TL: UK Overseas Regions [Redux]

[Devvy]

Anthony Eden
Conservative Premiership, 1953-1960, won election 1955

Eden and Eisenhower oversaw a souring of the US-British relationship following the Second World War.

The United Kingdom today owes a significant part of it's heritage to the efforts of Anthony Eden. Taking over from Churchill as party leader and Prime Minister in 1953 following Churchill's rapidly failing health (and following his own successful surgery that year), Eden had to tackle a rapidly evolving global stage with the British Empire in decline, the ascendency of the United States and Soviet Union and a divided Europe.

In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal - as legally allowed, if controversial - and set in to play a series of events for the United Kingdom. This led to an almost quick-fire set of international discussion on how to handle it; for France and Britain (although for slightly different reasons) the Suez Canal was a critical piece of global infrastructure, allowing freight to transit between Asia/Pacific and Europe far quicker then circumventing the entire continent of Africa. Eden was incensed by the Egyptian move, despite the fact that the 1954 Treaty required Britain to draw down it's troops in the Suez Canal Zone anyhow. Franco-Israeli desires to hit Nasser hard and quickly were also therefore shared by Eden in Britain, who saw Nasser as potentially the next Hitler, but ideas of Britain taking action against Nasser were quickly stymied by American opposition. The US was deeply involved in the British economy, and could make or break the country in the 1950s, and discussions between Eden and Eisenhower highlighted the deep opposition of the Americans to any action in Egypt which could jeopardise their attempts to keep Egypt out of the Soviet camp, and avoid any notion of backing a colonialist power move. Despite the United Kingdom awarding India and Pakistan independence in the late 1940s, it was still a heavily empire-led nation at the time - an increasing contradiction between the world's foremost imperial power and the world's foremost presidential republic at the time. This set off a chain of events leading to Britain's "Allied Approaches" foreign policy strategy to the United States, recognising it as a crucial ally, but a nation who Britain would routinely have different strategies, aims and processes to even if pursuing the same end goal.

Although acknowledging Egypt's actions to nationalise the canal, as long as the flow of traffic was not interfered with and the charging process remained reasonable, Eden was wary of Nasser. In to this mix were the Malta integration talks, headed by the Maltese Dom Mintoff, who was frequently unpredictable. Much of the discussions were financial & economic in subject; Mintoff's desire for economic parity with the UK met with British hesitance over writing a blank cheque every year to Malta. Social programmes would be expensive to fund in Malta due to demographics, whilst the tax earned would be far smaller. However, in light of nationalisation of the Suez Canal, as well as rejection of the "international status" of the Suez (implicit in efforts to cut Israel off), there was a greater requirement for British security in the Mediterranean, and towards Egypt. The British, despite not taking part directly, did quietly allow the French to use British air bases in Cyprus in transit.

Outline agreement with Malta was therefore found in late 1956, and the Maltese national referendum on the matter backed the proposal; just roughly 75% of voters did so to join the UK. In terms of the electorate, just over 51% voted to join the UK, 15% voted against integration, and just over 34% didn't vote - either not caring or abstaining. Integration would see Malta become part of the UK along similar lines to Northern Ireland; a full part of the country, electing MPs to Westminster and a local "Maltese Assembly" taking care of local affairs. In light of the experiences of Northern Ireland, several powers were reserved to Westminster, primarily around the economy given the expected expense of Maltese integration. The Maltese pound would be technically withdrawn and replaced by UK Pound Sterling directly, although an sub-agreement between the Maltese and British Government enabled a new "Royal Bank of Malta" to print their own bank notes under the same terms as the Scottish and Northern Irish banks. In lieu of this and the possible expense of Malta, British Rail saw it's requested budget for modernisation slashed, forcing it to concentrate on a limited amount of new traction and electrification, as well as further closures of unproductive routes, whilst reconsideration of British air force projects brought about a reconsideration of future interceptor aircraft to utilising Avro for their connections with the Canadian Arrow project and cost savings. Reductions in the air force industry had been long expected due to the overly large amount of small manufacturers, but the choice for Avro put many smaller manufacturers out of business or forced to merge.

Although Eden had been forced to not take military action in Egypt regarding the Suez Canal, the affair had laid clear the separate interests of the United States and the United Kingdom, the former of whom had made abundantly clear it's rejection of any military action and hinted at counter-action if Britain did so. The failure to back the United Kingdom, in the view of the British Government, was perceived as yet another split following the failure to share the fruits of nuclear weapons research, taking the relationship between the wartime "closest allies" to a new low, despite the public image as close allies within the NATO alliance.

The events of the Suez, now known as the Suez Affair in Britain, highlighted the requirement to be prepared for conflict either in the Atlantic or in the Mediterranean as needed. This would see the imperial presence East of Suez maintained to secure use of the canal and force it open if needed, as well as maintaining a US-friendly but more independent international stance. A home base in Malta, outright owned and operated by the Royal Navy would tie in with this objective well, whilst also sitting not far from Egypt where a conflict could quickly arise over transit rights in the canal. This set of a series of steps which would transform the British armed forces over time, with a greater focus on an independent power projecting force and dovetailing in to NATO where Eden retained Britain's role within the integrated command despite the French partial withdrawal - remaining in the core of NATO continued to be perceived as essential for the defence of Europe and implicitly Britain.

And so in 1959, Malta acceded to the United Kingdom - then a historic event, and unparalleled since 1801 when Ireland was merged in to the United Kingdom alongside Great Britain for better or worse. Over the next 15 years, Malta would be gradually invested in and economic parity targeted with at least the lower UK regions. The 1958 Act of Union, passed in both Westminster and Valetta merged Malta in to the United Kingdom, although for the first time since the English-Welsh legal union in the 16th century, the flag would remain unchanged. Malta was assigned three constituencies for the sake of elections to Westminster; Gozo, Malta West and Valletta, and a 12 year transition period (having begun in 1958 with the Acts of Union) would work to economically integrate Malta in to the United Kingdom and achieve rough equivalence with Great Britain (in terms of purchasing power parity).

The 1960 election would be the first to elect 3 MPs from the Maltese constituencies. Eden had recognised early on that Malta would likely be Labour leaning, and the alliance of the Maltese Labour Party with the UK-wide Labour party did little to temper this. The electoral fight was for Eden's successor, Macmillan, to conduct however, and the booming economy in the late 1950s led the electorate to return the Conservative Government - but with a far reduced majority, with 3 Labour MPs elected from all three Maltese constituencies as expected. Harold Macmillan duly retained the role of Prime Minister, but with a very slim majority in Parliament, an unwelcome hark back to Attlee's Premiership following the 1950 election.

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Notes:
Welcome back to a hopefully more thorough telling of the UK overseas regions timeline I did a few years ago, with more detail in it and consideration of other butterflies. What started out for me as a rewrite of the Overseas Regions timeline I did, spun out quickly in to the UK pursuing a somewhat more independent foreign policy aim and becoming increasingly close to France to replace it's US Special Relationship.

The PoD is here is Eden not having botched surgery; here he has had successful surgery which hasn't left him addicted to a cocktail of drugs and the inevitable irritability. He's been able to approach Suez with a better mindset, and this time correctly read the US feeling over potential Suez action. The Israeli invasion has still gone ahead with French support; an Israeli-Nasser showdown was on the cards anyway, but this time it's with tacit British support rather then explicit support. This has led to the integration of Malta, as a close major naval base for projecting power towards the Suez and keeping the canal open for British interests, and a far more "Frenchy" - or in the end European - United Kingdom is on the cards.

 

[Devvy]

Harold Macmillan
Conservative Premiership, 1960-1963, won election 1960

De Gaulle and Macmillan carved out the beginning of a completely new era in Franco-British relations.

The Macmillan Premiership, despite winning the 1960 election, had a reduced majority, and the working majority was quickly too narrow during crunch votes. Despite this, Macmillan was responsible for several major steps in British foreign policy. Firstly, was the decision to back investment in the Royal Navy in the inter-service rivalries of the late 1950s & early 1960s. Attempts by the Royal Air Force to become Britain's nuclear deterrent were set back by the deteriorating situation with the Americans whose missile technology some had sought to utilise (including the de facto cancellation of American Skybolt missile in 1960 (*1) ), and the role was increasingly sought by the Royal Navy. In addition to this, rapidly improving radar and surface-to-air missiles meant that the chances of getting a bomber through enemy lines was rapidly diminishing anyhow. The concentration on the Royal Navy fed in to the research in to naval missiles, allowing the British nuclear deterrent to be carried by the Royal Navy in a new class of submarines.

Secondly, and despite Macmillan's best efforts, the UK-US "special relationship" was rapidly unravelled as events unfolded. Suez may have been the match, but there was a long line of highly combustible fuel following this for many years - a series of events of which all played their part in the estrangement. Macmillans discussions with Eisenhower over foreign policy - significantly relating to dealing with the Soviet Union led Macmillan to conclude that he could "no longer talk usefully to the Americans", and led him to further consider Anglo-French relations as a counterbalance to American power. American distrust of the UK continued, believing it full of Soviet spies following the Cambridge Five revelations, whilst infighting between US departments did little to help smooth the relationship either. After the United Kingdom successfully developed nuclear weapons, and the Soviets caused a stir by placing a satellite in to orbit, American inter-departmental disorganisation caused the tentative query as to whether the UK would be interested in a joint approach to nuclear weapons with the Skybolt missile, before the Skybolt missile was then cancelled causing further damage to the British attitudes towards the United States. This was somewhat reciprocated when the British declined to partake in any involvement in the Cuban Missile Crisis, although a continued and whole-hearted commitment to NATO by the United Kingdom was welcome after the French began to withdraw form the unified command (although remaining in the NATO alliance itself). The US-UK relationship remained strong, backed by years of working and fighting side by side, but both sides began to realise they had different strategies, fears and aims on the global stage - during peace time at least.

