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Loyal we Began, Loyal we Remain: A History of the British Empire [KR 1.05]

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That detail.

Sterling as usual. You're building some stuff that rationalizes some of the radical changes in the KR canon. The late 20s and early 30s are going to be.... interesting to explain, to say the least.

And now look. The stage is set for a Labourite resurgence. All that remains is for Churchill, the King, and Co. to decisively drop the ball on handling it.
 
Ah yes, how all of Europe cheered, socialists included, as they sent the workers to die to the trenches.
The true heroes of the wars are always those who refuse to join the slaughter.
 
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As I say, you've done a great job of making me really dislike Lloyd George. Criminalising conscientious objection is certainly bordering on tyrannical – though one would assume it was a mere formality anyway, of one takes the treatment conchies received anyway into account. That said, I can't say that you've had the same effect on me with McDonald. Despite his new pseudo-martyrdom, I can't help but find him a little dull. Maybe you could convince Lord Russell to come and join the political fray? (Though, even with as limited a knowledge of the canon as mine, one would hazard that such a mice would be unwise...)

To say I'm looking forward to what's to come for Britain would be a grave misstatement, but I'm certainly looking forward to your next update. :)
 
DensleyBlair said:
Criminalising conscientious objection is certainly bordering on tyrannical
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Bloody Cowards.

And on another note, a fine update. However, I still hate MacDonald. And the Tories don't look good enough. And the lack of Jews is disturbing.

But besides that, a fine update indeed. ;)
 
I'm wondering whether you are going to have MacDonald die early or jump on those boats for Canada when the Revolution comes after a rightward political development. From what I remember of KR canon, I don't think he is really around in post-Revolutionary UoB (although I may have forgotten). He's certainly not too unlikeable at the moment! You've also left me with a 'Freeeeeeeeeee Ramsay MacDonald' song in my head :p.
 
I'm finally catching up on some reading here. As always, I love the detail, even if I don't easily follow British politics (even alt-history ones).

Edit: And to reply to a long-ago reply, I'm actually kind of a fan of the Electoral College. Well, at least the ideas it captures. The implementation needs some work.
 
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Another update I missed when it happened (vBulletin conspires against you!) Great background on the British Left, as you said, as fragmented and full of back-stabbing as it is today... I didn't know the Fabian Society was quite so old, or that party leadership elections didn't happen until the 20s. Though I imagine the Tory 1922 Committee will be rather short-lived in this timeline :rolleyes:
 
baboushreturns said:
Amazing as ever, will you continue this AAR or begin a new series?
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I really do want to continue with it. The interest is definitely there, images for the next two updates have been ready for months now and the next update is over 50% completed - the problem is finding the time and the words to write down the remaining 50% :blush:
 
Tanzhang (譚張) said:
I really do want to continue with it. The interest is definitely there, images for the next two updates have been ready for months now and the next update is over 50% completed - the problem is finding the time and the words to write down the remaining 50% :blush:
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Hoping you do decide to continue!
 
Do it if you want, don't if you don't. Just remember, if you force yourself to do it, it will show in your work. Either way, I'll be waiting. :)
 
NikoHoI3 said:
Another amazing update, Tanzhang. I will be impatiently awaiting the next update with anticipation.

Interested to see what becomes of Ramsay MacDonald and the Labour Party during these post-war years.
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I'm terribly sorry to have kept you waiting impatiently with anticipation for so long! :blush:

volksmarschall said:
Good old Ramsey MacDonald, the quintessential Christian socialist of the first half of the twentieth century! I wonder what effects the alternative timeline war would have had on the social gospel movement that drove political reformism in both the United States and Canada in the first half of the twentieth century? After all, a certain Prairie Preacher in western Canada would have never had his formative beginnings without that background! :cool:
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Interesting question! I think that in a world where you have a greater level of poverty and devastation due to an extended war, and where "Godless" ideologies such as Syndicalism are in the ascendant primarily as a reaction to said conditions and said war, that Canadians and Exiles would be even more interested in ideas such as Liberation Theology or the general application of Christian ethics to Earthly problems as a kind of religious alternative to combating both social ills and the rise of a Godless alternative to combating said ills than they would be in our time.

