WI: If the British Empire had given representation to the rest of the Empire

[gunnerkite]

First time posting, so appologies if this is in the wrong place.
What if, as a result of loosing the american colonies in the War of Independance, the British government decided to reform and give representation in parliment to the rest of the empire. This parliment would replace any other parliments.

I see there being an Imperial Parliment, with every country/territory/dominion being given representation via voting for MPs.

Each MP would have a much larger area/population, eg, England would have only 48 MPs (one for each county), Scotland 33, Wales 13, Ireland 40, Canada 13 (one for each province or territory), Australia 8, etc
Elections would be much like current elections in the UK. There would be the main 2 political parties (Tories/conservities and Wigs/Liberals) at the time and people would stand for that party.

The Imperial Parliment would be based in London, maybe in Westminster?

Taxes would be standardised across all coutries, along with education, law, etc. Money from taxes could then have been spent on area that needed developmnent (like India, the middle east and Africa) to bring them to the level of the rest of the empire.

The King (George III) would be head of the Empire (probably called Emperor George III) in the same capacity as the current monarchy.
God Save the King/Queen would be the Imperial Anthem, with national anthems being played second.

All military would remain under a single command, ie, not a seperate Australian Royal Navy, but just the Royal navy drawn from all members of the empire, same with the RAF and the Imperial Army (renamed from the British Army).

What do you guys thing the effects would be? Would Israel have been created if the local population had a voice in parliment, would the empire have continued going to space from Woomera?

I think WW1 & 2 would still have happened, although with the whole Empire Britian wouldn't have been so cash-strapped after WW2, and hence had a quicker economic recovery.

 

[jkarr]

Might be possible if the colonies and such were small enough, but once Britain started getting massive tracts of Africa and the like...become less likly to ever be feasible, especially with British attitudes towards its colonies...plus the problem with the "Crown Jewel of the Empire", India

 

[Georgie Porgie]

I have always liked the idea of an imperial parliment however....

The issue has always been India. Given that it's population match that of the rest of the Empire put together the number of MPs would have to reflect this in some way.

One way would be to ignore the poor (inwhich case Surrey would have about 8 times the number of MPs than Scotland!), another way is to have something like the American Senate (2 members per state doesn't matter about population or size of country).

When it comes to the armed forces up until WWI the colonies didn't really contribute except locally so I am unsure about the need of Imperial Armed Forces.

 

[Widukind]

Might the "indian problem" that is always raised when it comes to Imperial Federatiob not be solved by simply... not introducing fully proportional representation?

For instance, you might divide the Empire into the nations of the Home Islands (England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland) on the one hand, and the rest of the Empire (colonies and dominions) on the other. One basic principle would then be: the Home Island nations automatically get half the seats of the Imperial Parliament. The rest of the Empire is represented by the other half. Protectorates are not represented, but dominions and colonies are.

Besides that, England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, as well as all the dominions and colonies, get their own national parliaments.

 

[Alex Richards]

The odd thing is, it might actually be easier to do this in the 1700s than later. This is still the days of the Unreformed House of Commons, so the idea of having 2 MPs for a hill inhabited entirely by rabbits or a city that had fallen into the sea 300 years prior and none for a major city isn't that new.

Give each colony 2 MPs, and then enfranchise a few important cities as boroughs to give them a few extra MPs and there you go. Especially this could work if before the 13 colonies go independent. Not having protectorates represented in the Commons and instead having some sort of representation in the Lords would work well here. Combine it with the general restrictions on franchise using age, sex and property and we're getting a pretty acceptable situation for the politicians of the time.