This all fed in to the 1961 British-French agreement to jointly work on nuclear weapons research; inevitably some research spilled over in to civilian nuclear research, further undermining the efforts of the joint European nuclear programme called EURATOM (*2). France had already successfully tested a nuclear bomb in 1960 with the Israelis, but following the test France rapidly backed away from Israel - at the same time as Britain was looking for alternative partners. Macmillan had previously noted that "Britain will retain an independent nuclear capability, no matter the cost" to the US President - then JFK - during exploratory discussions. However, the cost of the Blue Streak missile programme was extreme, and coupled on to the dozens of other major expenditure programmes for the United Kingdom. Something needed to give, and finding a suitable partner in France, Macmillan and de Gaulle agreed to integrate their research and development efforts, whilst agreeing both would retain control over their manufactured weapons under a "joint research & development, independent implementation" strategy. Britain's research and development engineers and scientists therefore worked closely with French teams to work on a new missile system for submarines, given that Britain did not want to host land-based missiles, and air-launched missiles still required a home base and launching close to enemy territory. Although independently designed, the amount of joint research led to a large degree to technical similarity between the British and French nuclear deterrent submarines, both ordered in 1963.

Britain and France began to collaborate elsewhere almost immediately, with a series of joint programmes throughout the following decades and following Prime Ministers - and such close co-operation became closer following the signing of the Evian Accords in France relating to Algerian independence, given some unease in the Commonwealth with regards to the growing relationship between France and Britain. This predominately came from newly independent nations in Africa, but often spearheaded by India or Pakistan who saw French racial attitudes to their continued or historic empire as extremely troubling. Such concerns from the Commonwealth kept France as a British ally, but not a member of the Commonwealth itself as some on France had suggested. Such close co-operation, however, did not overcome Britain's imperial trade relations and responsibilities, and as such Britain remained somewhat aloof of the European Common Market, despite the growing relationship with France. Move towards a European trade zone in industrial products did however result in the creation of the European Free Trade Area however, between the Common Market 6 Powers and several surrounding European nations including the United Kingdom (*3).

Another notable step by Macmillan was the "Wind of Change" speech, given by Macmillan. The speech noted a growing desire for autonomy in Britain's colonial empire, and desire to be more than just colonial subjects of the British Empire. In the UK government, there was a desire to temper and weaken left wing pro-Sovietism in anti-colonial groups, whilst African nationalism in particular continued to grow, following the example of newly independent (in 1957) Ghana (formerly the British Gold Coast). "Autonomy and then Dominionhood or Integration" was the paraphrased message in later years, although the comment about integration was only in response to a question about the decolonisation of Malta, conveniently forgotten in the later summaries. The speech was seen to advocate for introducing and increasing the levels of self-rule in colonies and this was introduced to many British colonies, especially in Africa, during the short Premiership, settings wheels in motion which would lead to several independent nations later in the 1960s. In Africa, East Africa (*4), Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi and The Gambia all made significant strides towards self governance or outright independence, whilst in Asia Malaysian federation came in to existence. In the long run, not all were successful - particularly in Malaysia where the union with Singapore was rapidly terminated. Likewise, the desired West Indies Federation would also fall apart in 1965 after only 7 years of operation due to political infighting, with Jamaica dropping out half way through in 1962 to gain independence directly itself, and rapidly followed by Trinidad and Tobago in 1963, leaving a rump of West Indies islands back under the United Kingdom again.

The speech did not advocate for a full withdrawal from the world however despite advocating for greater self government. Commercial interests, as well as defence, would continue to keep Britain firmly in many countries, and often in collaboration with local governments. Oil in Nigeria was a major industry with a huge British involvement, as was the copper industry in Zambia and other metals in Uganda. As such, British commercial interests continued to require open use of the Suez Canal and accordingly the British Government were eager to keep the vital shipping lanes open.

Domestically, Macmillan was notable for the passing of the "UK Immigration Act", which began the first limitations on Commonwealth immigration in to the UK. This entrenched attitudes in Malta towards UK integration - a fair number of Maltese had already left Malta for the UK in search of job opportunities in the growing British economy, and increased the attraction of "full UK membership". Macmillan fell in 1963 in the raucous Parliamentary atmosphere following the Immigration Act passing in to law and a sex scandal involving Profumo, a Government minister. A string of by-election defeats had left Macmillan struggling to pass contentious legislation without the backbenchers almost 100% in line with him to enact his agenda, and Macmillan called for an election in 1963, but during the election period further news came out about Profumo's affair - despite denying it earlier, news leaked it had indeed occurred. 10 years of Conservative rule came to an end as Gaitskell, waiting in the wings for many years, eventually led Labour to power once again.

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Notes:
(*1) Skybolt was almost cancelled in 1960; Presidential committees proposed it's cancellation, it was only kept alive by budget "reprogramming" and the support from Britain for it - support which is now going to be far less, both from Britain or listened to by the USA.
(*2) I think this probably de facto butterflies EURATOM, in favour of an Anglo-French nuclear co-operation programme. EURATOM still technically exists, but it's going to be less relevant, and may well be wound up at some point or just integrated to the EEC at some future point.
(*3) Whilst Britain hasn't had the beat down it had in OTL Suez, it's a bit more imperially minded still - but economic concerns are still going to push for EFTA as a free trade agreement whilst former colonies begin to go their own way and market preferences shift away from the United Kingdom.
(*4) The East African Federation reaches statehood this time, instead of falling away, due to a continued imperially focussed Britain.

With regards to the US-UK relationship, whilst in OTL the overall relationship was excellent, and could withstand little bumps, here the overall relationship is less tight and has meant all those little bumps have just chipped away at the relationship.

Also; there's been some talk about keeping other territories. The UK is well versed in colonial affairs, and in decolonisation isn't going to try and integrate anyone to the UK unless they are actively asking for it and pursuing it - and it helps to have some UK interest in them too. I can't see any interest in trying to keep a territory which has an active independence-chasing government, nor are there huge butterflies yet with regards to political strategies in the UK or overseas yet (bar Malta!), so so I can't see much change for the many countries which became independent in the 1960s. Such as Guyana, as nice as that would be for a spaceport!

 

[Devvy]

Hugh Gaitskell
Labour Premiership, 1963-1968, won election 1963

Gaitskell making use of the state media.

Gaitskell swept to power in 1963, and in retrospect laid out the framework for much of what we consider "Modern Britain". Attempting to rehabilitate the Macmillan's new immigration laws as "nationality and not racially based", he was responsible for several liberal social reforms, including new racial discrimination laws, an end to the death penalty and the legalisation of homosexuality. A gulf with Rhodesia, attempting to unilaterally break away over race relations in the colony, demonstrated a considerable lack of capability of the armed forces however compared to Gaitskell's objectives of more active intervention against the white minority administration. It laid out the context for the 1965 Defence White Paper, setting out future requirements for the armed forces, whilst placing troops in Aden to quell unrest there, as well as the military beginning to transform in to the modern day force instead of a more conscription-based force from World War II. Attempts to bring the United Kingdom in to Vietnam were made by the United States, and initially Gaitskell was receptive seeing it as a way to mend bridges - the British forces had experience from the Malayan Emergency. However, the American desire for "boots on the ground" to support rather than just advisors meant that Gaitskell had little motivation to get involved in a war on the other side of the planet to the UK, especially given the British awareness of the lack of domestic support for Diem's South Vietnamese regime and it's almost complete dependence on the United States. Kennedy and Gaitskell could find little to see eye to eye on, despite being on the same side, it seemed.

Under pressure domestically from his Labour MPs - whether on reasons of principle, financial or other, many other countries proceeded towards increased autonomy or sovereignty - Nigeria finally officially became a Dominion within the Commonwealth, as did East Africa, whilst several other smaller states (often in the Pacific) moved towards what was increasingly called "dependency" status - the UK only providing defence, foreign affairs and ensuring "good governance". Accordingly, the British Empire shrank and the British Commonwealth swelled in membership, but this was predominately larger countries, whilst smaller territories remained dependant on the United Kingdom. This was usually for financial reasons as those smaller territories contained small populations, and it was also often seen as undesirable and diluting in the Commonwealth to admit a large number of tiny states. Despite this "triumph" of independence of new nations and Dominions, the presence of large and powerful countries on the Commonwealth made it more difficult for the UK to maintain it's figurehead position; the old guard (often now known as the "White Commonwealth") were frequently opposed by the new powerful members, often eager to realise their national policy objectives. The likes of India and Pakistan, who often focused on racial issues within the Commonwealth, were swiftly joined by Nigeria and East Africa (although South Africa had left in 1961), all large and significant member states. Economic and foreign relations inevitably began to change from the historic imperial relations to new geographical neighbours, a focus on opposing Apartheid in South Africa, and handling the growing crisis in Rhodesia. The latter proved to be a divisive topic in Commonwealth meetings, with African states eager for harder line action - including potential military action - to enforce majority rule in Rhodesia, and the UK especially balking at the prospect of taking arms against what would be a largely ex-British group in Rhodesia.

