What if Margaret Thatcher was a Labour Politician instead of a Tory/Conservative

[puttyman22]

If you were born in the United Kingdom you have most definitely heard of the highly controversial deceased former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Many loathed her and many loved her.
My question is this, what if Margaret Thatcher was not a Tory/Conservative politician but a Labour politician instead.
Any ideas are welcome as I'm mainly curious as to what would have happened more so than the how. Though I do understand the how is very important too.

 

[The Banker]

The Labour party would have broken into Labour-Left and Labour-Margaretists

 

[Garrison]

Well she would have to had such a totally different life experience that I doubt she would be recognizable as Margaret Thatcher.

 

[Discernible]

Her greatest political influence was her father who was actually a Liberal but because of the growing binary nature of UK politics supported the Tories over Labour because he objected to its 'collectivism'. As an independent councillor he sided with the Tories but from my own family history a great grandfather who was a Liberal councillor who frequently sided with Labour. So it could swing both ways. So the Roberts aren't Tory party hacks and there are the grounds for anti-Toryism making them a bit more Labour leaning.

He also he was a Methodist preacher - another box ticked for a path towards Labour. He - and Margaret obviously - had Irish roots via a family that left Ireland because of the famine and lived in poverty in England but for some reason this was never strongly imparted to his children. Folks of Irish-descent in England are more inclined to Labour - another possible box tick.

I'm guessing it was for social acceptance that this was downplayed - we are still well in the era of 'No Blacks, Dogs or Irish'. Maybe make his parents impart the perfidy of the famine to him and from him to Margaret a lot more. Heighten the social justice narrative within the family.

Also, instead of a shopkeeper make him a travelling salesman. Travelling salesmen were a noted part of how the Labour Party grew with them helping local groups organise.

As for the blessed Margaret, if the personality is still the same then she will probably be just as strong in proselytising what she believed should be Labour's main values. The question is what policies?

 

[David Flin]

As for the blessed Margaret, if the personality is still the same then she will probably be just as strong in proselytising what she believed should be Labour's main values. The question is what policies?

The White Heat of Technology.

In OTL, she was prouder of being the first person with a science degree to be PM than being the first woman to be PM.

 

[Garrison]

I'll concede it would be funny if she found herself staring at say Keith Joseph across the dispatch box during PMQ's.

ETA: Also if she were on the Labour side we can probably mercifully say goodbye to clause 28, the sale of council houses and the wholesale privatization of power, water and railways if her Conservative alternate is more of a one-nation type.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

I'll concede it would be funny if she found herself staring at say Keith Joseph across the dispatch box during PMQ's.

ETA: Also if she were on the Labour side we can probably mercifully say goodbye to clause 28, the sale of council houses and the wholesale privatization of power, water and railways if her Conservative alternate is more of a one-nation type.

Maybe not. New Zealand's extreme free market reforms were initiated by a Labour government. True it was packed full of people who made Thatcher look a bit of a socialist, but it shows that the person is more important than the label they adopt [1] when it comes to politics.

[1] See also right wing Tory Nick Clegg, who managed to end up leading the UK Liberal Democrats into 2010's ConDem government.

 

[David Flin]

Well she would have to had such a totally different life experience that I doubt she would be recognizable as Margaret Thatcher.

If there is to be any change in politics, it has to take place when she is at Oxford or earlier. She became President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1946, so by this point, her positioning on the right rather than left of politics is pretty much formed.

It is of note that prior to this, she worked at a forces' canteen while studying at Oxford, which could provide a route for alternate political alleigance.

 

[Crazyduck156]

She'd be pretty useless really, the power of the unions needed to be broken and labour wouldn't/couldn't do it.
So Britain probably goes bankrupt and has to apply for another IMF loan.
The environmentally damaging process of coal mining and power generation goes on and may still even be used to power the country today like in germany.

 

[vetinari]

Margaret would need new nicknames if she was to become a Labour politician. No more, "Milk snatcher" amongst others, would do.

