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AH Run-downs, summaries and general gubbins

Random idea... You've got an aircraft carrier! And you've got an aircraft carrier! And you...

aka TLs where aircraft carriers are more widespread.

Examples:

The Republic of Vietnam builds one part as a white elephant/prestige project, part as a power projection element in the contested South China Sea with North Vietnam, PRC and ROC.

Imperial Germany builds a pair as a mostly ill-advised attempt to dominate the North Sea and establish a presence in the North Atlantic.

Post-Qing Imperial China builds a carrier or three to dominate the waters of Northeast Asia.

Apartheid South Africa builds a helicopter carrier as a mobile airstrip for forward operations in SW and SE Africa.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia builds a carrier to establish dominance of the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.

The Empire of Ethiopia does the same.
 
Random idea... You've got an aircraft carrier! And you've got an aircraft carrier! And you...

aka TLs where aircraft carriers are more widespread.

Examples:

The Republic of Vietnam builds one part as a white elephant/prestige project, part as a power projection element in the contested South China Sea with North Vietnam, PRC and ROC.

Imperial Germany builds a pair as a mostly ill-advised attempt to dominate the North Sea and establish a presence in the North Atlantic.

Post-Qing Imperial China builds a carrier or three to dominate the waters of Northeast Asia.

Apartheid South Africa builds a helicopter carrier as a mobile airstrip for forward operations in SW and SE Africa.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia builds a carrier to establish dominance of the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.

The Empire of Ethiopia does the same.

How many of those end up just being a civilian ship with a deck bolted on top?
 
Red Army Day in the Royal Albert Hall


FJOGMMgXIAAUWjT

The alliance between the United People of Great Britain and Ireland and the Soviet Union was the lynchpin of the so-called "Pax Suez" era: the point from 1920 to 1949 when the Seven-Power Treaty on the Neutrality of the Suez Canal held. The South African Empire (still "Free British Commonwealth" internally), the French, the Italians, and the United States all wanted the canal to not be in the hands of a communist power, and if it had just been Britain alone they'd have risked another war to take it from them. But Britain had swiftly allied with the Soviets, putting a violent end to the Russian Civil War, and nobody wanted to fight both of them so soon after the Great War. (Nor did they want to have a big fight only for another country to run the canal) The communist countries didn't want another war either, and so the treaty (with Persia brought in as power no.7) left the Canal - and by default, Egypt - as a neutral zone.

Staying allied was an existential requirement for both communist powers. On their own, they may seem vulnerable to attack, or they may suffer deprivation from lack of trade, or all the internal cracks could be seen (such as the discontent in much of Ireland about being communist). This didn't meant the two countries got along - the governments each saw each other as dodgy and spied on the other even more than they spied on the capitalists & the growing fascist 'Black Block'. (Named due to the Blackshirts and the UP and USSR being the "Red Block") The Soviets found the state of Britain to be confusing, feeling too much of it went unchanged. The annual Pal's Night concerts at Albert's Hall were a case in point - in a big celebration of communist alliance, the British still used the Union Jack and still named the place after a dead prince.

To the British government, this made perfect sense. Nobody could agree on a new name for the Royal Albert Hall and it was clear the average Londoner was still calling it that anyway. The easiest and cheapest way out was to call it Albert's Hall and knock up a mascot called Albert for the front of it (a stereotypical cockney man).

At the time, every informed person assumed the Pax Suez would end because the Red Block would attack somewhere or vice versa - there were numerous crisis points in the 1930s when Japan tried to annex Manchurio - or because the Red Block would fall out. The Soweto Spring caught everyone completely by surprise.
 
The alliance between the United People of Great Britain and Ireland and the Soviet Union

Both Red Britain and the Soviet Union can bond over the fact that despite being a part of the European continent they still developed their own cultures that differed from most of Continental Europe. Also the fact that the monarchy was a big part of their country, their society, and their identity pre revolution much more so than other monarchies in Europe
 
Random idea... You've got an aircraft carrier! And you've got an aircraft carrier! And you...

aka TLs where aircraft carriers are more widespread.

Examples:

The Republic of Vietnam builds one part as a white elephant/prestige project, part as a power projection element in the contested South China Sea with North Vietnam, PRC and ROC.

