UK retains more of the British empire post 1945

[Torten]

Currently, the remnants of the British Empire, the British Overseas Territories are a collection of self-governing islands, most of them too small to be a viable state. They do not have any representation in Parliament, unlike Overseas France, which has representation in the French Parliament.

However, it would have been plausible for other territories to remain part of the empire. For example, Malta actually voted to become a part of the UK in 1955 with representation in Westminister, though the opposition boycotted the election but instead became an independent state in 1964, while several of the Caribbean islands only became independent in the 1970s.

How much of the British Empire could be retained by the UK post-1945? And what kind of effect would this have on the UK, particularly if the overseas territories have representation in Parliament?

 

[Charles EP M.]

Well, more post-1960s - it's not until Macmillan and then Wilson that most of it goes. It's unlikely most could be retained because, after all, we couldn't afford it anymore, it was politically hard to justify, and Macmillan onwards didn't want to fight more wars for it. If we avoid the Suez Crisis (or it's done in a different way that means Egypt loses), then we might have the will to keep parts of it for longer but the cost is soon going to tell.

Now, if Malta does pull off becoming part of the UK, that would give a way to keep some of the colonies if enough of the locals can be convinced this is better than independence, but it would also mean parliament in the 50s and 60s agreeing to let Africans appoint MPs that would decide things for the UK. That might be acceptable for small colonies like the islands in West Indies, Belize, Gambia, Bahrain etc but anywhere like Nigeria.

If you did pull it off with these small places, if there's more than a handful of them, the first thing that happens is the UK can't fully scale down the Royal Navy and all our imperial apparatus. We've got to keep these parts protected and keep up the infrastructure and so on, because they could vote against the government if not.

 

[ShortsBelfast]

I have often wondered how the Wilson/Callaghan years would have gone with Dom Mintoff in the Cabinet. For one thing, the Roy Jenkins liberalisation would have faced more internal resistance than OTL.

 

[Alex Richards]

There's a decent chance that smaller Caribbean islands which historically were bundled with the neighbours could have stuck with Britain- Barbuda, Nevis and Tobago were all various levels of 'not keen' on being dominated by their neighbours. Anguilla actually successfully fought against it OTL (the awful monstrosity of 'St Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla being averted when they declared independence from the new entity on a platform of remaining a British Overseas Territory).

The other big option is a sort of British Polynesia based around Kiribati and Tuvalu. Would probably include Nauru and Pitcairn but not anything like Vanuatu or Fiji.

 

[d32123]

Any way Newfoundland could remain British?

 

[Alex Richards]

Any way Newfoundland could remain British?

Not without something far more substantial changing things in the 20s or 30s- London basically did the equivalent of winding up Northamptonshire council because they've completely run out of money and weren't really interested in running the place long term.

 

[Venocara]

Not without something far more substantial changing things in the 20s or 30s- London basically did the equivalent of winding up Northamptonshire council because they've completely run out of money and weren't really interested in running the place long term.

What things would need to change for Newfoundland to remain British?

 

[Dan1988]

Any way Newfoundland could remain British?

It was left off the referendum ballot for a reason - first and foremost, it was only a Dominion whose responsible government was suspended (hence, it was the Dominions Office operating the Commission of Government); Britain really wanted Newfoundland to merge with Canada very badly, considering Newfoundland had no long-term economic future on its own (in their view, though it could be argued that a class-ist analysis was applied here) and would be too much of a drain on HM Treasury; and Newfoundlanders really hated the Commission of Government.

Now, one could argue that leaving Newfoundland out of Dominion status in 1907 could help (in which case, it would probably have a status now that would be similar to Bermuda), but in reality, the long-term goal of the British government was to push Newfoundland into Canada, as soon as Confederation was achieved. Whitehall and especially the Board of Trade never really had that high of an opinion of Newfoundland, to begin with, and had long considered it having no long-term economic viability outside of the fisheries. Hence, a good portion of Newfoundland's history could be best summarized as local politicians having starry-eyed visions of proving everyone else wrong and bringing Newfoundland towards an economically developed status, against all odds - of which many of their plans never work out as intended. Any logical steps towards improving its status, however, gets marred with some sort of sectarian brush, although not as extreme as elsewhere in the Empire, which complicates Newfoundland's journey to Confederation.