In to this came Gaitskell's queries towards greater Commonwealth/Imperial free trade in preparation for the Commonwealth 1966 Commonwealth meeting. Gaitskell was keen to try and shore up an economy which was beginning to struggle in the face of continued growth in Europe. Commonwealth trade with the United Kingdom was on a firm downward trend as former colonies found Dominionhood and new trade partners - the United States in particular was rapidly replacing the UK as a principal trade partner. The recent discussions with Diefenbaker in to balancing Canadian trade between both the United States and United Kingdom were moot however, with the replacement of Diefenbaker as Canadian Prime Minister by Pearson, whilst both Australia and New Zealand were wary of further free trade preventing their nascent industries from becoming self-sufficient and continuing as a mere agricultural & resource supplier to the UK. Likewise, India was attempting to diversify away from it's British past, and East Africa had little time for what it saw as neo-colonial attempts by Britain. The gentle feelers put out in advance of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers meeting were therefore met with polite indifference to the concept, and it died a rapid death once again. The UK just wasn't able to compete by itself with the trade power of the United States, and was also struggling to be the prime defence and foreign policy partner in the Commonwealth Australasia / Pacific area given it's position on the opposite side of the globe to the UK. The need to devalue the pound sterling in the late 1960s, reflecting Britain's economic insecurities, did little to help Commonwealth ties, and served to further push other Commonwealth members away (*1).

As such, the UK-French relationship continued to evolve, with joint technological projects to split costs forming early on, especially in the aviation sector. Many projects saw publicly celebrated agreements and co-operation between Britain and France; the Channel Tunnel agreement was signed in 1964 (*2) along with a commitment to a new high speed rail service between London and Paris through the tunnel. A supersonic airliner was investigated, but dropped due to lack of funds (*3) although this spurred the creation of an Anglo-French aircraft manufacturer, Airbus, which would also rapidly bring in the Germans to make it a pan-European organisation (*4). Co-operation within the military aviation area was more difficult, given the number of well established national defence contractors, with competing commercial interests.

Domestically, the key points enacted under Gaitskell's Premiership was the widespread introduction of the metric system to the United Kingdom. This had been discussed at the 1962 Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference, and duly backed by all; metrication was the future it seemed, and Gaitskell definitely agreed having backed widespread metrication for many years. With Commonwealth partners adopting it, and trade partners in Europe (including all Common Market members) already operating at least predominately in metric, adopting a metric system in the UK would aid the export market and simplify a raft of administration.

Firstly was the decimalisation of the currency. Reports from 1960 by the British Chambers of Commerce had advocated for decimalisation, whilst a Government committee had also corroborated this in 1963 with an official report backing the decimalisation of Britain's currency. It seemed the only question left was how, but this was quickly answered by a raft of financial institutions, not least HM Treasury and Bank of England. These two backed the retention of pound sterling with a consistent value due to it's international usage and status as a reserve currency, with only the subdivision changed from 12 shillings or 240 (old) pence, to 100 (new) pence. Legislation was introduced in 1965, and immediately work began in to conversion of currency in to decimalised penny coins or 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 25p (*5) and 50p in order to simplify the conversion. This meant that the old Shilling, Florin and Crown coins could continue in circulation until replacement, being as they equalled 5p, 10p and 25p accordingly. Decimal Day, the official switchover to decimal currency in the "real world" was announced for 1970; after the next election. Such a move, in due time, would significantly simplify accounting and financial processes, whilst a raft of consumer aids were produced including dual-priced labels well in advance of Decimal Day, and pocket-sized conversion tables to aid in the switch.

The other side of the change was the metrication of the country. This introduced sweeping changes - not particularly popular at the time, and usually presumed to be part of the (but not the only) reason for the following election result which saw the Conservative party returned to government. This saw the imperial system dropped and metric system introduced in virtually every facet of British life.. The fledgling motorways in Britain would now be signed with metric distances (and later speed limits when introduced), meaning the southern end of the M1 motorway was resigned after only a few years (*6). This led to a confusing driving experience for some for several years as the motorways went metric, and connecting roads took far longer to receive metric signs (in some cases over a decade). As ministers commented; "you can't do everything at once - this will take time and you might as well start with the brand new roads", and the metrication programme was predicted to last 10-12 years anyhow. The metric programme touched virtually every part of British life, with standards from electrical wiring, to sports pitch sizes, to food packaging weights being converted to metric units, and such a huge change took far longer than estimates predicted - signposts in miles could easily be found well in to the 1990s in rural areas, although speed limits were far quicker to change (in only a few years) to avoid legal loopholes. Although much of this was driven in collaboration with the Commonwealth and to make trade with Europe (and the Common Market itself) easier, Gaitskell remained aloof of participation in the Common Market itself, having no time for the notion of subsuming the United Kingdom in to the European club and doing away with a thousand years of history as he put it.

In Malta, the nation had now been part of the United Kingdom for 4 years by the time of Gaitskell's entry to Downing Street. A whole hearted attempt by the British Government was under way in Malta, with the Valleta dockyards modernised to better function as the Royal Navy centre of Mediterranean operations. Integration was, although supported in a referendum, not a universally backed move in Malta, and the UK was particularly careful with regards to the Catholic Church in Malta - encouraging but not forcing "social progression" as seen elsewhere in Europe, which reflected the integration agreements over what would become Maltese devolution. Westminster backing for the Maltese government moves to back and develop the tourism sector in Malta were well received, as was the provision of UK-wide social benefits such as unemployment pay and other national insurance options - although the provision of UK pensions would take some time to filter through. The merging of the post office in to the UK wide General Post Office allowed the deployment of the Girobank banking service which was offered via the GPO - this was a banking service targeted at those who had been unable to use the main commercial banks before.

In addition to Malta, towards the end of Gaitskell's Premiership, discussions between the United Kingdom and Spain began over the future of Gibraltar. Initially placed on a "Dependant Territories" list due to an oversight by British officials, missing the fact that the Treaty of Utrecht prevented Gibraltar from becoming independent, discussions continued between Britain and Spain over the future of The Rock together with a tightening of Spanish restrictions against Gibraltar. What resulted was a suggestion from the Spanish government, then a dictatorship under the leadership of Franco, for what would in effect be the integration of Gibraltar in to Spain as a highly devolved Spanish territory. The Gibraltarians balked at this. Legislation in Gibraltar to organise a referendum in 1967 over this topic initially saw two options proposed - integration with Spain, or the continuation of the existing situation as a British dependency. However, following the example of Malta, the Gibraltar Integration Party succeeded in amending the proposed referendum, with a third choice added in tight circumstances during the Legislative Council debates; pursue integration with the United Kingdom.

The referendum was held at the end of 1967, towards the end of Gaitskell's electoral term, and surprisingly the integration with Britain option won the referendum - often attributed to the hard tactics employed by Spain towards Gibraltar. A period of reflection and negotiation planning was interrupted however, by the requirements for a 1968 UK General Election. It would turn out to be Gaitskell's farewell to Downing Street, and Gibraltar would be someone else's choice to make.

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Notes: Gaitskell living longer (a 1953/1956 PoD) as he stands a chance of lupus at least developing very differently. Gaitskell is on record as having no interest in leading the UK in to the EEC, but also on the record as favouring metrication and decimalisation which obviously will feed in to UK-EEC harmonisation.

(*1) No future for Commonwealth trade or closer links really. The growing closeness of the UK and France also probably looks like a) a less strong partner as it can't do things solely by itself any more and b) a greater commitment to Europe rather than the global Commonwealth. Unlike OTL European accession being seen as the UK turning it's back on the Empire, this will make it clearer that both the Commonwealth and the UK are turning away from each other. Given Gaitskell's OTL severe lack of enthusiasm for the (European) Common Market, I see at least queries in to the possibility of greater free trade within the Commonwealth by Gaitskell to be inevitable.
(*2) Earlier Channel Tunnel which was begun and then cancelled in OTL; carries through here due to much closer UK-French relations.
(*3) Concorde is cancelled on cost grounds....well the purse is not unlimited. Saves a good amount of cash too.
(*4) UK remains committed to Airbus instead of getting cold feet.
(*5) 25p coin instead of 20p coin. Probably the only change here, to me it seems obvious as it means the continued use of the Crown coin is possible - I'd point out this is the same subdivision as the Maltese Pound/Lira in OTL too, which here obviously is directly using UK Pound Sterling, but with the rights to print it's own notes (same situation as OTL Northern Irish & Scottish banks).
(*6) This is probably the biggest change here; I can find several references in Hansard about Gaitskell advocating for metrication, so I figure the motorways (then under construction) are an easy first target for road metrication, with other roads following to metric over the next 10-12 years. Although I guess there will be some smaller rural/country lanes signs will last for decades as commented.

Apologies for the length, this kinda span out rapidly as I started writing, editing and tweaking!

 

[Devvy]

Alec Douglas-Home
Conservative Premiership, 1968-1973, won election 1968

Douglas-Home & Nixon relations were largely defined as "Friends can disagree with each other".

