of self-interest and conviction. The Tories and Radical Labour are divided on the issue.
 
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