So, as I see it, there's no path for Newfoundland remaining British. One would have to push the POD to the 19th century in order to make something like that happen, and even then it's not that certain, and having Whitehall run the place would probably discourage it from seeking to retain more of the Empire. In other words,

What things would need to change for Newfoundland to remain British?

Everything would have to change, right down to the attitudes of both Newfoundlanders and the Government, from the Board of Trade and the Admiralty on up and down.

 

[TheIO]

What things would need to change for Newfoundland to remain British?

@Dan1988 partially did a timeline on the old place about it.

EDIT: and the man himself speaks.

 

[Dan1988]

@Dan1988 partially did a timeline on the old place about it.

And I'm still thinking of eventually reviving/rebooting it. I'm just temporarily sidetracked with a new project, some ideas which may eventually creep into other projects like the reboot of that TL.

 

[kratostatic]

I think that having a roughly French DOM/TOM style arrangement is a bit awkward, for a couple of reasons. The first is that, other than Malta, I can't see that there all that many that would obviously be willing to stay in the UK, even under a more equitable and less colonial arrangement. Maybe if there's a big and obvious faceplant from a country declaring independence. With what Alex is suggesting plus Malta we've got maybe another 100,000, 200,000 at a stretch, in the 60s. Call it two Maltese constituencies, a Carribean constituency or three depending on who exactly is in (I'm guessing the big players, Jamaica and so on, are still out), maybe a Pacific/Indian ocean constituency. Lets be a bit "optimistic" and keep both Belize and Guyana as an analogy to French Guyana because why not. I think this takes us up to the best part of a million at indepence, and probably about 3 million now (I'm assuming greater immigration into the UK mainland in this case), which is of the same order as France's DOM/TOMs. We're already quite implausible here.

Then we run into a different problem: Hong Kong. I can't see a UK that hangs onto Malta, Belize, Guyana, maybe The Gambia, maybe Mauritius, a bunch of the Carribean, as one that is likely to let Hong Kong go. This UK is likely one that is more able to hang onto Hong Kong and if the former are integrated there would be fairly substantial calls to integrate the latter. Equally, a UK that gives Hong Kong up is likely not going to hang onto the rest of them and we'd be seeing renewed calls for independence at this point as a large chunk of the advantage of being part of the UK is gone - I actually think this is the most likely scenario. But let's say that either the UK is stronger, or China is weaker, or the UK believes sufficiently little in China's ability to take and hold Hong Kong and/or its ability to govern it in a "two systems" style. But we can't have China be too weak or else Hong Kong will be asking for independence rather than union.

Now in 1960 Hong Kong had a population of 3 million, or more than Northern Ireland. Now it's up at over 7 million, higher than any Home Nation besides England. At this point, we have enormously changed the nature of the UK and we've got enormous geopolitical butterflies, not least because it is likely something fairly nasty has gone down in China by this point one way or another (nastier than OTL I mean).

So basically I can see another 200,000 people being added, with maybe another 10 MPs worth, or else we've got a 5th Home Nation, with a 6th made up from the rest (ignore the Frankenstein of a nation that is Malta+Guyana+Belize+Mauritius+a bunch of other smaller islands). We're looking at a UK with a total population upwards of 80 million, where over 10% of MPs would represent "distant" constituencies, give or take a bit with devolved legislations which would obviously be needed. I think that this is an interesting idea but possibly not in the spirit of the OP?

 

[Alex Richards]

With Hong Kong, you'd need Home Rule at the start methinks, but maybe if it's integrated on those terms in the 60s you might see a situation where there's some sort of confirmatory referendum in the late 80s.

But yeah, that's going to be a very awkward situation.

 

[d32123]

The New Territories are going to revert to China in 1997 no matter what due to the terms of the treaty signed in 1898, unless the British are willing to break their treaty agreement and go to war. The rest of Hong Kong could hypothetically remain a British colony indefinitely but would be militarily indefensible and would probably just be annexed by China as soon as relations start to deteriorate with the West. IOTL the British decided it wasn't worth holding on to for good reason (good relations with China are far more valuable than a remnant of a long-dead empire). Hong Kong independence is a non-starter and would 100% spark a war as in the Chinese view it would amount to a territory of China seceding. IOTL China killed all attempts in the UN to declare Hong Kong and Macao as non-self governing territories for this very reason.

 

[Charles EP M.]

