Eurocommunism that actually means what it says rather than just set itself up as the gravedigger of European communism and backslide into mild social liberalism is something I like to see. I wonder if it can negotiate all the crises of the end of the century, but at least it's trying.
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Eurocommunism that actually means what it says rather than just set itself up as the gravedigger of European communism and backslide into mild social liberalism is something I like to see. I wonder if it can negotiate all the crises of the end of the century, but at least it's trying.
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I was thinking that to be honest, but the window between fully integrating with UK proper politics in 2002 and Nick Clegg inevitably imploding everything for the Lib Dems post-2007 is just too short for them to gain a real foothold I think.
I was imagining the IRL pre-Confederation Liberal Party of Newfoundland dominating the liberal/center-left niche in 1948-2002 Newfoundland, while the aforementioned Newfoundland Party is organized from the remnants of the IRL pre-Confederation United Newfoundland Party shortly after the 1948 referendum results in Newfoundland remaining British and fully giving up its Dominion status (the POD being that Joey Smallwood fails to convince the British to put confederation with Canada on the ballot and the options are just the restoration of Responsible Government and the continuation of the Commission of Government, the latter winning).
Then once Blair promises to hold a referendum on representation for the British Overseas Territories if his government is re-elected in 2001 (which it is), Labour starts making overtures to the Newfoundland Liberals for them to support closer constitutional links with the UK in the referendum in exchange for Labour support of their platform within Newfoundland, while the Tories under Iain Duncan Smith fail to court the Newfoundland Party in their general incoherence of the time.
This ends up resulting in a narrow victory for closer constitutional links in the referendum as the Newfoundland Party doesn't take a very strong stance and hugs the center as usual while the Liberals mostly support representation (although I should note that the nature of the referendum remains slightly controversial, that being that it was held as a single overarching vote across all of the territories rather than individually in each one, with several smaller ones voting against it but still getting lumped in). After another half a year of negotiations between representatives in London on what "closer constitutional links" actually means, the British Overseas Countries of today are born via the British Overseas Countries Act 2002, which also technically renames the UK proper to the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and British Overseas Countries but otherwise changes virtually nothing at home beyond eight new MPs in the House of Commons.
After this the Liberal Party of Newfoundland's dealings with Labour during the referendum morph into a more permanent arrangement of functioning as a separate party in a parliamentary group with Labour, as you said due to Newfoundland being too rural and far out for Labour proper, with the full name of the party becoming something along the lines of "Liberal and Labour Party of Newfoundland". The Newfoundland Party also, predictably, hugs the center and emphasizes being small-c conservatives while steering clear of the mainland Tories.
The other parts of the BOC, as stated before, also end up in a strange situation party-wise in which they pretty much all just retain their previously existing territorial party systems detached from the rest of the UK, while their MPs stretched between these independent systems function as independents in the Commons. There's also the matter of their representation in the British Overseas Parliament in St. John's, where there are likely several strange minor party MPs in parliamentary groups with the larger parties from Newfoundland proper, but to be frank, the British Overseas Parliament doesn't actually do all that much and leaves nearly everything that isn't actively a problem to the local legislatures and governors of the individual countries, including the confusingly separate General Assembly of Newfoundland, which is housed like three blocks away in a different part of St. John's and does most of the day-to-day governance in Newfoundland proper.
Natta will try to solve the problems facing the world but one man can only do so much. On the bright side Eurocommunism won’t moderate but thrive in its current positions as an anti-authoritarian version of communism. Provided they keep denouncing the USSR and China’s crimes they’ll remain popular and unlike the Christian Democrats and PSI they won’t have nearly as much corruption.
Of course Natta will have problems like Berlinguer as they face serious internal opposition to their government. Here’s the timeline if you want to read it.
Hell or Highwater: Buddy Cianci and the Decade of Malice
What is this? A timeline where an underrated figure from Rhode Island becomes president. His name is Buddy Cianci. At one point he was considered a rising star in the Republican Party so I got an idea. Why? I got bored at school. How long will this last? Hopefully until I finish it or get...
www.alternatehistory.com
SpudNutimus
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Realization: Newfoundland becoming the primary body of a new UK country via referendum in 2002 means that there's a high probability of Tony Blair having to kiss a dead codfish and drink several shots of rum in front of the press for the sake of national legitimacy.
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Oh my god there's even a perfect photo I could use for Boris Johnson doing it too this is amazing
Walpurgisnacht
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Rather clinical looking pub. Must be a wine bar. A perfect example of how the Tories are out of touch with ordinary working class Newfies.