In America, I'd expect the Social Gospel movement to have a particularly strong political base among the Baptist communities in the South, where Syndicalism isn't particularly strong, but where the fear of Syndicalism (I shan't give anything away to those unfamiliar with the KR timeline...) is especially strong.

500Artichoke said:
That detail.

Sterling as usual. You're building some stuff that rationalizes some of the radical changes in the KR canon. The late 20s and early 30s are going to be.... interesting to explain, to say the least.

And now look. The stage is set for a Labourite resurgence. All that remains is for Churchill, the King, and Co. to decisively drop the ball on handling it.
Click to expand...

Perhaps it shan't be they who drop the ball... :ninja:

Enewald said:
Ah yes, how all of Europe cheered, socialists included, as they sent the workers to die to the trenches.
The true heroes of the wars are always those who refuse to join the slaughter.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, although there certainly is something to be said for choosing to fight for one's beliefs, even if said fighting involves actually fighting in a war.

DensleyBlair said:
As I say, you've done a great job of making me really dislike Lloyd George. Criminalising conscientious objection is certainly bordering on tyrannical – though one would assume it was a mere formality anyway, of one takes the treatment conchies received anyway into account. That said, I can't say that you've had the same effect on me with McDonald. Despite his new pseudo-martyrdom, I can't help but find him a little dull. Maybe you could convince Lord Russell to come and join the political fray? (Though, even with as limited a knowledge of the canon as mine, one would hazard that such a mice would be unwise...)

To say I'm looking forward to what's to come for Britain would be a grave misstatement, but I'm certainly looking forward to your next update. :)
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I'm afraid to say that Lord Russell shall have no great part to play in British Politics for the immediate future: that however is not to say that he definitely won't play a political role elsewhere. ;)

If you've found my portrayal of Ramsay MacDonald to be rather dull, then you've found it to be rather accurate; I take that as a great compliment. :p

99KingHigh said:
Bloody Cowards.

And on another note, a fine update. However, I still hate MacDonald. And the Tories don't look good enough. And the lack of Jews is disturbing.

But besides that, a fine update indeed. ;)
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I'm afraid that Zombie Disraeli has no great part to play in the Kaiserreich canon; you'll just have to make do with Leslie Hore-Belisha. :p

Tommy4ever said:
I'm wondering whether you are going to have MacDonald die early or jump on those boats for Canada when the Revolution comes after a rightward political development. From what I remember of KR canon, I don't think he is really around in post-Revolutionary UoB (although I may have forgotten).
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Something I've never quite been able to understand about the KR world is why Ramsay MacDonald gets to be persona non grata as far as the UoB is concerned, while Phillip Snowden, who arguably was more of a traitor to the cause of British socialism than MacDonald was in our timeline, gets to be the head of the bloody CTU! He doesn't feature at all in the official canon, but a rather modest MacDonald does have a walk-on part to play in Meadow's AAR, in which he offers a decisive endorsement to his old comrades Snowden and Clynes at the 1931 congress, thus helping them to defeat the Maximists. I assume that apart from that final moment of glory, he basically becomes a sort of a Puyi figure: an anonymous man in a land he once ruled.

He's certainly not too unlikeable at the moment!
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Neither was Clegg prior to 2011....

You've also left me with a 'Freeeeeeeeeee Ramsay MacDonald' song in my head :p.
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Aided the causes of the TUC,
Only one man who opposed the army,
Are you so blind that you cannot see?
Are you so deaf, that you cannot hear his plea? :p

Jape said:
I'm betting MacDonald plays Kerensky in this English retelling of the October Revolution. I'm not up on KR lore he seems the perfect man to bugger up post-war reform and throw it to the Syndicalists
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Interesting theory you have there, Jape, although I'd certainly like to think that MacDonald was a lot less of an opportunist than Kerensky was.