Then we run into a different problem: Hong Kong. I can't see a UK that hangs onto Malta, Belize, Guyana, maybe The Gambia, maybe Mauritius, a bunch of the Carribean, as one that is likely to let Hong Kong go.

This does seem a sticking point. The only outcome of this seems:

a) China somehow agrees to not take Hong Kong back, which means some form of deep dark dealing and bribery at a specific point, and that can maybe work, but then you need China to keep agreeing to it and not go "actually sod that we have nukes now".

b) China and Britain go to war, which Britain is extremely unlikely to win

c) Britain says "Hong Kong Is Part Of The UK Now", China says "we'll see about that in 1997", everyone outside of Westminster goes "the UK's going to blink in '97", and in '97, the UK blinks


Either outcome taking you to a very different UK. Especially b). (You get a very different China for a) and c) too)

In the hypothetical "UK keeping Empire by giving them a vote" timeline, I'd expect a c) outcome to be the most likely. Decades of tension with China ending with handing it back anyway, to the annoyance of various Hong Konger unionists (who may then emigrate en masse). And if Hong Kong goes, some of the other parts may start wondering why don't they just go independent too.

 

[OHC]

There's a decent chance that smaller Caribbean islands which historically were bundled with the neighbours could have stuck with Britain- Barbuda, Nevis and Tobago were all various levels of 'not keen' on being dominated by their neighbours. Anguilla actually successfully fought against it OTL (the awful monstrosity of 'St Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla being averted when they declared independence from the new entity on a platform of remaining a British Overseas Territory).

The other big option is a sort of British Polynesia based around Kiribati and Tuvalu. Would probably include Nauru and Pitcairn but not anything like Vanuatu or Fiji.

Would a right-wing Tory government in the 70s have been interested in keeping the small Caribbean islands? I know that some Monday Club MPs were in contact with the Abaco Independence Movement in the Bahamas about keeping the Abacos a British dependency during the process of Bahamanian independence, although their attempts to get the independence motion amended in Parliament weren't very successful.

 

[Elektronaut]

I don't really follow on 'UK retains some more territory, goes mad on Hong Kong.' Presumably people are aware that we signed onto the Hong Kong transition with the PRC in the same year of the Falklands War.

The only possible way I see a prolongation on Hong Kong is if there's no clearly central government in Beijing to actually transfer to.

 

[Elektronaut]

I have often wondered how the Wilson/Callaghan years would have gone with Dom Mintoff in the Cabinet. For one thing, the Roy Jenkins liberalisation would have faced more internal resistance than OTL.

Don't really see why he'd give up domestic dominance in Malta for just being some random bloke in the Commons. Wikipedia says the Maltese proposals themselves envisaged only three MPs in the Commons, and presumably these would be politically divided. Certainly it wouldn't have been more than a handful based on population size.

Much more likely is some kind of Maltese equivalent of Plaid Cymru or the Ulster parties emerging, with distance from the main parties the better to blackmail them for pork back home in a hung parliament situation.

 

[Torten]

I don't really follow on 'UK retains some more territory, goes mad on Hong Kong.' Presumably people are aware that we signed onto the Hong Kong transition with the PRC in the same year of the Falklands War.

The only possible way I see a prolongation on Hong Kong is if there's no clearly central government in Beijing to actually transfer to.

Even if the lease had been for 999 years on the new territories, not 99 years, China would have eventually have convinced the British Government to return Hong Kong.

 

[ShortsBelfast]

Don't really see why he'd give up domestic dominance in Malta for just being some random bloke in the Commons. Wikipedia says the Maltese proposals themselves envisaged only three MPs in the Commons, and presumably these would be politically divided. Certainly it wouldn't have been more than a handful based on population size.

Much more likely is some kind of Maltese equivalent of Plaid Cymru or the Ulster parties emerging, with distance from the main parties the better to blackmail them for pork back home in a hung parliament situation.

Well he was at the time the leading campaigner for integration. It would have been kind of like Corbyn announcing that he wasn't going to run for Westminster but the Scottish parliament or a London council seat instead. He would have been more or less forced by public opinion and the rules of the political game to run for a Westminster seat in order to be taken seriously and, realistically, Malta was never quite big enough for the man's ego which is why IMHO he came up with a lot of the headline grabbing proposals OTL.

 

[Avian Overlord]

Well, the United States managed to hold on to most of its islands post WW2 so it's clearly not impossible. I think a strong tradition of devolution helped there, granted.