Having made his fortune with his own company, Bloomberg L.P., Bloomberg was an aggressive consumer of government stock, buying out many citizens as well as scions of ousted executive families like the Fords, Rockefellers, and later, the Waltons. Bloomberg's first bid at governance came in 1995 after the collapse of the Ford Executive Group, which was prompted by the 1990s automotive crisis. He joined the Koch-led group that was defeated by the Perot Technological Administration LLC. Bloomberg persisted and increased his shares in the 1998 public offering. He correctly predicted the Microsoft takeover of that year would be short lived and began putting together a consortium of his own. In 2001, Bloomberg privately began to accumulate stock in the National Bank with the apparent intention of competing with the government minority share. In actuality, he sold off 90% of his stock in 2003 in order to flood the market, causing the bank to enter free fall. He then offered to rescue the bank by way of the newly formed Bloomberg Management Group by buying up all the stock he had sold in addition to 18.2% of government stock. This gave him a share in the bank which was nearly equal to the government's. Despite the Microsoft troika's reluctance to cede such power, they recognized the necessity of saving the bank and agreed to the sale. BMG then became the majority owner of government stock and Bloomberg was officially appointed Administrator by the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange on September 4. His tenure began when Marshal General Wesley Clark accepted his appointment on September 9.
However, despite Bloomberg's quick purchases, bank stock continued to fall. He had shaken confidence too much. Additionally, a group of investors had successfully shorted the bank to massive gains. Bloomberg's administration now appeared very weak and caused widespread panic among investors. NYSE suffered major drops for nearly a month, unresponsive to Bloomberg's attempts to stop it, and soon spread to government stock itself. Widespread selling resulted in government stock being bought up by many small private buyers. Bloomberg issued a stop trading order on November 20. Trading resumed on November 29, after Thanksgiving. By now, Bloomberg was facing calls to step down from rivals. Bloomberg accepted a mercy package from Enron, agreeing to let Enron buy part of BMG's government share and become a co-partner in government. Enron bought up available government stock and then sold it back to the government, stabilizing the price again. The rocky start was a sign of things to come.
Over the next 15 years, Bloomberg presided over a series of crises and catastrophes, ranging from stock market crashes to complete recessions. His usual response was to bring in outside investors who would shore up the government, and then increase payments to the military to maintain power. However, domestic turmoil ensued, with labor strikes and rioting spreading in many corners of the Union State. Bloomberg's attempts to blame the Minister-President Edmund Brown of the neighboring Socialist Union of America certainly did not succeed.
Things eventually became too much to bear. The military declined a pay raise in 2017, a rare sign of their disfavor. It had become apparent Bloomberg was no longer viable. In 2018, Jeff Bezos successfully executed a hostile takeover of the government, singlehandedly buying out 62.4% of BMG and 23.4% of the government. Bloomberg was finished, and fled the country. His assets were then seized by the state. Bloomberg still retains 24.9% of the USA Inc. Holding Company, which is defunct in the Union State itself but still an active international corporation traded on foreign markets and holding numerous assets including Bloomberg's private military. Today, the Union State is embroiled in a devastating civil war which is largely attributed to Bloomberg's mismanagement. Although Jeff Bezos had the misfortune of being the final Administrator of the Union State, Bloomberg is largely viewed as the one who destroyed the corpornation.
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SpudNutimus
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Godspeed, Spud. Godspud.
SpudNutimus
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Okay uh, legitimate question for UK politics people: what's the electoral protocol for MPs if a new UK country comes into existence between general elections? Would they draw up the new country's constituencies immediately and have by-elections for all of them, or would they just leave the place unrepresented until the next general? I'm aware that a by-election typically happens when there's a vacancy, but that usually happens because of a constituency that previously had someone in it becoming vacant, not a new constituency coming into existence in-between elections? Also, for there to even be any vacant constituencies to fill, the boundary commission of the new country would have to take the time to draw them up first right? Would that boundary commission even bother with the hassle of doing it out of sync or just wait until the next general? I'm just a yank so I don't really know these things, help.
They'd make up some bullshit on the fly, and then declare it inviolable tradition.
The Acts of Union 1801 had the existing British Parliament combined with those members representing constituencies of the existing Irish Parliament still enfranchised, to create a UK Parliament. If we treat this as a precedent I suppose the right answer would be to hold by-elections for the new constituencies which would be drawn as part of the admission bill.
Another tenuous precedent, but perhaps a better one, was the Maltese integration referendum of 1956, which was inconclusive thanks to a boycott of the vote. That was to include three MPs in Westminster representing Malta upon admission, presumably with these constituencies formed by combining the existing Maltese Parliament constituencies together. Which means the same sort of precedent, I suspect. But that was a failed attempt, of course, and I’m not sure how relevant people would consider it.
In truth, I don’t think there is a good precedent for this sort of thing. Though constituencies will likely be drawn up as part of admission. My suspicion is it will depend on the situation in Westminster. If the ruling government suspects the new MPs will support them, they’ll hold byelections immediately, if not they’ll wait till the next election.
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Ah yes, the true British way. I suppose Newfoundland's tradition of welcoming foreigners with a ritual that sounds like something you'd see on a university's anti-hazing report is if anything perfectly fitting with the spirit of the other four nations they would now call their countrymen in this world.
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Good news: Bermuda has turned out to have a barely large enough population to make up a single constituency alone (at least under the constraints of the Overseas Countries' bizarre geographical situation), so at least one of those three independent MPs mentioned before will actually have a contiguous home constituency, and they'll likely have an actual party affiliation rather than functioning as an independent (although it'll likely be even stranger to see a lone MP in the Commons who belongs to a political party which only exists in Bermuda than it would have been for them to function as another independent).