 

[David Flin]

The environmentally damaging process of coal mining and power generation goes on and may still even be used to power the country today like in germany.

Note that Margaret Thatcher, in the mid 1980s, was in favour of taking action on environmental issues.

For example, her speech to the Royal Society in 1988, included the phrase:

"For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world's systems and atmosphere stable. But it is possible that with all these enormous changes (population, agricultural, use of fossil fuels) concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself."

To the UN General Assembly in 1989:

"What we are now doing to the world … is new in the experience of the Earth. It is mankind and his activities that are changing the environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways. The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto. Change to the sea around us, change to the atmosphere above, leading in turn to change in the world's climate, which could alter the way we live in the most fundamental way of all.

"The environmental challenge that confronts the whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world. Every country will be affected and no one can opt out. Those countries who are industrialised must contribute more to help those who are not."

That, I think, rather gives an indication where the battle lines between Labour Thatcher (who, as a digression, is unlikely to be Thatcher) and the coal miners will come.

 

[flippikat]

Maybe not. New Zealand's extreme free market reforms were initiated by a Labour government. True it was packed full of people who made Thatcher look a bit of a socialist, but it shows that the person is more important than the label they adopt [1] when it comes to politics.

[1] See also right wing Tory Nick Clegg, who managed to end up leading the UK Liberal Democrats into 2010's ConDem government.

I wonder if there's a chance of a scenario where Thatcher becomes a "David Lange of UK Politics" that's extremely popular with the electorate, but comes-in with some radical free-market reformer colleagues who not only radically restructure the UK economy, but jolt Labour (and the centre of UK politics) to the right?

 

[Jellico]

Look up Australian PM Bob Hawke. Solid Labor man and celebrity union negotiator. Broke the power of the unions and began deregulation while in power.

In the 70s everyone was realising the old ways were failing and a new direction was needed. Hawke was in a position to coaxe the unions along with him because the previous Labor government had screwed the pooch and the unions were willing to appear reasonable in the name of having power.

The UK unions weren't at that point yet and weren't willing to accept change till the Tories repeatedly smashed them. Thatcher is a fearsome force. Can she build up enough kudos through being the face of a couple of industrial actions to drag the unions into the modern age? There is a huge difference between negotiating a new age and applying it with a sledgehammer on both sides.

 

[aaronupright]

The White Heat of Technology.

In OTL, she was prouder of being the first person with a science degree to be PM than being the first woman to be PM.

She is still the only one with a science degree.

 

[Dancing Fool]

To the UN General Assembly in 1989:

"What we are now doing to the world … is new in the experience of the Earth.

The UK unions weren't at that point yet and weren't willing to accept change till the Tories repeatedly smashed them. Thatcher is a fearsome force.

And that was a feature, not a bug. I mean, I think PM Thatcher correctly predicted this would receive majority support. People like seeing effective use of power [which is one reason mob movies are popular, and yes, I’m intentionally picking a dicey example! ]

Changes for the sake of the environment are going to be glacial in coming anyway, aren’t they? Although I agree it’s important to get the ball rolling.

—> Please note, I’m a Yank and all of the above might be mistaken.

 

[David Flin]

And that was a feature, not a bug. I mean, I think PM Thatcher correctly predicted this would receive majority support.

Given the 1970s, and Union behaviour during this period, the 1980s was inevitable as soon as someone willing to try to deal with that. It was probably inevitable that this realignment would swing the pendulum too far.

Mind you, I'm not convinced that Thatcher would have been able to become leader of the party if she were in the Labour Party. The misogyny of the Labour Party in the 1970s was intense. Several constituency parties simply didn't accept women as full members. Of all the main parties in the 1970s, the Labour Party was by far the most socially conservative (I note in passing that - discounting Margaret Beckett and Harriet Harman, who were only acting leader following the death of John Smith and the resignations of Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband respectively, while a "real" leader was chosen by the party - Labour has never had a female leader, the only major UK party never to have had a female leader. As a digression I'd note that the Labour Party has never had a non-white leader either).