Idhrendur said:
I'm finally catching up on some reading here. As always, I love the detail, even if I don't easily follow British politics (even alt-history ones).
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Thanks for putting in the effort! :)

aldriq said:
Though I imagine the Tory 1922 Committee will be rather short-lived in this timeline :rolleyes:
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On the contrary, it might not even exist in this timeline. ;)

baboushreturns said:
Alright can't wait for this to resume!
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Tommy4ever said:
Hoping you do decide to continue!
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Nikolai said:
Same! :)
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Ticket Cookie said:
I will join the others!
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Dr.Livingstone said:
Do it if you want, don't if you don't. Just remember, if you force yourself to do it, it will show in your work. Either way, I'll be waiting. :)
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Attalus said:
Joining as well ! :)
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GoshDaMule said:
I hope you continue as well.
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Thanks for your support! Apologies for the long delay, but this update was hell to write at times. The next one will be much more exciting and have way more pictures, I swear.
 
election1921_zpsfc40887d.png


Coupons and Communists: Background to the 1921 British General Election

David Lloyd George ended the war in what was perhaps the most perilous political position that any reigning British Prime Minister has in recent memory ever found himself in. Unelected and technically a member of the same party as the leader – his leader – of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, he owed his office not to democratic legitimacy or the expressed will of the people but to the good graces of the Conservative Party and its leader, Andrew Bonar Law, in particular. Lloyd George was about as dependent on the Conservatives for political survival as a newborn infant is dependent on his mother for sustenance; it therefore came as little surprise to anyone that if he were to remain as Prime Minister he would have to come to some sort of political arrangement with the Tories before the next election.

Lloyd George's options were threefold: the first was perhaps both the simplest and the most unpalatable, the second the most palatable but the most complicated while the third was to Lloyd George simply unacceptable. The first option was for Lloyd George to join the Conservatives outright, in exchange for the Tory leadership. Needless to say that this was a proposition bordering on the absurd, and that for a man who was once considered the most radical politician in Britain and a friend of the toiling classes, joining the party of reaction and upper-class privilege was not an attractive proposition, to put it very mildly indeed. And even if Lloyd George could stomach the nightmarish thought of wearing a blue rosette or a primrose pinned to his lapel on the hustings – and that was a very big if indeed – there would be absolutely no reason why Andrew Bonar Law would want to unilaterally resign his position as leader in favour of David Lloyd George – who, let it be remembered, was an unpopular wartime Prime Minister whose tenure bordered on the Cromwellian in terms of its autocracy – in the first place. Suffice it to say that the first option was simply not an option to either David Lloyd George or his Conservative equivalent.

The second option however was far more attractive, both to Lloyd George himself and to the Conservative Party as a whole. Prior to his defection from the Liberal Party in 1886 over Gladstone's policy of Irish Home Rule, David Lloyd George's great political hero had been the Unitarian and self-made industrialist-turned-republican-radical-turned-imperialist Joseph Chamberlain. Chamberlain, along with Lord Hartingdon and over seventy other Liberal MPs formed their own party – the Liberal Unionists – in protest, and teamed up with Lord Salisbury, then the leader of the Conservatives. For the next quarter-century the Liberal Unionists, and Joe Chamberlain in particular, proved to be a particularly agonising thorn in the side of the Liberal Party, and an effective obstacle in blockading the Liberal road to Number 10, just as the Irish Nationalists had proved to be to the Tories hitherto.

In his youth Lloyd George had cursed Chamberlain for his decision to split the Liberal vote at the time, and persisted with this criticism right up until the death of Chamberlain's party in 1912 (when it finally merged with the Tories to become the Conservative and Unionist Party.) but with age brings wisdom, and the eminently wiser and more experienced David Lloyd George of 1921 was beginning to see a good deal of merit in Chamberlain's past example. Naturally he had not the slightest intention of ever merging with the Conservatives outright – he may as well have gone with option one if that were the case – but the idea of keeping Asquith and the Liberals out of power by allying with the Conservatives, in continuing to do after the election what in effect he had been doing for the past six or seven years, certainly had many attractions to Lloyd George. Obviously it meant that he could hold onto the Prime Ministership in the short-term, but in the long-term it could well force either the Asquithians into a realignment of the liberal left on Lloyd George's terms, or failing that, the Tories into a realignment of the anti-socialist centre-right in order to combat the ever-imposing electoral threat of an ascendant Labour Party.