Bad news: There's now a constituency called "Cayman, Turks and Caicos Islands" which is still in the same bizarre situation as before of being stretched between two separate overseas countries and having its MP function as an independent in the Commons because each of these two countries has a separate party system.
Really bad news: The entire rest of the non-Newfoundland Overseas Countries (so the BVI, Anguilla, Montserrat, Gibraltar, Ascension, Saint Helena, Tristan da Cunha, the Falklands, South Georgia, and Pitcairn) have all been lumped into the most abominable monstrosity of a constituency in the history of the UK (and that's saying a lot!) which can only be described with the moniker "Islands and Gibraltar" because absolutely fuckall else connects them and they're all several thousand miles away from each other. Vote-counting there will also be an absolute nightmare, and the UK will now have to wait nearly an extra day to legally end any general election because of 67 people in Pitcairn in a way comparable to the rest of the US formally waiting on Alaska to finish counting its votes for a day because of 12 people in the Aleutians in a typical presidential race IOTL.
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If I were PM, I would schedule an election here for Wednesday, so that a) to eliminate the geographical cost b) one independent MP doesn't affect the rest of the campaign. What do I know about the British, though?
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"Are you saying we're waiting on a tiny group of ancient nonces to have our government approved?"
"Please don't talk about the hereditary peers like that, Prime Minister."
SpudNutimus
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Sir Tristan Taylor-Persaud KSG is a Trinidad-born British newsreader and journalist. Since 2004 he has served as Senior Correspondent for CBS News and lead presenter of Today Tonight, CBS Telehor's long-running flagship news nightly news broadcast. Taylor-Persaud also co-presents the hour-long news magazine programme Broadcasting House as well as CBS's coverage of major state and international events, most prominently CBS's election night coverage, Olympic opening and closing ceremonies and the wedding of Kronprinz Alfred and Theresa von Waldersee.
Taylor-Persaud was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad to an British mother and Trinidadian father of Dougla background. His mother, Annelise Taylor, was a Scottish-born human rights activist and his father, Sid Persaud, was a civil servant in Georgetown. He is the cousin of President of the West Indies Maya Persaud and the nephew of Nick Persaud, who was the West Indian Federation's Ambassador to the United States in the 1980s.
His family moved to London when Taylor-Persaud was ten, and he studied history at Trinity College Dublin before joining the Commonwealth Broadcasting Service, initially as a researcher and producer for radio broadcasts to the Caribbean. During the Great Eastern War he served as a war correspondent on the central fronts in Persia and South Asia, most prominently reporting from the battle of Singapore. After the conflict he joined CBS Telehor, first as a general reporter, later as a international affairs correspondent, but ultimately concentrating on politics. He was promoted to co-host CBS's Today Tonight in 1997 and became a well-known face on British Telehor screens.
Through his career Taylor-Persaud as been the subject of many controversies. Early in his career he was accused of whitewashing Western Coalition activities and alleged war crimes in Turkey and the Middle East during the Great Eastern War, which he later claimed was the result of pressure from British and German authorities. His long-running affair with Today Tonight's co-host Ruth Wesley was the subject of tabloid fodder, and a notorious 2002 interview with Kaiser Wilhelm V, in which he raised allegations of fraud and insider trading involving Princess Maria and Ethiopian mining firms, led to an outcry in Germany and a brief diplomatic incident.
Taylor-Persaud was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad to an British mother and Trinidadian father of Dougla background. His mother, Annelise Taylor, was a Scottish-born human rights activist and his father, Sid Persaud, was a civil servant in Georgetown. He is the cousin of President of the West Indies Maya Persaud and the nephew of Nick Persaud, who was the West Indian Federation's Ambassador to the United States in the 1980s.
His family moved to London when Taylor-Persaud was ten, and he studied history at Trinity College Dublin before joining the Commonwealth Broadcasting Service, initially as a researcher and producer for radio broadcasts to the Caribbean. During the Great Eastern War he served as a war correspondent on the central fronts in Persia and South Asia, most prominently reporting from the battle of Singapore. After the conflict he joined CBS Telehor, first as a general reporter, later as a international affairs correspondent, but ultimately concentrating on politics. He was promoted to co-host CBS's Today Tonight in 1997 and became a well-known face on British Telehor screens.
Through his career Taylor-Persaud as been the subject of many controversies. Early in his career he was accused of whitewashing Western Coalition activities and alleged war crimes in Turkey and the Middle East during the Great Eastern War, which he later claimed was the result of pressure from British and German authorities. His long-running affair with Today Tonight's co-host Ruth Wesley was the subject of tabloid fodder, and a notorious 2002 interview with Kaiser Wilhelm V, in which he raised allegations of fraud and insider trading involving Princess Maria and Ethiopian mining firms, led to an outcry in Germany and a brief diplomatic incident.
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SpudNutimus
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Unfortunately I've kinda lost interest in this project halfway through, so just take this as the final product. Maybe at some point I'll come back and finish it.
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