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Joe Labourman: What if Joe Lieberman's ancestors moved to the UK?

N

NotDavidSoslan

Active member
Joseph Isidore Lieberman was born in Manchester in 1942, to a Jewish family of Polish and Hungarian heritage.

Lieberman recieved a PhD in both political science and economics from Cambridge University in 1964. He edited the University newspaper and had several important roommates, later working as a lawyer.

Lieberman was elected as a "Labour reformer" to the Manchester local council in 1971, where he served for 12 years, including the last four as council president. Due to representing a ward with a heavily Jewish population, he only left office after being elected to Parliament. As a city councillor, Lieberman emphasized consumer protection and environmental enforcement.

When Lieberman ran for Parliament in 1983, he supported some of Margaret Thatcher's policies, but opposed most of them, instead supporting a pragmatic approach to economics and welfare. He was a hawk on foreign policy, supporting the cause of the Falklands and the nuclear triad, and championed the creation of a consumer protection agency. He was elected in a new constituency in a landslide year for the Tories, becoming a household figure among British Jews, albeit not nationally.

In Westminster, Lieberman estabilished himself as a centrist member of the Labour Party who was more ideologically aligned with The Alliance, which endorsed his two parliamentary campaigns during their existence, refusing to field a candidate.

By the time of the 1987 general election, Lieberman was the most popular Jewish politician in the United Kingdom, and an important member of Labour's more centrist wing, but few people expected him to become Prime Minister a decade later. Still, he was re-elected to Parliament, scratching double digits.
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Sorry. Is there reasoning behind this. Did his family move from the UK? Or did they nearly move to the UK? Like how Boris Johnson was born in New York or Jerry Springer was born in London. Or is this a thought experiment? No worries if the latter 🙂 politicians transplanted into other systems is a fun thought experiment. Like how would Corbyn have done compared to Bernie or for a different take, Roems TL of russian expatriates ending up leaders in a non soviet Russia

Also did you intentionally start this on the day be died? In writing this post I literally only just discovered this?
 
Bolt451 said:
Sorry. Is there reasoning behind this. Did his family move from the UK? Or did they nearly move to the UK? Like how Boris Johnson was born in New York or Jerry Springer was born in London. Or is this a thought experiment? No worries if the latter 🙂 politicians transplanted into other systems is a fun thought experiment. Like how would Corbyn have done compared to Bernie or for a different take, Roems TL of russian expatriates ending up leaders in a non soviet Russia

Also did you intentionally start this on the day be died? In writing this post I literally only just discovered this?
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His family moved to the UK instead of the US.
I had sporadically considered starting this, but his death gave me motivation.
 
Cecil Hollinger (a reference to a OC I made in 2022) was a Manchester small businessman who supported low taxes, a hawkish foreign policy and the Irish Unionist cause.

He opposed the Community Charge, as did Lieberman, who was one its most vocal opponents and even allegedly supported a vote of no confidence on Thatcher. Lieberman was also an active supporter of pollution controls and the creation of a consumer protection agency, which would be achieved during his premiership.

Lieberman received shadow cabinet positions in 1987 and 1991, giving him further experience in government and increasing his influence over the Labour Party. Another MP, Tony Blair, remained a backbencher until retiring in 2015.

Lieberman was reelected in 1992, albeit by a slightly lower margin than in 1987, due to the Liberal Democrats taking a different approach to him than The Alliance and fielding a candidate in Bury South. In 1994, Lieberman was elected leader of the Labour Party, and led it to victory three years later.
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After entering several shadow cabinets and opposing the Community Charge, Lieberman became a major figure in British politics, and increasingly talked of as premiership material.

According to advisers, Lieberman chose to run for the Labour Party leadership soon after being reelected to Westminster, and immediately courted PLPs and unions by emphasizing his New Labour program.

His main opponent in the leadership election was pro-worker John Prescott, who had a different base than Lieberman, himself mainly appealing to the middle class and intellectuals. Prescott later agreed to serve as deputy Prime Minister in Lieberman's premiership.