Douglas-Home, the accidental Prime Minister as some have labelled him, came to power as a compromise between candidates for the Conservative leadership, and wound up winning the 1968 election (*1). He assumed leadership over a rapidly transforming country - both from post war economic boom to economic malaise, as well as a social change from a stiff traditional structure to a modern reinvented Britain. A committed European, his attitude in many areas was the opposite of Gaitskell, but equally found common ground in many areas. On metrication in particular, despite calls from many to relax the commitment to switch systems, Douglas-Home let the programme rumble on regardless as it represented a key opportunity to standardise with the Europeans. Recognising he did not have a governing majority to back a full accession to the European Economic Community, Douglas-Home continued to pursue soft integration - standardising on things to simplify trade and encourage further links (*2).

Domestic actions were about to be sidelined by integration talks, however. The sovereignty dispute between the UK and Spain over Gibraltar had continued to rumble on, and gently escalate throughout the 1950s and 1960s with Spain continuing to make the the border difficult in a gradual tightening. This led to a counter-reaction from Gibraltarians, who despite UK politicians making clear that Malta was a sui generis case, saw a large upswing in support for UK integration on the so-called "Maltese Model", culminating in the 1967 referendum. The Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Robert Peliza, sought to emulate Malta and rapidly sought negotiations over integration of Gibraltar in to the United Kingdom on the back of the referendum result. In later years, Franco was said to have gone ballistic when he found out, but was unable to do much about it other then trigger a conflict with the UK - and then by extension with NATO, given Gibraltar's position in Europe, within NATO's geographical scope. Franco was left to diplomatically protest, fully closing the border between Spain and Gibraltar, as well as refuse air space permission for planes to/from Gibraltar airport - which simply redirected over Portugal or France instead en route to Great Britain, adding some time but eliminating any air space issues. The problem with this was that it merely hardened the attitude in Gibraltar towards British integration, seeing it as protection from Spain. Some Spaniards questioned the Treaty of Utrecht, which had granted Gibraltar to Britain, but it merely noted that Gibraltar was ceded by Spain "to the Crown of Great Britain" (preceding union between Great Britain and Ireland); Gibraltar would still be under the same crown, just in a different constitutional capacity.

The small population in Gibraltar - about 26,000 in 1965 - made negotiations between the United Kingdom and Gibraltar far easier then they had been with Malta, along with the important location guarding the entry to the Mediterranean. Despite all the legislation and statements of previous governmental statements about the uniqueness of a Maltese integration to the United Kingdom, the small and largely British-apparent population likely eased the political hurdles to integration of "the Rock", and full integration would be rapidly completed. This would introduce almost the smallest constituency to the British Parliament, a single Gibraltarian seat - the only smaller seat being what was then called the "Western Isles" (in Scotland).

The move, beyond that of the "unique position of Malta" began a series of dominoes, however, which would see major ramifications for the United Kingdom. Sir James Mancham in Seychelles, joined a constitutional conference over the future of the small islands in the Indian Ocean, with a desire for integration. In some ways, this freed up a quandary for the British military; ideas had been floated about creating a military base, in remote islands of the Mauritius as a stand in for RAF Gan given that Mauritius was chasing independence and Britain was more than happy to let the colony go. However, if the Seychelles were to become part of the United Kingdom, then the politics became far easier as the islands would be directly subordinate to Westminster law, whilst also providing a remote base for the far, far end of the Suez Canal to secure shipping routes and defend the new UK territory. Aldabra and/or Assumption Island were the targets, but environmental & political pressure led to plans to be scaled back to solely Assumption Island. The use of Assumption Island became included in the integration agreements for the Seychelles, and was duly voted through Mancham's Seychellois Government in 1971, and duly backed by the British government later in 1972. Despite the economic status of the Seychelles, Westminster voted to likewise accept the terms of integration, largely on the small population (circa 50,000 - again with only a single MP), defence policy requirements for an Indian Ocean base of operations and enthusiastic proposal from Sir James Mancham. The line of Gibraltar-Malta-Seychelles allowed a continued British presence and force projection right through the Mediterranean, Suez Canal and Red Sea - and were coupled by remaining British military bases in Cyprus at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. This all helped enforce freedom of navigation for British merchant shipping through what was once called the Highway to India, as well as for defence reasons with the British-protected Trucial States also opting to continue with British protection (*3). The ability to act militarily was rapidly put to test with military confrontation in the Middle East between Arab states and Israel; British diplomacy helped minimise the conflict (*4), but the actions of the Egyptians largely put a rapid end to Suez shipping by scuttling ships in the canal and other blockages causing further issues in the British economy, which relied on the Suez Canal for over a quarter of it's oil imports (and approximately 40% of French oil imports).

Following the integration of Gibraltar and Seychelles - both of which were again allowed to continue printing local money, technically promissory notes, by their central banks as a "local" pound sterling, drew attention from Welsh nationalists as the only home nation outside England which did not have it's own issue of banknotes. A rudimentary attempt in 1969 was made by the "Chief Treasury of Wales", but with the Board of Trade unhappy about the use of the word "Treasury" (indicating an official governmental department backing), it did not last long. 1972 saw a second attempt, under a more clinical names of the "Bank of Wales" (or Banc Cymru in Welsh) (*5). However, the more integrated England-Wales economy, then between other Home Nations - and growing following the opening of the Severn Bridge in the mid-1960s, led to unease about allowing what were effectively promissory notes to be circulating in England where they had no legal status. The sterling tweak of 1972 was a half-way house - permitting the continued printing of pound sterling by regional banks, but backed by an equivalent amount of pound sterling banked at the Bank of England - the British central bank. Regional banks would be permitted to transform their banknotes from local "customary" promissory notes to full legal tender, valid across the UK, by adopting a common design taking up approximately a third of the end of the note, with a common size and shape. The rest of the note would be allowed for individual design. The banknote common design area featured the declarations of the note value, currency name, official phrasings and some anti-counterfeiting technology, whilst coins would be distributed only by the Bank of England nationwide across the entire United Kingdom (*6). The Bank of Wales immediately agreed to these conditions, as did almost all the remaining UK regional banks over the following years, allowing a large array of bank notes to circulate around entire United Kingdom as legal tender; British entities outside the United Kingdom such as the Crown Dependencies had to continue to maintain their peg to pound sterling at their own cost and risk however as a one-way currency union.

One of the Douglas-Home's later works at Prime Minister were the guidelines for any future territory seeking UK integration. Formed in the aftermath of a foreign policy speech regarding criticism of the UK integration of Malta and the Seychelles as "new colonialism", Douglas-Home refuted the accusation. "Colonies are subject to the exploitative rule of external nations. Malta is no colony, the Seychelles are no colony, just as Northern Ireland or Yorkshire are not colonies; all are full parts of the United Kingdom, and part of the democratic process. If Malta makes clear her desire for integration in to the UK with elections and a referendum, who is anyone to tell them they are democratically wrong and a colony once more?" On the back of this, Douglas-Home put forth that any future territories wishing for integration should not upset the demographics of the home islands, should be "culturally compatible" and should not be a significant financial burden. This was a balancing act; he knew that the United Kingdom wouldn't affect any massive changes to the electoral power of the home nations, whilst several overseas territories were complaining that the UK was "allowing the whiter colonies in, and ignoring the black colonies". In light of this, following the disintegration of the West Indies Federation, several eastern Caribbean islands formed the "West Indies Associated Islands", with an unofficial agreement to modernisation and desired eventual UK integration due to their tiny island populations.

-------------------------
Notes:
Malta, Gibraltar and Seychelles have all integrated in to the UK. The UK has accepted all three due to a) smallish populations (Gibraltar and Seychelles especially), and b) defence policy. All three have had serious integration proposals in OTL around this time. The addition of these three territories means a) the UK military has a far wider scope to defend UK home territory, and so needs further investment, and b) the significant military installations at each serve as a significant economic subsidy to each of the regions. No Suez has meant that Britain didn't get the economic punch it got in OTL, and still sees itself as the powerful, liberal and democratic mother nation of the world; why couldn't you allow a few small territories to integrate to further the British interest?

(*1) The original version had something like18 years of continuous Labour rule from the early 1960s to mid 1970s - this is something which is incredibly unlikely in a period of economic stagnation. I think far more likely is a flipping from one party to the other as both sides struggle to deal with the sagging economy.
(*2) I don't think Douglas-Home, even in this TL, will have the Parliamentary numbers to seriously discuss with the EEC about accession. Alignment and soft integration will be as far as it gets.
(*3) Trucial States continuing as, well, Trucial States, the British Protectorates of the Persian Gulf.
(*4) European, or Franco-British, diplomacy here I would see as the French talking to the Israelis, and the British talking to the Arabs (considering they haven't discredited themselves completely with Suez). I'd like to think the biggest impact here would be the Brits managing to oil the wheels so that when Jordan shells Israel, Israel knows where they are shelling and keeps out of the way, so that Jordan isn't really participating. Impact here is that the West Bank and Jerusalem stays Jordanian, which opens a whole slew of consequences in the Middle East.
(*5) This roughly happened in OTL (see here); the difference now is that the extra overseas UK regions, each printing their own money has led to a more concentrated approach to Welsh bank notes.
(*6) However, considering the mess that is OTL UK bank notes, and this being increased with yet more regional bank notes, I think some kind of standardisation from the OTL "it just works enough" system is inevitable. A common design on maybe the left third of the note, with some security features such as intricate UK coat of arms or something (I don't think the Queen would appear in this area due to NI sensitivities, although the BoE would almost certainly print the Queen on their individual design area).

 

[Devvy]

James Callaghan
Labour Premiership, 1973-1978, won election in 1973

Callaghan began to forge closer relations with European nations outside of France, such as West Germany, following further actions in the USA such as the Nixon Shocks which continued to alienate allies.