Imperial Germany builds a pair as a mostly ill-advised attempt to dominate the North Sea and establish a presence in the North Atlantic.

Post-Qing Imperial China builds a carrier or three to dominate the waters of Northeast Asia.

Apartheid South Africa builds a helicopter carrier as a mobile airstrip for forward operations in SW and SE Africa.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia builds a carrier to establish dominance of the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.

The Empire of Ethiopia does the same.

That's basically what happened after World War II with light aircraft carriers. What's interesting is that quite a few of them were built in the United Kingdom instead of the United States.
 
An Infinite Orange Sky

Every country and every political system has its own quirks, its own intricacies, and its own unique identifying features. For the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, it is a simple truth: for the last seventy-six years, Britain has been governed by the left. It is a rare honour—only the Union of Sovereign States, the Kingdom of Spain, South China, and a handful of socialist republics can lay claim to a similar feat. The reason behind this is simple: the British right completely decimated and discredited itself following the German Crisis, and has never recovered since. After Lord Halifax's loss to Clement Attlee in 1945, Labour gained a landslide. After their rematch five years later, the Conservatives were relegated to third place in the House of Commons, and have remained there ever since.

Halifax and his predecessor, Lord Templewood (formerly Sir Samuel Hoare), are almost universally ranked at the bottom of lists of 20th century prime ministers. Their mishandling of the German Crisis, and their failure to maintain peace on the Continent, drove thousands of Conservatives—from MPs to councillors to rank-and-file party members—away from the party now seen as a national embarrassment. The natural beneficiary of this devastation was the Liberal Party—once a shadow of its former self under Lloyd George, the Conservative implosion saw Sir Archibald Sinclair take the reins of the Opposition away from Halifax, and, in 1955, the premiership. Since then, power has alternated between the Liberal and Labour parties ever since, with the Conservatives shut firmly out of the corridors of power, save a brief spell in the late 1990s when Michael Heseltine's Liberals were forced into a coalition with Michael Portillo's Tories after Margaret Beckett's Labour cut their majority down to a very slim plurality.

Each party has their own left and right wings, to be sure. John McDonnell's Labour, built in the image that Lord Stansgate never had the opportunity to create, had hardly anything in common with his predecessor, Paddy Ashdown, or his successor, Andrew Adonis. So too for the Liberals—Heseltine and Clarke share little with the days of Sinclair or Megan Lloyd George. Yet, all the same, the party system Britain built and solidified in the 1940s and 50s seems as solid as ever, and it is here to stay. As Number 10 alternates back and forth between red and yellow with no shade of blue to be seen, it becomes ever clearer that Britain today stands resolutely beneath an infinite orange sky.

--Excerpt from the foreword of The Oxford Guide to Modern British Politics

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Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom

1935–1937: Stanley Baldwin (Conservative)
1935 (Majority) def. Clement Attlee (Labour), Herbert Samuel (Liberal)
1937–1940: Samuel Hoare (Conservative)
1940–1945: Edward Wood, 3rd Viscount Halifax (National Government, then Conservative)
1945–1955: Clement Attlee (Labour)
1945 (Majority) def. Edward Wood, 3rd Viscount Halifax (Conservative), Sir Archibald Sinclair, 4th Baronet (Liberal)
1950 (Majority) def. Sir Archibald Sinclair, 4th Baronet (Liberal), Edward Wood, 3rd Viscount Halifax (Conservative)

1955–1959: Sir Archibald Sinclair, 4th Baronet (Liberal)
1955 (Majority) def. Clement Attlee (Labour), Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative)
1959–1964: Megan Lloyd George (Liberal)
1960 (Majority) def. Jennie Lee (Labour), Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative)
1964–1973: Harold Wilson (Labour)
1964 (Majority) def. Mark Bonham Carter (Liberal), Sir Keith Joseph, 2nd Baronet (Conservative)
1969 (Majority) def. Edward Heath (Liberal), Sir Keith Joseph, 2nd Baronet (Conservative)

1973–1975: Denis Healey (Labour)
1975–1982: Sir Anthony Meyer, 3rd Baronet (Liberal)
1975 (Majority) def. Tony Benn, 2nd Viscount Stansgate (Labour), Enoch Powell (Conservative)
1979 (Minority) def. Tony Benn, 2nd Viscount Stansgate (Labour), Enoch Powell (Conservative)