After four defeats to the Tories, the Labour leadership wanted the party to move in a more centrist direction, and Lieberman was easily elected party leader. During his victory speech, he said: "We've made history. But let's make the future as well!", and Lieberman spent the next couple of years moderating the Labour Party and preparing for the 1997 general election.
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Lieberman also became the second Jewish Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, after Benjamin Disraeli, whom he did not recall in his victory speech, supposedly to avoid division.

He was simultaneously re-elected as the MP for Bury South with 59% of the vote, subsequently serving in Parliament until 2019.

Lieberman was not perceived to be very charismatic, and voters had mixed feelings about his personality, but most of them wanted to move on from Thatcherism, at least temporarily. He followed most of his campaign promises, and the Queen gave royal assent to all of them.

The Labour Party won the 2001 and 2005 general elections, but was defeated by a landslide in 2010, as Lieberman did not resign as leader until after the election.
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I got this criticism on r/imaginaryelections:

A few comments:

I think the easiest path for Lieberman would be MGS; Cambridge; then joining the Bar, and then join a suitable set on the Northern Circuit (similar to Michael Howard's trajectory). He could get elected to the Council; but the reform Labour concept would not exist. Local machines in Labour at this point were invariably right-wing, and the people who opposed them either joined another party or were part of the great turn to the left which would come to convulse the Labour Party.

So, Lieberman might get elected to the Council, but I don't see him staying around long enough to become Leader, especially as there would been increasing resistance from the Left at the end of that period. I see him becoming increasingly close to the major Jewish figures connected with Manchester Labour at Westminster (the Lever brothers, Anthony Sheldon, Joel Barnett, Edmund Dell) who manage to get him a Manchester seat for February 1974. He then gets some sort of ministerial appointment in the Callaghan years. (Of course, Bury South has a very strong Jewish component; but it's not absolutely decisive, and Lieberman/Sumberg would cancelled each other out on the religious side. Besides, Bury likes to consider itself more than a suburb of Manchester, whatever the facts may be.)

Almost no-one with ambitions to be PM would be elected for the first time to the Commons after 40. The only exception I can think of among PMs in the past 200 years is Neville Chamberlain, who was in a special position because of his family background and municipal experience. Lieberman would have to be elected earlier. Besides, the run up to 1983 made it next to impossible for Labour right-wingers to be selected, because of the fights led by grassroots Bennites and the Militant Tendency. Even people like Blair and Brown were selected as soft left candidates. Lieberman would also not be able to deviate from "the longest suicide note in history" without risking being sacked by the NEC.

So Lieberman, as an existing MP and former minister, would probably keep his head down within the PLP, rather like John Smith did. He would need to do very well in the Commons to remain a big beast. I don't think he would be that prominent amongst British Judaism; it's not as politically vocal as its American counterpart, and at this point, there were would be prominent Jewish MPs in both parties.
 
NotDavidSoslan said:
Joseph Isidore Lieberman was born in Manchester in 1942, to a Jewish family of Polish and Hungarian heritage.

Lieberman recieved a PhD in both political science and economics from Cambridge University in 1964. He edited the University newspaper and had several important roommates, later working as a lawyer.

Lieberman was elected as a "Labour reformer" to the Manchester local council in 1971, where he served for 12 years, including the last four as council president. Due to representing a ward with a heavily Jewish population, he only left office after being elected to Parliament. As a city councillor, Lieberman emphasized consumer protection and environmental enforcement.

When Lieberman ran for Parliament in 1983, he supported some of Margaret Thatcher's policies, but opposed most of them, instead supporting a pragmatic approach to economics and welfare. He was a hawk on foreign policy, supporting the cause of the Falklands and the nuclear triad, and championed the creation of a consumer protection agency. He was elected in a new constituency in a landslide year for the Tories, becoming a household figure among British Jews, albeit not nationally.

In Westminster, Lieberman estabilished himself as a centrist member of the Labour Party who was more ideologically aligned with The Alliance, which endorsed his two parliamentary campaigns during their existence, refusing to field a candidate.

By the time of the 1987 general election, Lieberman was the most popular Jewish politician in the United Kingdom, and an important member of Labour's more centrist wing, but few people expected him to become Prime Minister a decade later. Still, he was re-elected to Parliament, scratching double digits.
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Surely more than two candidates?
 
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