James Callaghan came to power following Gaitskell's poor health after his tenure as Prime Minister, and moved in to Downing Street following his 1973 election victory - following a pattern of electoral flip flops as both Conservatives and Labour struggled to deal with economic issues. This time, the election resulted in no clear Parliamentary majority - although Labour were the largest party, and a Labour-Liberal agreement with the 12 Liberal MPs gave Callaghan enough seats to govern a little more comfortably - but margins were fine enough that Callaghan had to accept some Liberal policies on core issues.

Callaghan would see the suspension of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and introduction of direct rule (later replaced by the Northern Irish Assembly) due to the increasing levels of Unionist-Republican rivalry and violence. The escalating crisis saw the introduction of the British Army to the "province" to establish law and order. Wisely, the choice was to send over a large number of the Maltese in the British Army, to work hand in hand with English/Welsh/Scottish troops on the street due to the largely Catholic Maltese soldiers. The Maltese soldiers undermined the Provisional IRA's message as "primary defenders of the Catholic community", and were rapidly used operationally in Catholic & nationalist areas. Whilst a civilian agreement on the future of Northern Ireland governance was difficult to come by, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland did at least retain some element of peace in contested areas, and assisted in efforts to transform and modernise the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Callaghan also introduced several smaller initiatives which survive today. The official name of the country became the "United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland & Overseas Islands". Post codes were introduced to the United Kingdom in the 1970s, after being testing around Norwich, with each area of the United Kingdom - including the overseas regions and many of the remaining dependencies - receiving a post code to help simplify the post system. The first installations of cable television also occurred in the 1970s, with several cities receiving the first licenses to install cable television. However, despite all the forward steps, the United Kingdom was becoming stagnant economically, and being outpaced by the nations of the Common Market. In the Labour party, disagreement between hard-left and soft-left factions came to a head after Callaghan continued to keep Labour within the soft-left policies; many hard-left members left Labour to form the Socialist Party which continues today (*1).

The introduction of Malta, Gibraltar and the Seychelles, as well as the presence of Northern Ireland all with devolved administrations (even though suspended in the case of Northern Ireland) emboldened nationalists in Scotland and Wales, and a Royal Commission on the Constitution - later known as the Devolution Commission - had been created to explore devolution within Great Britain itself under Douglas-Home - but only reported back after Callaghan became Prime Minister. It advocated for further devolution, predominately to Scotland, Wales and the English regions, and was pounced on particularly by Scottish nationalists. After government studies, a 1976 White Paper on the future of Scotland, the result was the Scotland Act 1978 - a key policy of the supporting Liberal party in return for their Parliamentary support. This brought forth the establishment of a Scottish Assembly, along the lines of the Maltese Model (*2) but reflecting Scotland's position within Great Britain - subject to a referendum which would be held in 1979. The referendum passed with a "Yes" vote of almost 60%, with many attributing the success to the successful examples of devolution in Malta as providing a clear example of how it would work. Similar to Malta, elections for the Scottish Assembly would be based on a single transferable vote across multi-member constituencies of 3 seats.

Discussions continued over the role of the United Kingdom "East of Suez" indicated a reduction in the British role and presence in the Indian and Pacific oceans, but the situation improved when the Trucial States in the Persian Gulf agreed to opt-in to "dependency status", with the UK continuing to provide primarily defence and foreign relations in return for funding from the states, and basing rights there, although the principal British base in the area would remain at Masirah Island (Oman). This also conveniently provided justification for the Royal Navy presence in Malta and the Seychelles on the route to the Indian Ocean (thereby justifying the indirect economic subsidies from the armed forces), smoothing some debates over large workforce employed in the naval dockyards and related industries. An agreement with Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand led to a shrinking of UK forces in the Indo-Pacific region, but the core base at Singapore was saved. The path ahead was clear though; more and more British colonies were becoming independent; Callaghan would soon grant independence to South Yemen, Botswana and a few others; as such the British global role was shrinking... but not dead yet by any means. New Royal Navy vessels were deployed globally, covering British interests in a wide variety of locations; in Belize in support of their independence (despite Guatemalan claims on the territory), against oil shipping to Rhodesia in an attempt to enforce sanctions against the state, mine clearing work in the Suez Canal, and supporting the Trucial States as a visible deterrence against any military action.

Retaining Singapore as a base was seen additionally as diplomatically necessary to avoid overly irritating the Americans and damaging a gently recovering "Special Relationship", whilst the US was embroiled in the midst of the Vietnam War, but the eastern half of the British Cypriot bases (Dhekelia) was to be handed back to Cypriot authorities with Britain only retaining the western base (Akrotiri), as part of British cost-saving efforts. Classified until later years, it also turned out that the US would part-fund the Akrotiri base in order to use an over-the-horizon radar to monitor Soviet air movements.

In the Caribbean, the collapse of the West Indies Federation in 1965 had been the sad finale of the WIF. Jamaica had left in 1962 prior to attempted unification of some economical aspects, whilst Trinidad & Tobago had then left in 1964. The remaining 8 islands, then attempted to continue with British backing, but 1965 saw the final nail in the coffin and the federation was disbanded., All islands by default returned to direct British oversight given the lack of independence, and began to pursue a variety of longer term strategies. Trinidad & Tobago, with an economy growing and focussed on their oil and gas markets had rapidly become independent in 1967. Jamaica fell under British jurisdiction once more and had gently enquired in to the possibility of British integration, but after a decidedly lukewarm reaction to it (usually pinned on the cost of a subsidy to an island with a population larger than Northern Ireland), Jamaica became independent in 1970. The remaining islands became the "West Indies Associated States", under the United Kingdom, due to their far smaller populations (*3).

The successful application of the Seychelles, and later integration of that nation in to the United Kingdom, provided a new idea for many of those West Indian islands. Almost all were less affluent in comparison with the United Kingdom, with fewer natural resources, and had observed the integration of Malta, Gibraltar and Seychelles to the United Kingdom with interest - and noted the success which those islands appeared to have had in the UK with strong devolution. Therefore, Barbados applied to join the United Kingdom in 1973, and like dominoes, most of the British territories in the Lesser Antilles applied. Notable exceptions to this, however, included the British Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos Islands - all saw their future in closer economic relations with North America. This combined group of integration seeking islands in the Lesser Antilles was a combined population of approximately 700,000 people, and would almost triple the overseas population (Malta, Gibraltar, Seychelles), with little gain for the United Kingdom. The first three had clear foreign policy and defence advantages for their integration, and had a population of roughly a few hundred thousand people. The UK saw this as an identity issue writ large; the small populations in Malta, Gibraltar and Seychelles were also largely white, and didn't particularly upset the UK demographics or balance of power in Parliament. Adding circa 700,000 people in the Caribbean would add a sizeable "Black British" demographic, and potentially add around 10 MPs to Parliament - easily enough to swing close elections one way or another.

Critics derided the United Kingdom, especially in the United States where many labelled it as "a new era of colonialism", or some openly advocated for the United States to block it under the "Monroe Doctrine". Pro-integration voices shot back "who are you to decry democracy because you don't like the answer?", and pointed to the Caribbean-initiated discussion. Either way, it jointly split opinion in the United Kingdom and the United States, and the US wasn't going to send forces in to the Caribbean to oppose one of it's closest allies in world politics just after fighting in Vietnam. The consequences of the 1973 election decided it; the tiny Liberal party backed Caribbean integration, the Conservatives opposed it "on economic and financial grounds" officially, and Labour were either split or gently supported it with reservations depending on which viewpoint you went by.

The 1973 election, and quasi-victory for Callaghan (and the Liberals as the supporting party), had opened the door for the Caribbean territories however, with Liberal support. It also balanced Callaghan's 1975 Immigration Act which would substantially reduce the right-of-abode for non-UK born citizens (ie. from the colonies). By admitting the substantially black-populated Caribbean territories to the United Kingdom, even over the reservations of the Treasury, Callaghan could deflect from political accusations of direct racism with the immigration reforms, by pointing to the West Indies and their future rights to live and work in the United Kingdom itself. Late 1977 saw legislation passed by Callaghan's government to allow the integration the islands, and would be duly confirmed by a referendum across the Associated States in early 1979. All the islands voted for integration to varying degrees, although given the hosting of the referendum as a single referendum over the entire British West Indies, it was unsure what would have happened if any of the islands had themselves voted against integration.

The integration process itself would be longer then previous overseas regions, with a 12 year integration plan, to slowly bring the Caribbean islands to UK standards, whilst the islands would receive 12 Members of Parliament following the work of the English Boundary Commission in lieu of a West Indies Boundary Commission, given the disparities of island population, with Anguilla, St Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat all having to be merged in to a single Westminster constituency. For local government reasons, the islands would form a single Home Nation within the United Kingdom named the West Indies, centred in Barbados, but with strong decentralisation to the individual islands to try and avoid the kind of political infighting seen previous in the West Indies Federation. Although the new Caribbean UK islands were unready for voting in the next election, a string of "introductory" by-elections would introduce MPs for the 12 UK West Indies constituencies in 1980.