Though at first the idea of a marriage between such two earnest and bitter political rivals as the mostly protectionist Tories and staunchly free trader Liberals (even socially-conscious Lloyd Georgian ones) must sound to politically-tuned ears to be at best far-fetched and at worst utterly unpalatable, it would be pertinent to remember that such an arrangement had already been brokered between the Protectionists and Free Traders – who hitherto had been the two major political forces in the country; the equivalent of the Liberals and Tories in Britain – in Australia, and for exactly the same reason why Lloyd George might contemplate reaching such an arrangement in Britain. Namely, fear of an impending Labour government.

Alternatively Lloyd George could try and come to an arrangement with Asquith first, which hopefully would settle any festering divisions within the broader Liberal movement, before then trying to broker some sort of electoral pact with Bonar Law. This would have the advantage of keeping the Liberal Party together as an electoral force, at least in the short term, but was a task easier said than done. Suffice to say that as far as Asquith was concerned, the Liberal crown was his by right, and even if he were to abdicate it willingly, he'd sooner give it to the likes of Ramsay MacDonald or Andrew Bonar Law than to the Welsh Pretender. There was no real alternative for David, only a dilemma: either Lloyd George would have to cut his ties with the National Liberal Club or relinquish the keys to Number Ten; he chose the former.

Secret negotiations between Lloyd Georgians and senior Tories began at Abbey House[1] almost as soon as the ink had dried on the parchment of the now infamous “Peace with Honour” treaty. For the first time in thirty years, a Tory leader was presented with the opportunity to cleave the Liberal Party in two, and thus perpetually secure its place in those hallowed halls of government which, as far as most Tories were concerned, was little less than the party's birthright. Bonar Law was nevertheless more than a little hesitant to accept any sort of Alliance with a Liberal Unionist Party Mk. II: In his view, no doubt reinforced by recent events which had taken place on the continent, the Conservatives were as much threatened by the march of the Socialists as they were by the decline of the Liberals. The Dominion-born Bonar Law favoured a dominion-inspired solution: a united front between Conservatives and Liberals (of both Asquithian and Lloyd Georgian persuasions) against the red menace. The negotiations battered back and forth like a ball between two tennis rackets, with Bonar Law and his team unwilling to dilute the strength of the Liberal Party and Lloyd George and his team stressing the impossibility of them and Asquith coming to any sort of arrangement. In the end, the impasse was breached with a fair compromise: Lloyd George and the Tories had governed as a coalition and would therefore campaign as a coalition. A cross-party list of Coalition approved candidates was drawn up and agreed by the two leaders, including candidates from the Tory, Liberal and Labour parties plus a smattering of independents and minor party figures. The majority of Coalition candidates would be Conservatives to ensure that whatever happened, the Tories in all likelihood would be the largest Coalition party in the Commons, while in exchange Bonar Law conceded the position of “Prime Minister Designate” to Lloyd George. Approved candidates were offered a coupon entitling them to stand as “Official Coalition” candidates, with the option to accept or reject the endorsement left according to each member's own judgement.

From almost the second the coupons were issued, strife and controversy followed in equal measure. Both Asquith and MacDonald were quick to threaten to expel any Liberal or Labour candidate who accepted the coupon, while pro-Coalition Liberal and Labour party members and activists formed new “Local Coalition Associations” and campaigned alongside men and women who hitherto had been their hated political rivals. Keeping true to the principles of Burkean representation, Tory candidates were not pressured by the party into accepting the coupon, and although most who were offered it did not spurn it, those few who did or who were not offered it in the first place received the full support of the party. (whether or not their local constituency associations complied with this directive is another matter.) MPs were subjected to a seemingly endless stream of letters from constituents imploring them to accept or reject their coupon while pro and anti coupon editors and journalists waged a seemingly endless war of words against one another in the nation's tabloids and broadsheets. Sibling against sibling; parent against child: truly, the 1921 was the closest thing Britain had experienced to a civil war since the days of Oliver Cromwell.