1982–1987: Peter Shore (Labour)
1982 (Majority) def. Eric Lubbock (Liberal), William Rees-Mogg (Conservative)
1987–1992: Paddy Ashdown (Labour)
1987 (Majority) def. Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler (Liberal), William Rees-Mogg (Conservative)
1992–2000: Michael Heseltine (Liberal)
1992 (Majority) def. Paddy Ashdown (Labour), William Rees-Mogg (Conservative)
1997 (Coalition with Cons.) def. Margaret Beckett (Labour), Michael Portillo (Conservative)

2000–2008: John McDonnell (Labour)
2000 (Majority) def. Peter Temple-Morris (Liberal), John Redwood (Conservative)
2004 (Majority) def. Kenneth Clarke (Liberal), John Redwood (Conservative)

2008–2013: Kenneth Clarke (Liberal)
2008 (Majority) def. John McDonnell (Labour), Edward Leigh (Conservative)
2013–2019: Dominic Grieve (Liberal)
2014 (Majority) def. Andrew Adonis (Labour), Edward Leigh (Conservative)
2019–0000: Sadiq Khan (Labour)
2019 (Majority) def. Dominic Grieve (Liberal), Mark Thatcher (Conservative)

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Political Parties Currently Represented in the House of Commons
Major Parties
  • Labour Party: One of Britain's two main parties and currently the party of government, the democratic socialist Labour Party broadly occupies the centre-left of British politics. It has a long history of trade unionism and support for maintaining and expanding the welfare state. Factions range from social democrats on the right to more radical socialists on the left of the party--although the latter side has lost ground lately to Solidarity. The Labour Party competes in Northern Ireland through its affiliate, the Social Democratic Party of Northern Ireland. Current leader: Rt. Hon. Sadiq Khan MP
  • Liberal Party: The other of Britain's two main parties and arguably the most successful major party in British history, the Liberals briefly suffered a "third-place curse" beginning in the 1920s but surged back to prominence after Samuel Hoare and Lord Halifax's handling of the German Crisis doomed the Conservative Party's electoral viability. The Liberals range from moderate social-democrats to centrist liberals to liberal-conservatives. The Liberal Party competes in Northern Ireland through its affiliate, the Ulster Liberal Alliance. Current leader: Rt. Hon. Sir Ed Davey MP
  • Conservative Party: Once a key player in British politics, the Conservative Party has been reduced to perpetual outsider status to the British government since the disastrous performance of the Hoare and Halifax governments in the 1930s and 1940s. The collapse of the national government prompted a mass exodus from the Tories, both MPs and voters. The Marquess of Salisbury initially took over and led the party as a staunchly traditionalist political party, but the Conservatives have largely evolved into a solidly neoliberal and socially conservative force. The Conservative Party competes in Northern Ireland through its affiliate, the Unionist Party. Current leader: Rt. Hon. Sir Mark Thatcher MP
  • Solidarity: Formed in the mid-2010s by defectors from the far-left wing of Labour, Solidarity was founded on the principles of economic justice, social justice, and climate justice. Firmly anti-capitalist, anti-violence, democratic-socialist, and eco-socialist, its leaders have struggled to gain ground on the national level. Party leaders' current strategy is to target shaky Labour seats to hopefully force them into a coalition. Solidarity supports Irish unification, and as such does not compete nor hold any seats in Northern Ireland. Current leader: Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn MP, 2nd Viscount Stansgate
Minor Parties
  • Scottish Democrats: The Scottish Democrats are the largest pro-independence party in Scotland. The party is officially a big-tent party built around the core platform of independence, in practice its MPs' stances and published manifestos are generally social democratic and socially liberal. Scottish independence has largely failed to gain traction, with the most recent referendum in 2014 barely reaching 35% in favour. Current leader: Rt. Hon. Kenny MacAskill MP
  • Sinn Féin: Sinn Féin is Northern Ireland's only pro-unification party. They follow a policy of abstentionism, meaning that they do not take their seats in Parliament. Sinn Féin's MPs usually therefore hold seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly or local government posts. Current leader: John Finucane MP
  • Mebyon Kernow: Mebyon Kernow is a Cornish nationalist party that holds two seats in Parliament and forms the Official Opposition on the Cornwall Council. It is a social-democratic party that campaigns for greater education and awareness of the Cornish language and culture and calls for the creation of a Cornish parliament. Current leader: Rt. Hon. Sir Andrew George MP
 