However, with economic malaise widely setting in, public sector strikes on pay, and being forced to seek a loan from the IMF to tackle Britain's financial crisis, Callaghan had sunk to a new low for popularity with the electorate. Now with Scottish devolution and West Indies integration agreed, and governing with only Liberal support, and an Parliamentary election almost at time, Callaghan called for elections in mid-1978 following the West Indies integration. The following election got distasteful, with the some local Tory groups warning against a wave of Caribbean migration if if the integration was not aborted, using outright racist phrases in some cases such as Smethwick (*4), and some commenting on a "river of blood from this nation" should it occur. Callaghan duly lost as expected, but the return of the Conservatives did not derail the West Indies integration - they were now part of the United Kingdom.

-----------------------
(*1) Reverse OTL split - instead of the Labour right splitting off to the SDP, as in this OTL following Gaitskell the Labour right have been in power, the Labour left have split off to form the Socialist Party.
(*2) The "Maltese Model" becoming the British template for devolution and the balance of powers between Westminster and the devolved nation. Scottish devolution is slightly higher then OTL, due to the existing examples of Northern Ireland as well as Malta, Seychelles & Gibraltar.
(*3) West Indies on their way in. I did wonder whether I could shoehorn Jamaica in, to give a real jolt of divergence from OTL, but I think it's a jump too far. Northern Ireland is a money drain at this point in time, and Jamaica will eclipse NI. The Treasury will have an absolute fit over it at a time when the economy is shaky anyway. Due to the East African Federation (mentioned in passing in earlier chapters) succeeding as Britain retreats a bit more slowly from Africa as no Suez, it also means that the expulsion of the Asians from Uganda hasn't happened here. So by 1974 and the UK deciding whether to agree to integration with the Caribbean, it hasn't already accepted tens of thousands of Ugandan Asians which makes it a little more open.
(*4) We all know which election slogans, but I can't bring myself to repeat those words even in an act of fiction here. They can stay in the past where they belong.

 

[Devvy]

Ted Heath
Conservative Premiership, 1978-1983, won election 1978 and 1982

Ted Heath led the United Kingdom in to Europe with support from both sides of the House of Commons

The Heath Premiership came to power as Labour fractured into splinter Labour and Socialist parties at a crossroads for the United Kingdom as it digested the West Indies integration. Whilst not admitting any new territories to the United Kingdom, unlike several of his predecessors, Heath is credited with causing fewer constitutional updates then his predecessors, but arguably of greater impact. The 1960s and 1970s had made clear the impact of Commonwealth economic integration - there was little to be found. Commonwealth nations across the globe were rapidly moving away from imperial trade towards regional trade, and extensive trade with the economic juggernaut which was the United States. Britain's trade with the larger Dominions had fallen off a cliff; Australian trade with the USA had been rapidly growing, and even in the 1960s Australia-US bilateral trade exceeded Australia-UK bilateral trade. Canada and the USA had already signed the Automotive Pact, with growing economic links, and the US already counted for 2/3 of Canada's external trade. Correspondingly, the European Free Trade Agreement, signed in 1960, had reduced trade barriers across many European countries, and stimulated trade between Britain and it's geographically closest neighbours. Even though trade had continued to improve Britain's economy, growth had not been as fast as within the European Economic Community (despite the UK now having integrated close to a million extra citizens across the overseas regions), and to Heath it seemed that Britain needed Europe to try and aid the economic recovery after the turbulence of the 1970s.

Heath's first actions were more domestic minded though, as an almost reflex action to the actions of coal mining unions in the 1970s. As part of a multi-faceted move, Heath was to authorise a programme of new nuclear power construction. This would draw upon French technical assistance, further building on Franco-British relations to "smooth" Britain's EU accession plan, whilst also reducing the power of the coal unions by substantially diversifying power generation away from coal. With the price of oil and gas and record highs following political instability in the Middle East, nuclear power would hopefully allow Britain to export much of the oil and gas now coming out of the North Sea, improving Britain's economic position - especially after the 1979 oil crisis as Iran moved towards Islamic government (ironically today largely seen as a reaction to British over-involvement in the affairs of the region). Many of the existing nuclear sites were reused; several had older reactors which either generated little power, were dual purpose for Britain's former nuclear weapons programme (now increasingly co-operative with the French), or were coming towards the late stages of their operational life, whilst one smaller one ended up - in controversial circumstances in the Maltese Assembly - situated on the grounds of the RAF Hal Far in Malta, for whom the Royal Air Force has just closed the base to concentrate all assets at RAF Ta Kali. Malta still uses the plant, generating over two thirds of it's electricity by nuclear and the plant laid the foundations for the closing of the coal-burning power stations, although it's future is in doubt given changes in public opinion.

All of this cost money however, and portions of this was achieved by in a privatisation move which somewhat mirrored a trend in the United States for greater deregulation. The United Kingdom either sold off, or completely privatised, a number of state-owned companies, including British Airways, withdrawing from active participation in the airliner manufacturing market (thus leaving what was now British Aerospace and the pan-European Airbus companies on a more market-based footing), Cable & Wireless as well as attempts at privatising the failed British Leyland / Rover group. Following the privatisation, the last of the UK Government's involvement in the aviation sector was the deregulation of the airlines, allowing a freer marketplace for flights and was rapidly followed by the Republic of Ireland as a joint aviation market considering the significant amount of Irish migrants to the United Kingdom. This led to a substantial decrease in the cost of flying domestically (including the Republic of Ireland and Crown Dependencies), which in later years would be seen as the starting trigger in the growth of low costs airlines and low cost holidays to the Mediterranean, spurring the tourist industry in those areas.

Britain's application to the European Economic Community in 1978 was therefore received with interest in Europe, who were already in the midst of studying Greece's application, and was immediately followed by an application from the Republic of Ireland. Denmark and Norway who had historically close links with Britain had earlier expressed interest, but were now vested in a Nordic Community since the early 1970s, and were pursuing Nordic integration - but leaving the opportunity open for Nordic-European integration in future. Negotiations and alignment continued throughout 1979 and 1980, progressing rapidly - and faster then Spain & Portugal due to their transition from military rule and poorer economic state, whilst Britain's existing position in EFTA had already led to soft harmonisation on many rules. It was Heath's attempts to lead the United Kingdom in to the EEC which led to constitutional reforms and the concept of the "British Realm" which would be law which applied to the entire United Kingdom - as such a "British Law" (sometimes called "Law of the Realm") referred to a law of a national basis affecting the full union of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland & Overseas Regions - as well as the remaining Empire overseas. This was as opposed to "English Law" which would continue to be used for matters specifically pertaining to English & Welsh affairs (similar to Scots Law for Scotland and Irish Law for Northern Ireland). The introduction of this concept, which introduced what was de facto "federal law" in other countries, allowed the easier separation of English (or English-Welsh) and UK-wide affairs and made the introduction of EEC Law an easier concept to introduce.

A distraction in Grenada in 1979 by an armed uprising with armed Marxist supporters was quickly put down by UK troops in the area air-lifted in to the area, taking little more than 72 hours to round up the perpetrators. A minor distraction perhaps, but the event did serve to remind Britain of it's duties outside of Great Britain and European relations early on in Heath's Premiership. Sadly it also reinforced some right wing opinions in Britain that "white people brought democracy, law & order" and similar views, empowering some right-wing groups in the 1980s, but it still reinforced the stabilising factor of UK membership.

By 1981, all UK-European negotiations had been finalised, despite the UK's large grievances over the fledgling European Fisheries Policy. The election of 1982 was largely fought over the very topic of European membership, with Heath winning re-election on his manifesto commitments, and seeing the UK (along with Ireland and Greece) joining the European Community in 1983, with the overseas regions fully becoming European Community regions. Conveniently, the admission of the UK before Spain allowed Heath to use European law to force Spain to open the border with Gibraltar upon the Spanish accession in 1988. The telecoms dispute had been largely worked around to Spanish frustration, by integrating all the UK overseas regions in to the UK +44 numbering plan, which made it difficult for Spain to block telecoms calls to British-numbered Gibraltar without cutting off telecoms to the entire of the United Kingdom. Likewise, as Gibraltarians now held a full UK passport, they could not be easily discriminated against without disadvantaging all UK travellers to Spain. European Community law mandated the equal treatment of all European citizens, and thus de facto forced Spain's hand; Spain continue to claim Gibraltar, but in reality could do little about it. UK membership of the European Community also began to ease another burning issue in the United Kingdom; that of Northern Ireland. The presence of both the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland in the European Community and thus the Customs Union meant that border between the two Irish jurisdictions became a lot more open, with no customs border or checks required. Tensions continued to simmer, but at a far lower level then previously seen as checkpoints were gradually reduced, if not eliminated.

This was all progressing well, until after Heath's early 1982 election victory, when other foreign global events started to take precedence. This was the invasion of the Falkland Islands by Argentina and followed by saber-rattling by Guatemala against the British territory of Belize. Later suspected to be co-incidental timing, the timing of both events triggered severe suspicion at the time. Belize was easier to resolve; the Guatemalan troops acted almost nothing like a selection of well drilled troops, and the Guatemalans attempted to stray across the border were quickly apprehended.

The action in the South Atlantic took 24 hours of rapid discussions at the top level of Westminster as to potential actions. As some put it "what's the use of having a military if we don't use it, and what good will a defence agreement with the UK be if the UK does not uphold it?", underlining the belief that no action would undermine every other defence pact the UK had if it did not uphold the defence of a British territory. As it turned out, the Argentine move swiftly conquered the Falkland Islands, but was predicated on the assumption that Britain (however well armed) would not care about tiny islands at the opposite end of the Atlantic, well away from any strategic areas and minimally populated. They could not have been more wrong as it turned out.