Sadly, nowhere was this truer than in Ireland. Irish MPs had been exempted from the coupon as it was widely assumed that the Unionists would take the Tory whip whatever transpired, and the Irish Parliamentary Party would likewise do the same for the (Asquithian) Liberals. The political waters had been muddied somewhat for this election by the emergence of a new, radical nationalist faction: Sinn Fein; who advocated the total and absolute separation of Ireland from the United Kingdom and its political institutions. Led by the towering presence of Michael Collins and the more careful, calculating American Éamon De Valera, the presence of the avowedly abstentionist Sinn Fein looked set to break the two-party Unionist-IPP duopoly in Ireland wide open. Whatever happened at this election, it seemed for certain that the Irish question which so plagued British governments hitherto was far from buried.

The British left meanwhile, most untrue to form, were more united. Obviously Asquith had suffered more from the exodus of the Coalitionists than MacDonald had, and now he struggled to hold together the remains of his once great party in time for polling day. Rallying around their leader, Britain's Asquithians looked to the past in order to rebrand themselves for the future, and in the process broke new ground in the emerging field of British political revisionism. Building on the party's traditional anti-war stance which had proven so successful for Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in the 1906 election which immediately followed the Boer War, Asquith sought to reinvent himself as a peace-loving democrat who reluctantly went to war with Germany solely in order to fulfil Britain's obligations to poor, defenceless Belgium, and whose time as a war leader was mostly spent curbing the excesses of bloodthirsty autocrats Lloyd George and Churchill; Britain's own answer to Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. Like his Coalition opponents, Asquith too was wary of the threat posed by Labour, and was quick to sell his red rivals as violent extremists in the continental mould. The Liberals – according to their propaganda – were the only sensible alternative between Labour's violent radicalism and the Coalition's vile Jingoism.

The socialists meanwhile appeared to be on an almost unstoppable bandwagon. As the one party identified more than any other with opposition to the war, and with a popular leader in the form of Ramsay MacDonald – himself Britain's most visible socialist and pacifist – Labour appeared to be, right from the outset, the party to watch come polling day. The rise of the European left on the continent had buoyed the morale of the party faithful, and an influx of thousands of new members and activists from across the country soon followed, bringing their purses as well as their persons with them. Disillusionment with the war was widespread and cut across all sections of British society, but was prevalent most of all among the soldiers returning home from the trenches: Asquith and Lloyd George's Heroes flocked to the Labour Party in droves. For the first time in its history, the British Labour Party looked like a force capable not merely of contesting an election, but contending for government.

But things weren't exactly all sunshine and roses for the British Labour movement: MacDonald's election as leader firmly cemented the party's shift towards the left, a shift which the new leader was keen to capitalise on and consolidate. Sections of the party's traditional support: white, working class socialists – many of them Catholics – who took conservative stances on most social issues, felt alienated by MacDonald's recent change in policy. Some, such as ex-party leader and member of Lloyd George's war cabinet George Nicoll Barnes, had even supported the wartime Coalition, and continued to defend the war and the way it was fought. MacDonald's moralistic brand of pacifism, which although on balance was definitely an asset to his party, was seen by some as unpatriotic, almost bordering on the outright treasonous, and an insult to the soldiers who, in that old, tired and worn out cliché, had “died fighting to preserve their country's freedom.” Led by Barnes, a small but not insignificant group of Labour MPs and candidates who reflected this constituency within the party took up Lloyd George's coupon en masse, and were expelled from the party for their troubles. Barnes would be elected the unofficial leader of the Coalition's socialist contingent; what history would come to know as the Coalition Labour Group, a rival to MacDonald and the not-too-distant historical ancestor of the plethora of “social conservative, yet socialist” political parties which would proliferate throughout continental Europe, Asia and some far-flung corners of the Anglosphere during the post-war period.