Solidarity: Formed in the mid-2010s by defectors from the far-left wing of Labour, Solidarity was founded on the principles of economic justice, social justice, and climate justice. Firmly anti-capitalist, anti-violence, democratic-socialist, and eco-socialist, its leaders have struggled to gain ground on the national level. Party leaders' current strategy is to target shaky Labour seats to hopefully force them into a coalition. Solidarity supports Irish unification, and as such does not compete nor hold any seats in Northern Ireland. Current leader: Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn MP, 2nd Viscount Stansgate

The rare unmelted Hilary.
 
So from the existence of MK combined with the total lack of mention of Plaid, are we to assume that rural Wales is still solidly Liberal?
The Lloyd-George Machine goes Brrr.
The rare unmelted Hilary.
Very Left Wing Hilary Benn feels like what would happen if Tony Benn stayed as an awkward Gaitskellite wonk.
 
Political parties of Scoltand
A stronger pro-independence sentiment leads Scotland to gain independence in the 1990s and it is a Commonwealth relam and member state of the European Union.

From left to right:

Republican Green Left
Position: left-wing
Ideology: green politics, democratic socialism, eco-socialism, republicanism, left-wing nationalism (majority); social democracy, left-wing populism, pro-Europeanism, soft Euroscepticism (factions).
Origin: merger of the left wing of the Scottish National Party, the Scottish Greens and some moderate and less authoritarian elements from the Scottish Socialist Party and other minor left-wing parties.

Labour Party of Scotland
Position: centre-left
Ideology: social democracy, pro-Europeanism (majority); social liberalism, democratic socialism, British confederalism, republicanism (factions).
Origin: successor to the Scottish branch of the Labour party.

Scottish Democrats
Position: centre to centre-left
Ideology: social liberalism, civic nationalism, progressivism, Third Way, green liberalism, pro-Europeanism (majority); social democracy, classical liberalism, European federalism, British confederalism, republicanism (factions).
Origin: merger of the right wing of the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

Scottish Moderate Party
Position: centre-right
Ideology: liberal conservatism, conservatism, economic liberalism, British confederalism (majority); conservative liberalism, social conservatism, classical liberalism, British unionism, pro-Europeansim, soft Euroscepticism (factions).
Origin: heir to the Scottish branch of the Conservative Party.
 
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Main Characters in The Continued Adventures of the Good Lieutenant Švejk During the Second World War

Josef Švejk
: after WW1 he returned safely to Prague,returning in his trade as a stolen dog trader and occasionally partaking in politics,being a member of numerous political parties such as the Habsburg Loyalist Party,the Social Liberal Democratic People’s Peoples Party and the Anti Hungarian Party (mostly because his mate Vodička founded it and asked him to join). Remaining as dumb and naive as ever,our hero responds bravely to the call of action and enlists again to fight the Germans,being unfortunately re-ensigned to Košice due to a bureaucratic error. Through out the novel Švejk ends in numerous Hungarian,German,Polish and Soviet prison camps and Czech resistance cells,as well as traveling in Romania,France and Britain to try and do his part for the resistance,forever ignorant that the world at large doesn’t care for his country. Becomes a Colonel at the end of the novel,being awarded numerous medals and military awards,as well as a street with his name and a series of nationalist poems that are popular in the era,retiring in peace at an early age.

Franz Vodička: mate of Švejk,became an MP for ČsND and later formed his own splinter party after starting to view the party as too sold on the Hungarians. Started numerous diplomatic incidents with the Budapest authorities,to the point where he was banned forever to set foot in Hungary and kicked out of Parliament after ranting about the President being paid by Horthy to sell the country to Hungary and yelling various racial slurs at him and the Speaker,which caused at least three riots across Czechoslovakia. Died charging at a Hungarian tank brigade after murdering random Hungarian civilians for “not being Slavs”,bravely yelling “DIE,
ATTILA,DIE”.

