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Political and cultural figures who could've had lives/careers in different countries

A lot of Israeli politicians could have very easily made careers elsewhere in the absence of a viable state of Israel. Golda Meir grew up in Minnesota as a naturalised American citizen, so if she didn't make aliyah it's pretty possible to see her on the leftward edge of the DFL (at least at first.). Likewise, Netanyahu grew up in Pennsylvania thanks to his dad's college job and worked at the same consulting firm as a young Mitt Romney.
 
Walpurgisnacht said:
A lot of Israeli politicians could have very easily made careers elsewhere in the absence of a viable state of Israel. Golda Meir grew up in Minnesota as a naturalised American citizen, so if she didn't make aliyah it's pretty possible to see her on the leftward edge of the DFL (at least at first.). Likewise, Netanyahu grew up in Pennsylvania thanks to his dad's college job and worked at the same consulting firm as a young Mitt Romney.
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Then there's provisional New Yorker Leon Trotsky. In a TL where the Bolshevik revolution is averted, who knows whether he might try his luck in American politics.
 
Hendryk said:
Then there's provisional New Yorker Leon Trotsky. In a TL where the Bolshevik revolution is averted, who knows whether he might try his luck in American politics.
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My favorite road to take with an American Trotsky is to have him flee from Stalin like OTL, and then go on to play a central role in the American Red Revolution, and the state that gets established afterwards.
 
Walpurgisnacht said:
A lot of Israeli politicians could have very easily made careers elsewhere in the absence of a viable state of Israel. Golda Meir grew up in Minnesota as a naturalised American citizen, so if she didn't make aliyah it's pretty possible to see her on the leftward edge of the DFL (at least at first.). Likewise, Netanyahu grew up in Pennsylvania thanks to his dad's college job and worked at the same consulting firm as a young Mitt Romney.
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Vice versa too. One could imagine various American Jewish politicians who could be officeholders in Israel.

Bernie Sanders worked in a kibbutz in Israel at one point. PM Sanders anybody?

Leon Blum, PM of France, was a member of the Zionist Congress representing French Jewry.

George Papandreou, Prime Minister of Greece from 2009 to 2011, was born in Minnesota in 1952 and only moved to Greece in 1974.

Karl Marx at one point considered moving to Texas.

I suppose Dreyfus, frustrated with how he was treated, could have emigrated someplace.

The First Indian-America Judge, Abraham David Sofaer, was a Baghdadi Jew born in Mumbai. His family sent him to the USA at age 13. Maybe they pick someplace else instead. London?

Charles Lucien Bonaparte, American Secretary of the Navy and Attorney General, could perhaps have held office in France.

Emperor Maximilian of Mexico could have been put on the throne someplace else.

Trotsky could perhaps do something in the USA if he doesn't go back to Russia in 1917.
 
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Dawda Jawara was a Prime Minister in 1960's Gambia and their inaugural President in the 1970s. However, going backwards a bit, he studied in Glasgow University in the late 1940s and was apparently interested in the Labour Party. While he eventually returned to Gambia in the early 1950s, I don't think it's inconceivable that he stays in the UK (or eventually moves back), works as a veterinarian, climbs the ranks of a local Labour Party, stands for election at some point in the succeeding decades, and becomes Britain's first black MP of the 20th century (there were a few beforehand, but none between 1893-1987).
 
Wolfgang Kapp, famous for the Kapp putsch was born in NY; his father was a 48er.

And Indira Gandhi apparently considered moving to London and living a quiet life before she was selected as PM. Had someone other than her been picked to succeed Shastri - say, YB Chavan for instance - perhaps we'd see a very different Nehru-Gandhi family. That being said, I don't find it likely - she'd be pressured to enter politics.

There's also Enoch Powell, who IOTL worked in Australia as a professor until the war broke out and he chose to volunteer.
 
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Nofix said:
Dawda Jawara was a Prime Minister in 1960's Gambia and their inaugural President in the 1970s. However, going backwards a bit, he studied in Glasgow University in the late 1940s and was apparently interested in the Labour Party. While he eventually returned to Gambia in the early 1950s, I don't think it's inconceivable that he stays in the UK (or eventually moves back), works as a veterinarian, climbs the ranks of a local Labour Party, stands for election at some point in the succeeding decades, and becomes Britain's first black MP of the 20th century (there were a few beforehand, but none between 1893-1987).
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Hastings Banda, the very right-wing dictator of Malawi, was also a Labour member in his youth.
 
Beata Beatrix said:
Vladimir Zhirinovsky, of recent memory, nearly immigrated to Israel (likely at the instigation of KGB officers). I can imagine him joining Yisrael Beitenu or the like, but I have no idea how well his personal... idiosyncrasies would translate to the Israeli political context.

Admittedly, I can see it!
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Is there a source on this? And when did the KGB try to make him emigrate?
 
No one seems to have remembered Andrew Bonar Law - born in New Brunswick and moved to UK when he was about 12. Without him, who takes over from Balfour. More seriously, without Bonar Law as PM, do the Conservatives give the same level of support to Carson and the Ulster Unionists? If they don't, how do events play out in Ulster? Would the Unionists have the confidence to be so blatant in their gun running and willingness to secede if Home Rule came about?