And yet, for a small yet growing minority among Britain's socialist community, the problem with Ramsay MacDonald lay not with the fact that he went too far, but that he didn't quite go far enough in trying to establish a socialist society in Great Britain. Inspired by leftist movements and tendencies exercising political power and influence across the continent, those who favoured putting forward a more radical push for socialism in Britain – one along the lines that the Syndicalists were offering the people of France – founded the Communist Party of Great Britain. A curious chimera, the CPGB was a hotchpotch of leftist tendencies: Bolshevik, Menshevik, but crucially for future events, largely Syndicalist in makeup. The Party stood little chance of winning a single seat at a “bourgeois” election, but hoped to do well enough to serve as a catalyst for a genuine British proletarian revolt similar to those which had already occurred in Russia and France. The Communists were joined by a number of new and existing leftist groups fielding candidates at this election, including the Socialist Party, the Cooperative Party[2] and the National Socialist Party, just to list a few of the more prominent organisations.

The Major Parties:

The Coalition Liberals

dlg_zps741cba74.png


Party Leader and Prime Minister Designate: David Lloyd George
Ideology: Social Liberalism, National Liberalism, Anti-Pacifism.
Party Colours: Predominately Teal or Sea Green, but some candidates chose to campaign in the other traditional liberal colours: yellow, orange or buff.
Electoral Affiliation: The National Coalition
General Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Centre to Centre-left

The Coalition Conservatives

bonarlaw_zpsa2e80d21.png


Party Leader: Andrew Bonar Law
Prime Minister Designate: David Lloyd George
Ideology: Social Conservatism, High Toryism, Anti-Pacifism.
Party Colours: Predominately Blue, though in some regions candidates favoured to use traditional colours such as light yellow and black in Penrith or salmon pink in Worcestershire. In Harrow, a rather flamboyant and left-leaning Tory candidate[4] notably chose to campaign in Labour red.
Electoral Affiliation: The National Coalition
General Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Centre-right

Contesting the 1921 election in an alliance, both of the two main Coalition Parties put forth broadly similar, if not practically identical manifestoes. Nevertheless, there were occasionally some slight differences of both values and policy between the Coalition Parties which are outlined below.

Economic Policy: The Coalition Liberals, more so than the more classically-minded Asquithians, enthusiastically adopted the sort of interventionist economic policies which had been used by the national government during the war and the Liberal Party before it, when David Lloyd George had served as Chancellor. Lloyd George advocated a dynamic public spending plan, centred around a massive public housing construction scheme to employ and house those soldiers returning from the war (and hopefully win their votes in the process) in addition to rural development grants and the promotion of what he termed “scientific farming” and the nationalisation of the energy, rail and communication industries. Although there were certainly some similarities between certain aspects of the Coalition and Labour economic programmes, the Lloyd Georgians on the whole took a more pro-business, pro-capital stance than Labour, undoubtedly due to influence from the Conservatives.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Centre-left

Social Policy: Following in the spirit of his People's Budget of 1910, David Lloyd George continued to favour radical social reforms into the 1921 election campaign. Unlike his Conservative allies, who continued to favour the old Chamberlainite policy of funding welfare payments through tariffs on imports, Lloyd George sought to fund pensions for returning soldiers and the elderly through higher taxation, the burden as always to fall on the wealthy. On constitutional affairs, the Coalition Liberals proved to be every bit as radical as their forebears, promising Home Rule for Northern and Southern Ireland, the introduction of Proportional Representation (STV) for multi-member constituencies, further reform of the House of Lords ( a sore point with some Conservatives) and the elimination of all hitherto existing legal inequalities between men and women.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Left to Centre-left

Foreign Policy: Due primarily to Conservative influence, the Coalition parties made great pains of the need for Britain to pay off its hefty war debts as soon as possible. Naturally, this was an unpopular policy and one which sat at odds with Lloyd George and his own domestic spending proposals, and so therefore the Coalition Liberals were significantly less keen to emphasise this facet of their platform than their Tory allies. Both parties were however in full agreement for the need to provide a responsible colonial administration in India and in their implacable opposition to Syndicalism abroad – needless to say there was no option of recognising or even trading with any nations which subscribed to Syndicalism as far as Lloyd George and his allies were concerned.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Centre-right