British deliberations eventually settled on a plan for action, not inaction regarding the Falklands. A rapidly assembled carrier strike group, based around the HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier - the other carrier, HMS Invincible still being out at Singapore at the time - saw the flotilla set sail for the South Atlantic. After a long sail south, the group reached the South Atlantic. The use of airborne early warning and control using old Gannet AEW.3 demonstrated the need for new AEW aircraft, but were just sufficient for requirements this time and were coaxed through the operation. These allowed the carrier launched Sea Harrier aircraft to largely repulse any Argentinian efforts to locate and target the Royal Navy ships - although notably gaps in AEW cover due to the unreliability of the aging aircraft led to an unfortunate Argentine strike on a destroyer, sinking the vessel with loss of life. In return, strike missions targeted the airport on the Falklands itself, restricting Argentinian planes to operating out of mainland Argentina, and attack submarines took an active role in targeting Argentine vessels, largely restricting them to port. The complete denial of Argentine air and sea power by the Royal Navy fully cemented the role of carrier based power projection in the UK and removed any doubt where it existed; Britain required the ability to act globally and independently.

The difficulty in supplying and supporting the Argentine troops in the Falklands made a swift recapture of the islands by the United Kingdom an almost walk in the park when the time came for the invasion of the islands. The utter defeat of Argentina led to the swift downfall of the Argentine junta, whilst reinforcing Britain's new position in the world, and securing the value of the defence treaties which Britain participated in. Even so, the requirement to act in areas of the United Kingdom which were not covered by NATO brought a re-evaluation of the UK defence requirements.

Heath was exhausted by 1983 however, being 67 years old and looking increasingly tired having handled the largest war the United Kingdom had been involved in for the last 40-or-so years. With a rejuvenated Labour opposition who had now regrouped following the tumultuous departure of MPs who formed the Socialist Party, they were increasingly upbeat despite the “war dividend” Heath had received for having defeated the Argentines. Handing in his intent to resign, Heath’s time in politics was over as he handed over the reins of the Conservative Party to new blood, and waved goodbye to Number 10.

------------------------------
Notes:
I pondered this chapter for a long time, and would like the keep the world somewhat recognisable from OTL. So Heath has become PM and led the UK in to the EEC/EU (although later than OTL, when the lack of trade partners was really beginning to show as the empire unwinds), and been a bit more successful as PM - a bit later then OTL, but still only makes him 60 when he is PM. The Commonwealth can hardly be that angry at the UK turning it's economic back on them - Gaitskell's queries in to Commonwealth trade being met with a little positivity by them.
The nuclear plants were based on the idea of the Tories wanting to crush the ability of the coal miners to disrupt the entire country, and Thatcher's "a nuclear plant a year" strategy. Given Malta's prior dependence on coal, and continuing dependence on gas, it seemed an obvious step for a UK-integrated Malta.
I looked long and hard to see if I could use a different war to the Falklands, but there are few territorial claims in the Pacific, the Caribbean and Med islands are either independent or UK-integrated. The Falklands is one of the few where there is a right-wing nationalistic junta making firm claims over a British territory which is a long way away from any British interests and so conceivably would invade despite British power - I consider Argentina to have invaded not because they thought they could defeat the UK, but because they considered they wouldn’t have to as the UK wouldn’t care about it.

 

[Devvy]

Cameron and Sarkozy sign treaties between UK and France.

Following the events of the 1950s and Egypt's forced nationalisation of the Suez Canal, the United States and United Kingdom continued to drift in their approach to international relations. The two countries had been some of the closest of allies during World War II, but events following the war made clear the difference between an globally ascendant republic and a fading colonial empire with regards to foreign policy. Some elements were not directly the fault of the governments - the revelation of Fuchs, at the heart of the British nuclear weapons programme, as handing over secrets to the Soviets drove a wedge of suspicion between the US and UK and can hardly be attributed to government policy, but it seems that distrust on both sides would fuel further distrust. This, however, then spurred further consequences such as the restricting of nuclear data from being received by United Kingdom from the United States, further frustrating British efforts to remain close to the US.

Coupled on to this in 1956 was the Suez Affair. The nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Egypt was regarded by the British as a deceitful abrogation of earlier British-Egyptian agreements, whilst in Egypt it was viewed as an exercise of domestic sovereignty over it's territory. Early efforts went in to a tripartite effort between the UK, France and Israel to prevent Egypt from striking Israel and also put the canal in to international hands. Those views were rapidly struck down after Macmillian, then Chancellor, met with Eisenhower informally, only to be told that the US would be outraged if Britain militarily intervened and would be a step backwards with regards to keeping Egypt out of the Soviet orbit. Although the level of American involvement in the British economy meant that Eden could hardly ignore the American position on the whole affair, it laid on yet another perceived blow on Britain by the United States, and this was rapidly followed by a repeated refusal from the US Navy this time to share nuclear propulsion technology (*1). In hindsight, this would turn out to be the straw which broke the camel's back of the post-war US-UK relationship. Subsequently, British involvement was only to allow the quiet use of British airfields in Cyprus by France. The Suez Affair provided Britain with a significant push away from efforts to maintain a close relationship with the United States, fearful of an invasion of Western Europe by the Soviets and a seeming American uncertainty over whether to help the Europeans with the weapons to defend themselves. Enquiries by the Americans after the Soviet Sputnik launch in 1957 as to some increased collaboration again were seen in the British Government as proof that the Americans would only act when in their own interest rather than acting collaboratively.

Following Suez, the United Kingdom and France global viewpoints rapidly converged, and began what was inevitably at the time a marriage of convenience - but one which has stuck and grown since. Joint nuclear research officially began formally in 1961, but an informal set of Anglo-French meeting of nuclear scientists had already existed for a few years, separate from the team which worked with the Americans, to whom the French team would sometimes seek validation or confirmation from - a nuclear powered game of twenty questions - to guide their research. Despite the fact this had sunk the initial efforts in to the separate European "Euratom" treaty progress (*2), overall UK-European relations didn't particularly suffer - most likely due to the UK's initial interference with the origins of the Common Market. After the French detonated a test explosion in Algeria in 1959, demonstrating the Anglo-French independent progress, a fully unified nuclear research team started and was formalised in 1961, with a now fully-fledged nuclear weapons effort, and later resulting in a fairly common nuclear missile and launch system. This nuclear sharing and military research, and increasingly aligned foreign policy (despite France being part of the Common Market and the United Kingdom not) has served as the bedrock for the Anglo-French alliance. Both nations elected to not participate, at least directly, in the Vietnam War - despite Vietnam being a former French colony, and worked vociferously to keep the Suez Canal open for traffic despite the continuous fighting in the Middle East. Attempts by the United States administration to improve it's relationship with the United Kingdom kept being undermined by other events; for example, the early 1960s saw the US Civil Aeronautics Boards decline to provide financing for US airlines seeking to purchase UK jetliners, unlike the rival US jetliners (*3).

1964 saw initial efforts in to a Channel Tunnel linking the United Kingdom and France, and this was later followed by a 1968 treaty to build the so-called Chunnel along with a new high speed rail system on either side of it to link London to Paris. Given that the end solution - an end-to-end high speed link - would only realistically work if both sides kept up their side of the bargain, steep cancellation penalties made sure neither side got cold feet, although the British Government, wary about British Rail's financial competence, assigned their share of the work in to a separate rail subsidiary, "Eurostar", from which the later European rail operator would inherit it's name. Construction started on the primary rail tunnel in 1970, opening in 1977, although the high speed rail route in to London (Broad Street) and Paris (Gare du Nord) did not open until three years later in 1980. The rail crossing of the River Thames on the British leg of the route was combined with the new Thames crossing and motorway between Rochester and Brentwood, in an effort to relieve the Dartford Tunnels, although funding issues led to the delay of the road parts by approximately 10 years and potential penalties guaranteeing the rail segments. This axis would form the original basis of the wider European Eurostar network, and continues to be the most profitable segment today due to the amount of public, governmental, research and enterprise travellers between the two capitals. However, the rail project sucked so much capital from both sides, there were plenty of projects not pursued; the supersonic airliner (*4) planned between British and French airliner manufacturers is the most famous example to be dropped which continues to be the focus of "What if..." speculations and stories on minitel (*5) message boards.

The cancellation of the supersonic airliner did, however, spur the creation of "Airbus", an economic partnership of Hawker Siddeley, Breguet and Nord Aviation (*6). This partnership was created to develop a European designed and manufactured airliner, and despite significant political challenges along the way due to the cost - eventually circumvented with the addition of the Germans, managed to start a fully-fledged airliner programme. Standardising on English as a working language - often attributed to the strong US position in the market, the project elected for metric measurements and instrumentation in the face of existing French standards and British efforts to convert to the metric system. This is often quoted as a major reason why European airline systems are today all in metric units, which was later also adopted almost the entirety of Australasia, Asia and Africa (*7). The programme delivered the A300 prototype on it's maiden flight in 1972 from Paris to London, and turned out to be the first of a few Anglo-French joint efforts in aviation.