Captain Ladislav Šťastný: foolishly naive and dumb like Švejk,but with a sense of arrogance to him as he views himself as smarter and simply better than everyone else. Leader of Švejk’s battalion and later of the resistance cell in the area,he often has grandiose plans that are either impossible to realize or barely coherent to anyone but him. Still insists that the Republic’s allies will declare war on Germany any day now (“They’re simply playing the long game and giving the Krauts a false sense of security,Adolf suspects nothing”),famous for the line “Ah,Europe truly loves us!” (It makes sense in the context,I swear).

Colonel Sándor Károly-Zakarias: stereotypical Hungarian nationalist,runs the Hungarian PoW camp that Švejk finds himself at and often escapes by accident. Subscriber to the Daily Mail,he often goes on long tirades about Trianon and how the world just doesn’t get the humiliation and pain of Hungary no longer bullying others around and having more privileges,many of them interrupted by him becoming too angry and suffering a heart attack. Švejk often is responsible for more of them happening,though not for “escaping“ mind you but more because others in the camp DON’T try to escape,which the Colonel views as a massive insult as it deprives him of a purpose and shows their lack of honor.

This is part of a important subplot where almost every Czech officer pretends to willingly collaborate with the camp authorities in order to trick the Colonel and escape secretly but always somehow failing apart from Švejk due to accident,leading to the Colonel despising everyone BUT Švejk,who he views as a true army man. He eventually dies from a fatal heart attack,cursing the Czechoslovak officers for their ”cowardliness“.

Comrade Ježek: a satire of Stalinists in general,Ježek is the leader of the resistance cells our hero finds himself in. Paranoid and power hungry,he spends more time denouncing everyone as a deviationist and fighting other resistance cells than actually doing anything to stop the Germans in any real way. He suspects Švejk of being a Trotskyist spy after making fun of Stalin‘s name but he can never truly prove it,constantly sending him in dangerous situations in order to have him killed. It is rumored that his final fate was bravely shooting deviationists and traitors til his cell ran out of people and buggered off to parts unknown.

Major Gerhard Spenger: fanatical Nazi,is incredibly incompetent but compensates it with ideological zeal that,combined with pure luck,makes him be viewed as a rising star within the Gestapo circles. Often arrests Švejk numerous times and lets him go by accident,believing that he’s always a different person part of an elite resistance group that the Reich’s enemies have distracted them from by appearing to be compliant with the Fuhrer’s demands over Czechoslovakia and letting the reich wage over on them Slavs,
thus luring them into a false sense of security. Over the course of the novel,Spenger becomes more and more unhinged over Švejk,
thinking that his “elite Slavo-Zionist terrorist organism” is somehow responsible for everything wrong happening in occupied Brno,including the collapse of the Reich’s economy. Died switching confusingly sides in the German Civil War of 1940,muttering Švejk’s name in a state of madness.

Jacques Fréac: barely-veiled parody of Marcel Déat,leader of the National Republican Syndicalist Party of France,a Neosocialist party centered around Fréac's ego and opportunism. Bully,coward,cad and thief,is proudly isolationist and insists the workers (the white French ones,the others can get bent) have more important problems than what happens in “some faraway land in the garbage dumb of the continent” and that they need to fight the real enemies-BANKERS!! [more specifically the Jewish ones and not those who are friends with Fréac].

Sir Jonathan Eleutherius Bootstrap-Smith: barely-veiled parody of Samuel Hoare,Conservative MP,Secretary of State for the Home Office and later British Ambassador in Czechoslovakia after the German Civil War. Political animal,he maintains a certain sense of naïveté and is convinced he and the National Government are doing the right thing and will save Czechoslovakia at the right time,being often more foolish than Švejk. Full of idealist policies that are impossible to be turned into reality,often deludes himself into thinking that the electorate is for the abolishment of the death penalty and corporal punishment in prisons and he is helping the Jews and refugees in Britain-they don’t know it yet. A sanctimonious twat,he befriends Švejk and gives him various odd jobs and position,including that of commander of a Czech refugee camp.
 