Defence Policy: Recent incidents on the Continent have forced Lloyd George to all but abandon the last of any remaining sentiments or sympathies towards pacifism he might have still possessed. The Coalition favoured a massive rearmament policy, ostensibly to help keep those soldiers still fit to fight and those working in the arms and shipbuilding industries employed, but in reality to guard against the ominous threat of Syndicalist revolution. Both Coalition parties favoured a return to something approaching pre-1914 warship levels, the maintenance of a professional standing army and emphatically ruled out any appeal to outlaw or repeal conscription.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Right

Irish Policy: Arguably, Bonar Law's acceptance of an Irish Parliament was the greatest concession won by Lloyd George in the drafting of the joint Coalition programme, a concession which indeed caused a great deal of consternation among hardline Tory ranks. Bonar Law did however succeed in extracting a promise from Lloyd George that the people of Ulster would never be subject to a “Dublin parliament” – if there was to be devolution imposed on Ulster, it would be imposed in the form of an Ulster parliament. Both leaders resolutely refused to even consider the idea of Irish independence.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Centre-right

The Liberal Party

asquith_zpsc5ea5838.png


Party Leader and Prime Minister Designate: Herbert Henry Asquith
Ideology: Social Liberalism, Classical Liberalism, Moderate Pacifism.
Party Colours: Yellow or Orange, though some candidates chose to campaign with the traditional Chartist colours of Sea Green or Teal.
Electoral Affiliation: None.
General Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Centre

Economic Policy: One of the more prominent differences between the Asquithian and the Lloyd Georgian Liberals was in terms of economic policy: whereas Lloyd George was at least prepared to consider protection – he himself was not entirely in favour of it, but his Tory allies most certainly were – Asquith remained resolutely committed to “the essentials of free trade.” The Liberals resolutely refused to support the implementation of tariffs or restrictions of trade of any kind, but supported government intervention in what Asquith termed “national reconstruction:” namely the propping up of the construction, shipbuilding and industries that had been negatively impacted due to the war. Like Labour and in spite of the classical liberal wing of his party, Asquith was open to the idea of a minimum wage.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Centre

Social Policy: First and foremost among Asquith's priorities was the repeal of the borderline dictatorial “security” measures Lloyd George had implemented during the war: censorship, restrictions on the freedoms of assembly and of demonstration and the release of all pacifists and conscientious objectors imprisoned by the Coalition government for pacifist activities during the war. In addition to the introduction of a pension for all surviving soldiers who fought in the war, the Liberals also proposed a training and investment scheme for all ex-soldiers to help them better readjust to civilian life. Like Lloyd George, Asquith supported Irish Home Rule, (with a separate parliament for Ulster if the people of Ulster so desire it) and the legal equality of women.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Centre-left

Foreign Policy: Though opposed to Syndicalism in all its forms, the Asquithians refused to rule out commercial activities with Syndicalist nations, feeling that to do so would conflict with the principle of freedom of trade; practically gospel as far as some Liberals were concerned. Asquith broadly subscribed to the bourgeois liberal internationalism present in some pacifist circles after the war, and supported the creation of a “League of Nations:” despite refusing to extend anything greater than de facto recognition to any nation which subscribed to Syndicalism, Asquith did not rule out the admission of Syndicalist states to any hypothetical League of Nations in the future should they wish to apply.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Centre

Defence Policy: Opposition to conscription remained a key point of contention between the two liberal camps, and Asquith pledged to repeal it forthwith. Generally, the Liberals subscribed to the anti-militarism which so held them in good stead during the Campbell-Bannerman era and pledged to drastically slash the military budget to well below pre-war levels.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Left

Irish Policy: As a long-time supporter of Home Rule who attempted to grant Ireland a Parliament prior to the Great War, Asquith was strongly in favour of Irish self-government, even going so far as to suggest the possibility of dominion status for Eire, or at least the southern part of it. To avoid causing unrest in Ulster, Asquith restricted the Liberals platform to support for the creation of an Irish Parliament and a possible separate Parliament in Ulster to be decided by a referendum.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Centre to Centre-left

