An Anti-Fascist Commonwealth: 'If its so easy, Blair, then you do it!'

[Dan1988]

TBH, I think such an entity would end up like the French Community - a dead letter which most the colonies decide to leave using their newfound autonomy, and the ones who remain are unwilling to yield their power to London such that this body ends up just as weak as OTL’s Commonwealth of Nations.

Unless it's as authoritarian as, umm, the USSR or Yugoslavia, in which case people will still try to bolt.

 

[Charles EP M.]

is it really fair to assume that Indians, Africans, etc., that they will all be perfectly fine with the British colonial government starting massive campaigns of nationalizations and everything and so essentially obtaining a much stronger grip of power on those colonies? That the native population will just go, "Okay, so the British colonial government is now taking unprecedented control of the economy and means of production and transportation and infrastructure around here, but because the people who run the government over in London were elected with a red Labour rosette, I am totally fine with this and trust them with this. There is no way I'm worried at all about this! No, sir! God save the King, and all that!"

No, they'll probably go "hang on--" and then get a beating For Their Own Good. The plan as proposed indicates the locals will be gaining greater involvement at the same time as the big reforms, but that's its own can of worms such as who's getting that involvement and what happens if those who do get empowered do want to do something Britain doesn't like.

And if this worked out perfectly as Orwell wanted, the end result is "India is the biggest cheese in the dessert platter, any union of African countries is next, and then it's the UK" and who's going to want that in the UK? (Or Africa, since it'd mean gaining greater rights and domestic autonomy before hitting the hard ceiling of "India is bigger than any single one of you is ever going to be".)

 

[Makemakean]

No, they'll probably go "hang on--" and then get a beating For Their Own Good. The plan as proposed indicates the locals will be gaining greater involvement at the same time as the big reforms, but that's its own can of worms such as who's getting that involvement and what happens if those who do get empowered do want to do something Britain doesn't like.

The plan as outlined involves rather drastic, momentous, colossal social and economic changes in the different countries imposed from above, imposed from the very country that has governed them as a colony for over a century, at a moment no less when Indian nationalism is stronger than it has ever been.

The notion that just by promising to increase local autonomy, a British government could smoothly impose such a massive programme with the Indian natives giving them the benefit of the doubt for the moment?

That is naive. And it is extraordinarily patronizing towards the Indians, in my humble view.

I find this thread to actually be in very bad taste. It's a bunch of people who under normal circumstances would deplore imperialism (and rightly so), but who, when it is suggested to them that actually, imperialism can be a tool to bring socialism to countries in Asia and Africa, suddenly begin to see it through rosy glasses, and muse about how neat it could be and everything, and just start to assume the people in those colonies will just gladly go along with the programme dictated from out of Westminster and lose interest in ideas of independence and it would be this wonderful socialist commonwealth and everything...

Fundamentally what makes imperialism and colonialism deplorable is that it is one nation subjugating and assuming control of another nation's internal affairs and resources by military means and force.

It is not that the nation doing the subjugating isn't doing it to bring socialism to the subjugated country.

 

[Indicus]

The notion that just by promising to increase local autonomy, a British government could smoothly impose such a massive programme with the Indian natives giving them the benefit of the doubt for the moment?

There’s also the fact that IOTL Britain did give India some degrees of local autonomy in 1919 and 1935, but it wasn’t enough at all to satisfy the Indian independence movement at all, and all the suppression that occurred in the same period only served to make the nationalist movement more and more anti-Raj until finally, after the freeing of political prisoners in 1945, nothing less than an independent republic was acceptable.

 

[Alex Richards]

I mean I literally can only see as the 'everywhere goes independent shortly afterwards, but the similar attitude towards economic planning and values, together with the possibility that Britain just doesn't really try to keep places for cost reasons means some places remain allies which didn't historically'.

Of course the flip side of that is that other places won't. Effectively you're replacing things like the Baghdad Pact.

 

[Charles EP M.]

I mean I literally can only see as the 'everywhere goes independent shortly afterwards, but the similar attitude towards economic planning and values, together with the possibility that Britain just doesn't really try to keep places for cost reasons means some places remain allies which didn't historically'.

Yeah, it doesn't seem possible to work as intended, only result in decolonisation and the Commonwealth and various countries being extremely different, unless the Demon Headmaster is a socialist and working as the Foreign Secretary. The original question was "can this happen", rather than "can this happen and also work"

 

[Jophiel]

thought this was funny.


