The Greater Britain

Background
The nation of Britain is almost unique amongst the nations of Western Europe, for its recent history being empty of most forms of political extremism. From the French revolution, to the Spanish civil war, political turmoil has wracked the mainland, yet Britain remained mostly unaffected. However, for a brief period, in the crucible of the inter-war periods, it seemed like revolution, from either the left or the right, seemed inevitable. In this time line, however, we see what may have taken place had the far right fascist movement, the British Union of Fascists, had taken power in 1934.

The Point of Divergence
Under most circumstances, the BUF could never have taken power in Britain; its membership peaked at just 50,000, not a single one of its candidates was elected, and it lacked the Middle class support of Hitler’s Germany.

However, in this timeline, George V ignores the words of his advisors in 1917, and chooses to allow his cousin, the deposed Tsar Nicholas II, asylum in Britain. While far left parties, especially the fledgling British communist movement, abhor the move, amongst the upper class it is seen with some amiability. The familial links between the Nicholas and the British Crown, as well as fears amongst land owners of creeping Bolshevism, puts general public opinion well on the side of the Tsar.

From the beginning, the presence of Nicholas II makes any chance of normal relations with the Soviet Union impossible for Britain. The Soviet Union relentlessly petitions the government for the repatriation of Nicholas II, to face charges of crimes against the Russian people, and with each petition, the resolve of George V and the government hardens, offering nothing but refusal to the Soviet demands. For the period immediately adjacent to the point of divergence, politics plays out with little difference to our timeline, albeit with a bubbling undercurrent of anti-communist sentiment growing amongst the populace.

In October of 1924, however, this all comes crashing down. Four days before the general election, the Zinoviev Letter is published in the Daily Mail. Unlike in our timeline, where the letter had little effect on results, the fraught relations between the USSR and Britain in this timeline lead to the letter, as well as the recent ‘Campbell Case’, lead to the letter igniting fears of Bolshevism amongst the middle classes. For MacDonald, the Labour Prime Minister of the time, the result is disastrous. He is repeatedly accused of having sympathy for the communist cause in commons, and the Labour party is reduced to under 75 seats. Any chance of a second Labour government taking power was crushed.

The removal of Ramsay Macdonald, and the for the most part, the Labour Party as a whole, from British politics over the next ten years had several effects. Most obviously, was the conservative dominance of government during the October 1929 stock market crash, and the subsequent financial crisis. However, a secondary detail is the lack of a London Naval Treaty in 1930, which in our timeline was pioneered by Ramsay MacDonald, and was intended to reduce naval proliferation in the pacific.

Without Ramsay Macdonald, as the crisis of 1931 deepens, the King’s attempts to pull together a National Coalition with men from all parties are fraught with failure. Labour were given only a token role in the coalition, instead replaced with a large conservative majority and a significant liberal minority, despite the party lacking any real force in British politics for several years to the previous. This imbalance of the coalition was therefore disliked by both sides; diehard conservatives noted the call-back to the earlier coalitions with Liberals, and also despised being forced to run as part of a coalition despite having the strength to take the government alone; working class voters in the far left were disillusioned by the lack of a labour presence of any meaning in the coalition, and the lack of meaningful opposition to it. Stanley Baldwin, of the Conservative Party was given the leadership of the nation as Prime Minister. The emergence of Empire Free Trade after the Ottawa Conference in 1932 was the final blow to the national government, as the remaining Liberals resigned from the government. It became clear that the National government no longer comprised of any parties other than the conservatives, and it would not last significantly longer.

As the conservative national government attempted to solve the problems of the crisis of 1931, a new movement is being forged by Sir Oswald Mosely, a man described as “probably the best orator in England”. Conditions meant that his staunch anti-communism was a prized characteristic for those in the upper and middle classes afraid of the red threat, and his British Union of Fascists offered a strong anti-communist alternative to the national government.

Finally the decisive moment came for Sir Oswald Mosely and his fascists the next year. The few remaining backbenchers withdrew their support for the ailing national government in spring of 1933. The conservative party harboured hopes of running alone, as they had done after the coalition with David Lloyd George had done the previous decade. However, the voting public had other ideas. The recent instillation of Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany had left European fascism on a high, encouraging similar groups across the continent, and bringing attention to the political ideology. Furthermore, the perfect storm of voting conditions had come into play before the election; the lack of other viable opposition parties for those disillusioned with the conservatives after their failures in the National Government; deep-rooted national fear of communism and left wing politics spanning several decades; and finally the personal charisma of Sir Oswald Mosely himself.

308 seats were needed for a majority in the House of Commons for the election of 1933. With approximately 8,500,000 votes, around 41%, and just 256 seats, the British Union of Fascists was still short 52 seats. Within hours of the results, a coalition was formed by the BUF and Far-Right elements in the conservatives, prompting a split in the party. The Fascist Ministry, with 315 seats, came into government on April 13th, with Sir Oswald Mosely as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.