Thatcher was exceptional (whether good or bad depends on one's politics - but there's no denying she was exceptional), and might have been able to overcome the social conservatism of the Labour Party. But she was not noted for an ability to keep the various factions of her party together in OTL (crushing opposition, yes. Keeping it onside, no). Given the nature of the Labour Party, where the true enemy to be fought with every means at one's disposal, is the other factions within the party. Much more important to cleanse the party than to win elections (the only three Labour leaders in my lifetime who have been able to hold the Labour Party together and not have it fight itself into irrelevance have been Blair, Wilson, and Attlee. Thatcher reaching the position of Leader of the Labour Party? Can't see it myself. She'd be another Castle, Beckett, or Abbott. Able to gain a significant role, but not able to gather enough support from the party membership to be trusted with the role of leader).

 

[Ventriloquist]

Surprised that nobody's mentioned Thaxted yet

 

[Dancing Fool]

the only three Labour leaders in my lifetime who have been able to hold the Labour Party together and not have it fight itself into irrelevance have been Blair, Wilson, and Attlee.

This is ironic, because as a Yank, I think of Harold Wilson as a weakling [probably because he was not trusted by the national security establishment and his terms were non-consecutive]

In other words, I unfairly make far-reaching conclusions based on the few scraps of information I have.

 

[David Flin]

Wilson was the sort of person who could get into a set of revolving doors behind you and come out ahead of you.

He had non-consecutive terms because, well, he won an election, lost a second (all because of Peter bloody Bonetti), and then won a third because his opponent, Heath, was a less-than-stellar politician.

Winston Churchill also had non-consecutive terms, as did Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald, and Gladstone had 4 non-consecutive terms. There's nothing special about non-consecutive terms.

As for him being a security risk - the same source, James Angleton of the CIA, who told Peter "I'm a total fantasist and will say anything to sell my book" Wright that Wilson was a security risk has also said that: Kissinger, Lord Mountbatten, de Gaulle, and Edward Heath were all security risks to their various countries. One assumes that Angleton was paid by the number of allegations he could come up with, no matter how idiotic.

MI5 dutifully investigated, and found that "Henry Worthington" (the name under which the MI5 file was held) was no more a security risk than the Downing Street cat.

Whether he was trustworthy, that's a separate question. He had to keep the Labour party together, and that meant convincing every faction within the Labour party that he was one of them (and in from the October 74 election onwards, he had a parliamentary majority of just 3. Which meant he had to keep every single Labour MP happy, and it's in the DNA of Labour MPs to be bloody-minded and cause difficulties for the Labour Leader). So he lied a lot to the MPs.

 

[Dancing Fool]

James Angleton of the CIA, who told Peter "I'm a total fantasist and will say anything to sell my book" Wright that Wilson was a security risk has also said that: Kissinger, Lord Mountbatten, de Gaulle, and Edward Heath were all security risks to their various countries.

Ouch. I started with a middle chapter of Peter Wright’s Spycatcher (1987) and loved it and found it absolutely riveting. At a certain point, the detail became too much, but what a ride!

In fact, back in January I started this thread:

How likely do you feel that Roger Hollis, director of the UK’s MI5 (“EM” - “EYE” - 5), was a Soviet agent?​

I guess I’d add that people drawn to national security work often don’t put a lot of effort into drawing distinctions between different kinds of dissent. For example, here in the U.S., FBI director J. Edgar Hoover thought Martin Luther King, Jr, was a communist dupe, and he thought King was a fraud because he had rock star fame and slept around [certainly not the only famous man to go in that direction].

From the book The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI, some senior FBI officials listened to MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech and decided it was the work of a demagogue. Wow. I guess that really shows their mindset.

More controversial might be the example of President Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. There were a number of senior officers in the U.S. who believed a showdown with the Soviets was all but inevitable, and sooner when we were ahead was better than later. And therefore Kennedy had missed a golden opportunity and therefore Kennedy was undependable. Now, whether this advanced to participation in an assassination plot is a different question, and from what medium amount I know I’d say, No, the evidence does not show that.