Informal groupings of European national parties in late 19th/early 20th century
An attempt to identify possible groupings of national parties in a scenario where better relationships between European countries in the second half of the nineteenth century lead to create some sort of very weak supranational organisation with its representative assembly.
Members would be appointed in the most different ways by each country with few, if any, uniform rules. Moreover, seating in the assembly would be more likely be based on country rather than ideology. These groupings would be extremely loose and all but formal, mostly used for classification purposes with a high chance of frequent change in positioning of the parties over time (overall something somewhat akin to the official classification of parties used OTL by the French Ministry of the Interior in the event of an election). Actual cases of continuous cooperation would be not very common and in the case of groupings such as national conservatives and especially reactionaries, you may even find conflicting views among parties grouped together regarding, for example, border disputes and irredentism.

Communists
Socialists
Social democrats
Radicals
Left-liberals
Right-liberals
Regionalists and separatists
Agrarians
Catholics
Protestants
Moderate conservatives
National conservatives
Reactionaries
 
Danubian Federation Party Run-Down (01/11/2018)

Alright! You can stop pestering me, @HerzogTruthteller!

Here's that party run-down you asked your humble token Danubian to make for you, based on the vibes from the election last month! Fair warning, I'm a member of the Vienna metropolitan elite, and I only speak Hungarian and German alongside my native Yiddish, so my takes on some of the national autonomies are will be biased by my federalist-tinted lenses!! For the monarchaboos, the current Kaiser is Karl Thomas I; this will be His Imperial and Royal Majesty's fifth government! Anyway, without further ado, here's the state of Danubian politics right now!

Government

Christian Union:
The union comprises the sort-of-national Christian Social Party and the strictly-Hungarian Catholic People's Party, and is the main force of the political right. It is holding strong, well, as strong as it ever holds; name a more iconic duo than the KNPM and threatening to rupture the CU. Fiala is holding it together, mostly by pork barrelling the hell out of Hungary. So, nothing new there.
Christian Social Party: Defined by Political Catholicism and Danubian unionism, the Christian Social Party is the main centre-right force outside of Hungary. It heads the government, with their leader Petr Fiala installed as Minister-President. The Christian Union bloc along with the KNPM is the largest political group in the House of Deputies, but CS are not the largest party. In spite of this, Fiala has managed to put together a majority by calling on the radicals and the agrarians. He's been trying really hard to push his national curriculum idea, but, well, he's failing like every centraliser has before him. It does really help you realise how far the CS have come, though; the antisemitic founders would be horrified to learn that it is now led by not just a Moravian, but a Moravian of Jewish heritage!​
Catholic People's Party in Hungary: The other half of the Union, which runs exclusively in Hungary. It is politically Catholic and conservative - more so than the CS - and has wings which range from softly unionist to autonomist to softly pro-independence. Zsolt Semjén has been made Deputy Minister-President, Minister of the Economy and Minister for the Autonomies, building up quite the fiefdom for himself. He's signed off on the national curriculum on the basis that the Hungarian Autonomy gets an opt-out. As soon as he supported the motion, there was an announcement that his constituency would be getting a new hospital, too. How curious.​
Radical Constitutionalists: Your generic liberals. They're broadly unionist - but also have a strong autonomist streak - and are in a perpetual state of struggle between classical liberals who tend to support the Union, and social liberals who tend to support The Other One. Beate Meinl-Reisinger was elected to lead as a social liberal, so she surprised her party by signing up to Fiala's coalition. Her price was Minister of Finance. She seems to be the only other coalition leader to be fully behind the curriculum reform, but the party is much more split.
Agrarian Peasants' Party: They should really rebrand as the Romanian Autonomist Party, as that's the niche they fill in national politics. Officially, they're agrarian and unionist. Mihail Neamțu has led them pretty much since he graduated from the University of Vienna. He made sure his party got the agriculture and environment briefs. He's literally admitted to only signing on to the curriculum in exchange for more investment in Transylvania.