I think realistically it was just going to prolong the situation in the colonies longer, however in exchange this means that they also don't get invaded by foreign powers or just abandoned the moment Britain can no longer afford to stay. I'd also suggest it was probably the best way to deal with decolonisation, as India being famine-ridden and left to Imperial Japan, or the King of Egypt being friendly to Italy, and other options are basically 'just keep it' or 'leave them to foreign powers' exactly a good solution. Only other solution might be to give independence, but guarantee that independence, though that might not be enough to stop empires invading these nations.

It doesn't exactly make me happy to say that however, and its still only the best of a collection of terrible ideas, of which Britain put everyone in that situation.

It's like how the US screwed up the middle east, but then staying to fix things up by eliminating ISIS was a good thing, and that then just abandoning the region was bad. The US shouldn't have gone in, but now they've made themselves the lynchpin, better to fix things up than just abandon it.

 

[Makemakean]

I think realistically it was just going to prolong the situation in the colonies longer, however in exchange this means that they also don't get invaded by foreign powers or just abandoned the moment Britain can no longer afford to stay. I'd also suggest it was probably the best way to deal with decolonisation, as India being famine-ridden and left to Imperial Japan, or the King of Egypt being friendly to Italy, and other options are basically 'just keep it' or 'leave them to foreign powers' exactly a good solution. Only other solution might be to give independence, but guarantee that independence, though that might not be enough to stop empires invading these nations.

Japan did invade British colonies despite them being part of the British Empire. And their status as colonies if anything seems to have undermined the legitimacy of the British in fighting to protect them (consider Subhas Chandra Bose's feelings on the matter), and just made it very difficult to mobilize the full support that could have helped the war effort (hence the need for the Cripps mission in the first place).

 

[Jophiel]

Japan did invade British colonies despite them being part of the British Empire. And their status as colonies if anything seems to have undermined the legitimacy of the British in fighting to protect them (consider Subhas Chandra Bose's feelings on the matter), and just made it very difficult to mobilize the full support that could have helped the war effort (hence the need for the Cripps mission in the first place).

So, are you saying that the British being there at all is going to impact it, or the fact they're colonies and not some confederated states as Blair wanted.

Because I agree regardless.

 

[Makemakean]

So, are you saying that the British being there at all is going to impact it, or the fact they're colonies and not some confederated states.

Because I agree regardless.

I'm saying that Orwell's contention that, "we couldn't just leave, because we were the guarantee against foreign invasion" is suspect, seeing that the British being there did not prevent foreign invasion, and when foreign invasion came, the British being there seems to have been as much a hinder as it was actually helpful.

 

[Avian Overlord]

I'm saying that Orwell's contention that, "we couldn't just leave, because we were the guarantee against foreign invasion" is suspect, seeing that the British being there did not prevent foreign invasion, and when foreign invasion came, the British being there seems to have been as much a hinder as it was actually helpful.

It's not particularly necessary either. You can guarantee a country without owning it.

 

[Charles EP M.]

It's not particularly necessary either. You can guarantee a country without owning it.

Which then leads to the other bit, "incidentally causing a catastrophic drop in the British standard of living." (Which also turned out not to be true) This seems the big barrier to doing any earlier AH decolonisation without the need for Britain, France etc to be beaten badly in a war - the thought of losing stuff.

 

[marktaha]

So what we seem to have is:

- To start down the road, you need a good number of (relatively) younger Labour MPs around to do the work

- You need a different WW2, possibly a later/longer one so Labour has some time to ram stuff through and say "yeah war work innit"

- There'll be some pushback from disgruntled imperialists in the colonies

- The idea is still to have a empire of sorts, but more 'equal' - Britain still wants to be the Big Cheese

- It's impossible to get all the dominions onboard with this, and maybe none of the dominions (and could kick off some splitting)

- Other Empires won't be too happy you did it

Of which the last four points aren't necessarily "this definitely can't happen" but are "this definitely can't happen the way Blair hoped". But then add in what people in Britain think - most won't have voted Labour for this, so Labour can't devote all the time and energy it might need to into this at the expense of the NHS et al at home. And the Tories will wail and gnash teeth!

I'm also remembering a plot point by @Nick Sumner in Drake's Drum, of an analysis that finds a bunch of colonies are a net drain and if this big overhaul took place, I'm betting this would come up. "Why are we wasting time with Pimlocan Burgandy when we still need to sort out Burma, where we actually get something?"

Maybe a lot less people killed in WW1?