I don't know enough about Canadian politics at the turn of the century to comment on possible impacts there if Bonar Law took a similar career path.
 
IanBertram said:
No one seems to have remembered Andrew Bonar Law - born in New Brunswick and moved to UK when he was about 12. Without him, who takes over from Balfour. More seriously, without Bonar Law as PM, do the Conservatives give the same level of support to Carson and the Ulster Unionists? If they don't, how do events play out in Ulster? Would the Unionists have the confidence to be so blatant in their gun running and willingness to secede if Home Rule came about?

I don't know enough about Canadian politics at the turn of the century to comment on possible impacts there if Bonar Law took a similar career path.
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Assuming no butterflies, likely that Austen Chamberlain would take over from Balfour. OTL like the vast majority of the party he was anti-Home Rule but was prepared to revive his father’s model of a federal solution of regional councils, though this was a minority position and unlikely to gain traction. Rhetoric is probably less incendiary but I don’t see the Ulster crisis changing a great deal, the party saw the Union as an existential issue and were prepared to play high stakes chicken with the Liberals to save it.

Where his leadership would differ is on tariffs, unlike BL he was uncompromising on wanting a full tariff programme including on foodstuffs and without a referendum. The party would return to internecine strife and wouldn’t be surprised if AC is forced to step down after 1-2 years. Walter Long, Balfour 2.0, or Selborne are probably the options. Younger talent like F.E. Smith and Leo Amery probably don’t have the requisite Shadow Cabinet experience and are Chamberlainites. All of these were passionately anti-Home Rule (Long, Smith, and Amery in particular were directly involved in planning for an Ulster Provisional Government).
 
AH Layard said:
... I don’t see the Ulster crisis changing a great deal, the party saw the Union as an existential issue and were prepared to play high stakes chicken with the Liberals to save it.
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I'm not so sure. Bonar Law was openly fomenting rebellion in his support for Carson. That seems to come from him, not his position as PM. It's arguable that others might be less reckless.
 
IanBertram said:
I'm not so sure. Bonar Law was openly fomenting rebellion in his support for Carson. That seems to come from him, not his position as PM. It's arguable that others might be less reckless.
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Rightly or wrongly Unionists by and large did not see it that way. They believed that the Liberals had effectively suspended the constitution by overriding the Lords’ veto and bringing the King into political contention, and that they were engaged in a grubby and cynical deal with the Irish parliamentarians for power. The Ulster Unionists were viewed as loyal to the King and the Union and justified to act in self defence against an undemocratic government foisting Home Rule onto them. A significant number of voters on the mainland agreed with them, hence the huge reactions that Carson received in his speaking tours. Yes Unionists were naturally worried about civil war but they put the blame elsewhere.

It’s notable that there was very little disunity in the party over BL’s policy, defending the Union was red meat for them (they’re not the Unionists for nothing!) The party was split every other way on tariffs, social reform etc. but not on Ulster which is a key reason why BL was so aggressive in pursuing it.
 
AH Layard said:
Walter Long, Balfour 2.0, or Selborne are probably the options
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After the Parliament Act passed Balfour was entirely exhausted and everyone could see that he was finished as a leader; I think it's almost impossible for him to make a comeback in this scenario, especially so soon after his fall. Long and Selborne are definitely viable options though; how about someone like Salisbury, or perhaps more unlikely figures such as Carson or even Lord Milner?
 
Venocara said:
After the Parliament Act passed Balfour was entirely exhausted and everyone could see that he was finished as a leader; I think it's almost impossible for him to make a comeback in this scenario, especially so soon after his fall. Long and Selborne are definitely viable options though; how about someone like Salisbury, or perhaps more unlikely figures such as Carson or even Lord Milner?
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It was occasionally speculated upon, but yes you're probably right that Balfour again would require exceptional circumstances.

The trouble with Salisbury is that the Cecil family led the free trade caucus in the Tory party, and support for tariffs (with or without agriculture) was now an essential requirement for Tory leader. He would be even more divisive than Chamberlain. Milner is an interesting figure and was tipped as Colonial Secretary in a future Tory government, but was less involved in frontline politics after SA and before the war (Selborne a close associate, however, was). Milner's public ideas around imperial federation and imperial free trade were also way beyond what most Tories felt was achievable in the near future.

Carson by this point would be heavily involved in the organisation of the Ulster resistance: he had chosen leadership of Irish Unionism over focusing on his frontbench career in Westminster, so may not be great timing. There was also some benefit in keeping a degree of distance between the movement in Ulster and the leadership (especially with Liberal charges around treason, conspiracy etc.)
 
Claudia Jones, Afro-British activist and journalist and one of the founders of the Notting Hill Carnival, was originally born in Trinidad, grew up in the United States, but was deported in 1955 due to her involvement with the Communist Party. With a less McCarthyist political climate in the United States, she might continue her work there. (Alternately, with a different political climate in either Britain or Trinidad, she might either be deported directly to Trinidad, where she was refused entry IOTL, or go somewhere other than the UK.)

Somewhat relatedly, a borderline case - Oona King’s father, Preston King, was originally from the United States, but he went into exile in 1961 because he was convicted of draft evasion after refusing to respond to his draft board when they were racist to him.
 
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