The Labour Party

rmacdonald1_zpsd700b459.png


Party Leader and Prime Minister Designate: James Ramsay MacDonald
Ideology: Democratic Socialism, Pacifism.
Party Colours: Red and Yellow.
Electoral Affiliation: None.
General Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Left

Economic Policy: True to the fourth clause of their party's constitution, Labour pledged the “immediate nationalisation and democratic control of vital public services, such as mines, railways, shipping, armaments, and energy” as well as the nationalisation of land and pledging the construction of one million houses “fit for men and women to live in” at the state's expense. In addition, MacDonald advocated the establishment of a minimum wage and the “drastic amendment of the Acts dealing with factory conditions, safety, and workmen's compensation.” MacDonald remained as committed to free trade as his predecessors, and refused to consider the implementation of tariffs, instead opting to increase taxes (the burden as always to be borne by the wealthy) to pay for Labour's expensive nationalisation and social programme.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Left

Social Policy: As a former teacher himself, MacDonald took a keen interest in education: pledging to increase teachers pay and to introduce further state scholarships, which would be open to students irrespective of social class. Like Asquith, MacDonald demanded “the destruction of all war-time measures in restraint of civil or industrial liberty” and the release of all political prisoners. Claiming that women were the “Chancellors [of the Exchequer] of the Home” Labour pledged to lower food prices, and as it had since the days of Keir Hardie, insisted upon the establishment of legal equality between men and women.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Centre-left

Foreign Policy: In stark contrast to the other parties, Labour passionately advocated both the formal recognition of and the establishment of economic and friendship ties with the Syndicalist states, and pledged to denounce any attempt by any nation to intervene in said states by means of economic sanctions or by force. Opposed to the rather timid bourgeois internationalism of the Liberals, Labour instead demanded the immediate restoration of the (Second) Worker's International, and a genuinely socialist “League of Free Peoples” complete with an International Labour Charter mandating the abolition of slavery and child labour, an eight-hour work day, the recognition of the right to work, a minimum wage, essential safety regulation and the right of compensation to injured workers and the freedom to assemble and strike in all member nations. Naturally, the Labour Party had no objections to Syndicalist states being members of such a League – on the contrary they encouraged Syndicalist participation in such a venture. Labour also pledged to repay Britain's war debts by levelling a special tax on the arms merchants and their companies who had so greatly profited from the deaths of millions.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Left to Far-left

Defence Policy: As an avowedly pacifist party, Labour was passionately opposed to the very principle of conscription and vowed to repeal it forthwith, in addition to pledging to slash the defence budget to well-below pre-war levels.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Left

Irish Policy: Finding the definitions of “Home Rule” offered by the other main parties to be fairly limiting and rather pointless given the extent to which the Irish situation in particular had escalated, MacDonald pledged to offer both Ireland and India dominion status within the British Commonwealth, with the Dublin and Dehli Parliaments granted full control over all their domestic affairs.
Position on the Commonwealth Political Spectrum: Left
***

Notes:

[1] The former location of Conservative Central Office, prior to the move to No. 32 Smith Square after the war. CCO has changed location several times ever since, abandoning the iconic address in the IDS-Howard era.

[2] The Cooperative Party formally affiliated itself to the Labour Party in 1927 in our timeline. Even so, the one Cooperative MP elected to the Commons in both the 1918 and 1922 elections took the Labour whip in parliament. Therefore one can reasonably expect any Cooperative candidates elected in this AAR to side with Labour.

[3] Women over thirty were granted the vote in Britain after the Great War in our timeline in time for the first post-war election. Because we'll be seeing a few prominent female candidates appear at this election, I'm going to assume that the wartime coalition did the same in the AAR's timeline.

[4] Of whom we shall be hearing a lot, lot more of in the future.
​
 
It returns, 6 months after last update? Seen worse. :p

Indian dominion? Surely that must be a joke, why would any Briton support abandoning the crown jewel of the empire? Next thing those damned socialist will be talking about dismantling the entire empire! :eek:
 
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