Alternate History Challenge: Tory-Labour coalition post-Thatcher

[wormyguy]

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to adjust British politics some time after Margaret Thatcher's resignation as Prime Minister (Nov 28, 1990) such that a hung parliament results in a coalition between the Tories and Labour (and possibly other parties, though it must include those two). See if you can come up with something a little more creative than "ZOMG BNP becomes super-popular!"

 

[A J Kemble]

The Soviet Union doesn't collapse and instead invades Western Europe, leading to a long conventional war......

seriously: the only way to get a grand coalition in a democracy like ours is imminent threat of invasion or economic catastrophe, your challenge cannot be done...

 

[Wendell]

Look around at some of these threads about British elections held this century thus far. The surprising electoral success of UKIP and the leftward drift of the Liberal Democrats might be enough to do this, provided its move to the left does not end its relevance as a party.

 

[wormyguy]

Total bumpage.

 

[The Red]

A national emergency, otherwise ASB.

Whilst a hung parliament isn't implausible post-Thatcher (one in 2010, almost got one in 1992) the reality that the two parties which made up 94% of the UK parliament in 1990 can be reduced to the extent that they require each others help to get past the 50% mark just isn't feasible.

 

[Bee]

Thatcher resigns. A badly divided Conservative party loses a vote of confidence and falls within a year. Labour gets in under Kinnock, but underneath a superficial show of unity, is even more fundamentally divided than the conservatives.

Then a major disaster strikes, could be military (IRA sets off a dirty bomb), economic (stock market implodes/prolonged general strike) or even a plague. Bit whatever it is, there's a split between Labour's right and left wings such that Kinnock's response to the crisis is something that the Conservatives approve of and Labour's left wing doesn't. The coalition therefore forms, and Labour-left withdraws and forms a new party.

Somewhat modeled on Ramsay MacDonald's governments of the late 20s-early 30s.

 

[Thande]

It's pretty much ASB, though if PR was somehow implemented that would certainly help: as in Germany, we could see a situation where electoral arithmetic means a grand coalition is the only way to get a working majority.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

What about having either Labour or the Conservatives (probably easier to do the latter) totally implode at some point in the time period, leaving, presumably, the Liberal Democrats to become the Official Opposition.

Let's be interesting here.

Blair takes power as OTL, and the Tories continue to shred themselves, badly. Makes the OTL period 1997-2003 look like a walk in the park. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems begin to prise Labour out of power by attacking them from the left, and eroding their strongholds. Blair-Brown Labour eventually becomes the Right-wing alternative to the socialist(ish) Lib Dems, and end up going into Coalition with the rump Conservative Party.

Of course, this requires the British people to break with the habit of a lifetime and stop voting for who their parents did, whether that be Labour, or Conservative. And, I suspect, it's achieving this change in electoral mentality that ultimately is what makes many scenarios involving the destruction of the two party system in British politics very implausible. Does anyone else agree?

 

[thevaliant]

Of course, this requires the British people to break with the habit of a lifetime and stop voting for who their parents did.....

I've seen some crazy, mad, ASB proposals in this forum. Friesan Islands, Operation Sealion but this really really takes the cake. Total, utter ASB. It goes beyond ASB. It is actually impossible. In a million universes, across a multitude of timelines, in all of them the people of Britain will always vote for who their parents voted for.