As an example of how imbalanced this could be- for India in say 1800, the Bombay Presidency is essentially just Bombay and a couple of other forts, so give that 2 MPs. The Madras Presidency consisted of the Northern Circars, Malabar, the area around Madras itself and a few smaller territories, together with a large area of Southern India which was administered by the Nawab of the Carnatic under British protection- so that's 2MPs for the Presidency, perhaps 2 MPs for the enfranchised city of Madras and give the Nawab a seat in the Lords he's unlikely to ever take (much like the majority of the English gentry at the time). The Bengal Presidency consisted of the entirity of the later provinces of Bihar and Bengal, by far the largest of India's provinces. Again as a single colony it would get 2 MPs but add another 4 by enfranchising Calcutta and, say, Patna, then stick the Nawab of Bengal into the Lords as well, and there you go. India represented on 18th Century principles by 12MPs and 2 Lords. At least 80% of the population can probably be excluded by having a voting register that leaves out women, people who don't own property and those under the age of 21.

Obviously the process of reform of the Commons would be rather interesting, but depending on how things work with protectorates and so forth, it could work for quite a while, especially if there's an established Indian political class with a vested interest in making it continue.

Of course, most of these MPs would probably never visit their Constituency, but that was nothing new either.

 

[Simreeve]

The odd thing is, it might actually be easier to do this in the 1700s than later.

Maybe, but not if the earlier suggestion of giving Scotland almost as many representatives as England was to be included in the deal: When the Act of Union was being drafted IOTL the English politicians were emphatic that Scotland shouldn't be over-represented. (For example, it wasn't until well into the 20th century that all 'Peers of Scotland' -- rather than just a proportion of them, elected by & from that peerage's overall membership -- were entitled to sit in the Lords...)

 

[Alex Richards]

Maybe, but not if the earlier suggestion of giving Scotland almost as many representatives as England was to be included in the deal: When the Act of Union was being drafted IOTL the English politicians were emphatic that Scotland shouldn't be over-represented. (For example, it wasn't until well into the 20th century that all 'Peers of Scotland' -- rather than just a proportion of them, elected by & from that peerage's overall membership -- were entitled to sit in the Lords...)

I'm not sure why Scotland would get almost as many representatives as England. That would be a huge expansion of Parliament. As was Cornwall was packed with enough rotten boroughs to get almost as many MPs as Scotland.

To give examples, Assuming what I suggested above, we'd have these 1805 equivilencies:

India:12 (based on the above)- about equivilent to Buckinghamshire
British North America: 46*- about equivilent to Cornwall or Scotland.
British West Indies: 10**- about equivilent to Berkshire
Others: 6***- roughly equivilent to Cambridgeshire.

*Based on 2 each for the 13 colonies, Canada, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Charleston.
** Based on 2 each for Florida, Jamaica (incl. Bahamas and Honduras), Leeward Islands, Windward Islands and Trinidad(incl. Tobago and Guyana).
*** 2 for Australia, 4 more for various groupings of minor islands and outposts.

Overall, I'd say we're probably looking at being the rough equivilent of the Union with the Parliament of Ireland in terms of added MPs.

 

[Simreeve]

I'm not sure why Scotland would get almost as many representatives as England. That would be a huge expansion of Parliament. As was Cornwall was packed with enough rotten boroughs to get almost as many MPs as Scotland.

This thread's opening post suggested it _

First time posting, so appologies if this is in the wrong place.
What if, as a result of loosing the american colonies in the War of Independance, the British government decided to reform and give representation in parliment to the rest of the empire. This parliment would replace any other parliments.

I see there being an Imperial Parliment, with every country/territory/dominion being given representation via voting for MPs.

Each MP would have a much larger area/population, eg, England would have only 48 MPs (one for each county), Scotland 33, Wales 13, Ireland 40, Canada 13 (one for each province or territory), Australia 8, etc

 

[Alex Richards]

This thread's opening post suggested it _

That was merely one suggestion, I was giving another suggestion based on stuff like the Pitt plan for Union and so forth. Particularly as mine is hypothetical additions in the 1700s and that looks very much like a late 1800s Imperial Parliament.

 

[SamGale]

Don't forget that the Indian territories are ruled by the EIC, and not the UK. By the time the mutiny rolled around in OTL, the democratic principle might have been established enough to make the powers that be wary of substituting direct British sovereignty.