Opposition

Social Democratic Workers' Party:
My boy! Look how they massacred my boy! I kid, but the SD really have seen better days. They're still the predominant force of the centre-left, but for how much longer is anyone's guess. These guys still officially claim to be Austromarxists, you know. Nowadays that mostly means they're milquetoast social democrats who won't shut up about how they instituted the national personal autonomy system. They're also pretty authentically unionist for the same reason. They came out of the election with the most seats, but on their lowest voteshare in history; it feels like Michael Ludwig is presiding over a dying party. Bring back Otto Bauer!!! I don't know where the SD stand on the national curriculum, and frankly I'm not sure they do either.
Party of Independence and '48: This is the biggest openly separatist party in the federation, and the only one with federal representation. It is, of course, Hungarian. It tends to be the only opposition to the KNPM in the Hungarian regions, though, so it gets quite a few soft unionist votes as well. It's a very big tent; Hungarian nationalism is the main unifying force. Gábor Vona is the leader, and he's not actually in the House of Deputies; he was recently elected simultaneously as Chair of the Hungarian Autonomy and State-President of the Great Plain Region. They are fiercely opposed to the national curriculum reform, and see this as the first step to destroying Hungarian culture, alongside allowing people to speak Croatian.
The Greens/Civic Union: Alright guys, please don't hornypost about Čaputová. Especially not since her co-leader, Peter Pilz, is probably going to be pushed out for being a creep. Part of me thinks he might have been replaced by the Kaiser's dad, were he still alive and not a royal. The Greens are, well, greens. Y'know; pro-renewables, anti-coal, pro-peace, anti-war. They officially merged with the more progressive Civic Union way back when, but it's just a progressive green party for all intents and purposes. They're not really on board with the national curriculum.
National Association: So do you guys remember Herr Hitler? That officer who got himself dishonourably discharged for trying to overthrow Kaiser Karl Franz way back in the 1930s? The Nationalverband is the descendent to his little movement. It's antisemitic, anti-Magyar, anti-Slav, anti-Roma, anti-federalist and pretty much anti-everything-you-like. It sells itself as being the autonomist party for German-speakers, but it's blatantly just a racist outfit. Thankfully, it's remained on the sidelines despite Heinz-Christian Strache's oratory skill. He's come out in favour of a national curriculum in principle; he's opposed to Fiala's due to it's "Moravian influence". Yikes.
Independent Socialist Workers' Party: USAP traces itself back to a split from the SD back when the distinctions between Orthodox Marxism and Austromarxism actually mattered. Now, it's just a vaguely left-wing democratic socialist party, which every now and then reminds the world about the anti-Marxist purges of the 20s and 30s, particularly those in Russia. Has a reputation for being more of a social club for union barons and college students than a real party; so, you know, it's a left-wing party in Europe. Vojtěch Filip has led it for a while now, and he's basically the "politician you can get a pint with" archetype. He doesn't like the national curriculum, but like Strache this is because he thinks Fiala will do it wrong.
 
I like this a lot but there are an odd lack of ethnic parties – would those be in the autonomies you're mentioning, then?

Yeah a lot are state-level parties, with MMP making it a bit harder for them to get into parl; I was going to have ones like the Democratic Alliance of Romanians in Hungary, but it was getting late and I just ran out of energy so decided to cut myself off at the parliamentary level!

EDIT; also to note as mentioned, some of those parties do function as ethnic ones; the agrarian party for example is absolutely dominated by ethnic Romanians.
 
Yeah a lot are state-level parties, with MMP making it a bit harder for them to get into parl; I was going to have ones like the Democratic Alliance of Romanians in Hungary, but it was getting late and I just ran out of energy so decided to cut myself off at the parliamentary level!
I should point that the Romanians were mostly the majority in Transylvania (at least in terms of men) so the DAR would be an ethnic party that would have at least 50% of the vote in Transylvania,which would be interesting to say the least.
 
I should point that the Romanians were mostly the majority in Transylvania (at least in terms of men) so the DAR would be an ethnic party that would have at least 50% of the vote in Transylvania,which would be interesting to say the least.

Yeah; I think if I were to redo this I'd add some more ethnic parties to the House of Deputies but have them not recognised as factions due to only holding a handful of constituency seats. I was also thinking that DARH wouldn't be, for example, the only Romanian ethnic party; as mentioned, APP functions as a Romanian autonomist party in name only, DARH would be your more openly autonomist/softly independence option, and then I was thinking you have, I don't know... the Alliance for the Union of Romanians as an openly separatist party.
 
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