By the 1970s, the United Kingdom and France (and by extension the Common Market) were growing closer. It was clear that the Commonwealth was no longer the prime trade partner for the United Kingdom; trade had collapsed with the Commonwealth, as many newly independent nations formed their own trade relationships and found more profitable international trade elsewhere. Some right-wing politicians saw this as an ungrateful Commonwealth turning it's back on the mother country, but in reality most could see that the United Kingdom of the 1970s was a far cry from that of the 1800s - it had almost bankrupted itself during two incredibly expensive world wars. Rapidly growing trade with the Common Market was an increasingly reality, and a tight relationship with France, led to the United Kingdom placing it's application for membership of the Common Market on the table in 1978 and rapidly negotiating it's entry alongside the Republic of Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece. Negotiations concluded rapidly for the United Kingdom, given it's existing EFTA membership, closely aligned trade with the Europeans and close relationship with France, which allowed the United Kingdom (along with the Republic of Ireland) to hop to the front of the queue - not the least bit aided by the fact the United Kingdom would help balance the impact of Spain and Portugal joining the bloc.

Today, the United Kingdom continued to hold a special relationship with France, built up over the decades - an entente fratenale, instead of cordiale as it once was. Whilst the French-German axis in Europe may be the economic engine of the bloc, London holds the coin, and much of the important global grand-standing for Europe is done by the United Kingdom and France as per two of few nuclear armed nations, United Nations security council permanent members, as well as both with highly capable militaries. Both are (now) traditionally the first foreign trip for a new leader (*8), both countries usually learn each other's language as a first foreign language, and both now share a number of multinational corporations operating in both nations - one of the most publicly obvious being in supermarket shopping, with Carrefour present in many areas of the UK, and the reverse seeing Tesco in many areas of France (*9).

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(*1) From Wikipedia: ...despite Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover, in charge of the American naval nuclear power programme, being set against any transfer of technology; indeed, Rickover prevented Mountbatten inspecting USS Nautilus. It was not until a visit to Britain in 1956 that Rickover changed his mind and withdrew his objections.
In this TL, that visit to the UK never happens as a consequence of the PoD.
(*2) Butterflying away Euratom, with UK-French efforts largely replacing it.
(*3) This largely happened OTL, but was waved away. It's easy to wave things away when you're good friends, but when you're not on such friendly terms such events appear like a slap in the face.
(*4) No Concorde here, due to cost.
(*5) Cough, minitel, cough cough. What I'm calling the European internet it evolves in to.
(*6) The original Airbus attempts go ahead as UK-French co-operation without the British pulling out.
(*7) I might rewrite this based on feedback if needed, but as far as I can tell, the aviation market uses imperial measurements due to the widespread use of American planes in the infancy of the aviation market. The introduction of this early Airbus, based on UK-French co-operation - with the French already metric, and the UK at this point going metric, might swing much of the market. As far as I can tell, the Soviet Union and China at least used to use metric aviation measurements, so I figured that with the UK-French attempt, the Soviet Union, China and their exports of Airbus planes, it might swing the market in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australasia to metric aviation. If anyone can dig up more detailed information which would invalidate this, please let me know, but that's as far as I could get.
(*8) As far as I can tell, a trip to Paris is high up on the early trips for a new PM anyway.
(*9) Both Carrefour and Tesco did operate in each other's territories in OTL, it just didn't last long....unlike here. I remember shopping at Tesco in France many many years ago.

And also.....no space discussion yet. It's there, it's just not done yet, and likely a chapter unto itself.
PS: Just because Cameron and Sarkozy are in the picture, doesn't necessarily mean they both end up as heads of government; the could both be foreign ministers, relevant defence ministers, something else. Not got anywhere near that far forward yet in writing.

 

[Devvy]

Margaret Thatcher
Conservative Premiership, 1983-1986

The Conservative Party continues to be a supporter of British membership of Europe despite some ideological differences,. (*1)

Thatcher was the seemingly unlikely winner of the leadership election to succeed Heath as Conservative Party leader, and thus British Prime Minister. Coming to power as an apparently last ditch effort by the Commonwealth wings of the Conservatives (often nicknamed the Empire Tories), they saw Britain's future as more actively engaging with Commonwealth partners, and a closer relationship with the United States, in contrast to the European wing spearheaded by her predecessor (Heath) who had taken the United Kingdom in to the European Community.

Thatcher did not last long in the role though, as the public perceived her as a sharp “turn to the right”, and with overly enthusiastic strategies for deregulation and free market reforms. She was, however, Britain’s first female Prime Minister, and set the stage for future female leaders - however, she was also the first Prime Minister in a long time to face a serious assassination attempt as the Provisional Irish Republican Army reacted unkindly to her statement in Parliament that “Northern Irish affairs were solely a matter for the people of Northern Ireland, the Northern Irish Assembly, and this Parliament alone” - the last words referring to the British Parliament, and a sharp rejection of Irish unification (*2).

Integration in to the UK also continued in the West Indies. The introduction of British taxation to the islands caused a shock - especially the new Value Added Tax, but the provision of publicly funded services and investment in to the islands brought new funding to the islands. Renovation of the main airport in Barbados began during Thatcher’s period as Prime Minister, serving a dual purpose as the key aviation hub in the British Caribbean, whilst also being a principal military base for both the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy in the aftermath of the Grenada affair. The integration of the West Indies to the United Kingdom (*3) also presented an element of regional integration; for the first time it produced full freedom of movement for citizens, and also freedom of movement for business and goods - even with the adjacent French islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique considering both were now European Community territories (as well as Dutch islands too). With full UK integration, West Indies goods and produce began to appear more frequently in UK shops, whilst a small trickle of people began to migrate, enticed by British universities & further education, or just the prospect of better jobs and wages.

Whilst again Thatcher would not welcome any new territory in to the United Kingdom; the focus was firmly on integrating what had already been accepted. Enlargement of the UK-Irish Common Travel Area occurred, which introduced the overseas regions of the United Kingdom in to the Common Travel Area, at the cost of requiring some form of official ID for flights (checked during boarding) - which kept Northern Ireland on the same level as the rest of the United Kingdom. Territory continued to slip away from the British Empire; Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, and several other smaller Pacific island territories gained independence. The embargo over Rhodesian trade had not been entirely successful, but had been enough of a pain to bring the Rhodesians back to the negotiating table, producing a roadmap to democracy and legal independence as the nation of Zimbabwe. A brief British flirtation with the United States commenced (*4), with Thatcher and Bush finding ample common ground on conservatism and reducing taxation. However, beyond the two of them, there were now a multitude of smaller issues in the relationship ranging from US Senators who saw the UK integration of the West Indies as the UK "barging in to the US yard" or an "outright violation" of the US Monroe Doctrine, whilst in the UK some resented what they perceived as US interference in British policy making or just resented some American viewpoints on the British integration of the West Indies.

Domestically however, things were creaking. Intentionally or not, much of Heath's Premiership had been focussed on foreign affairs, whether dealing with situations in Grenada or the Falklands, or accession to the European Community. Public services had received less attention in Parliament with such focus overseas, but the reality was that some services had been creaking, especially in England and Wales where no devolution existed. Reform began with a business led re-organisation of British Rail which sapped considerable public resources, and transformation (to a state-owned company) or outright privatisation of some public organisations such as the National Freight Corporation or the British Airport Authority. Many social housing tenants received the ability to purchase their homes, and several public utilities were reorganised such as the split of what would become the Royal Mail and British Telecommunications, as well as the reformation of the CEGB (for Great Britain, the Central Electricity Generation Board) in to British Electric which continues to market itself as British Electrical Energy, and known domestically as "the bee". Smaller efforts such as the liberalisation of Sunday trading laws also passed, despite significant opposition (*5).

Thatcher was also the first Prime Minister to visit China (People's Republic of), where initial discussions began over the future of Hong Kong - much of the territory being under a lease which would expire in 1997. Negotiations began over the future of the overseas territory, with Thatcher lobbying hard for some kind of future role for Britain in Hong Kong, but Zhao rebutted all attempts at a British continuation. Her key target with regards to Hong Kong, despite the ticking lease issue over the New Territories, was a commitment from the Chinese to pursue their aim of unification peacefully and diplomatically instead of marching in and taking it by force, and Thatcher appears to have succeeded in this regard (*6). Negotiations were paused by the holding of Thatcher’s 1986 election, something which further emboldened the Chinese negotiators.

The 1986 election, held 4 years after the previous election, was called for when Thatcher thought she was at her strongest. This followed some successful privatisations of businesses, along with continued success in integrating the overseas regions of the United Kingdom, and some grandstanding on the world stage. However, it wasn’t enough to win the election. Her economic methods, pursuing low inflation to attract investment over employment figures had caused significant disaffection, particularly in the north of England, within only 3 years of her taking charge of the country. 1986 would therefore see the end to 8 years of Conservative rule - the first time since the 1950s/1960s a British Government had stayed in power for more than one election.

Later historians have, however, credited her early election with avoiding a greater fall for the Conservatives. The election could have easily gone far worse then it did, but the rapid drop of Thatcher after the election and swing back to more "moderate Conservatism" led to the rise of the later Reformation party who sought to upset the political establishment with an anti-European, pro-US, free-trade and more aggressive deregulation philosophy - later merging with the remaining Liberal Party remnants (*7).

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Notes: Thatcher in, Thatcher out. There’s no Falkland shield around her this time - Heath holds that - and so her economic reforms have doomed her, even before her OTL larger economic reforms could take place. I debated whether to include Thatcher here, or have her replaced by someone else, but I figured the right-wing section of the Conservatives will manifest themselves one way or another.

(*1) Ironic picture I think, considering what was to come....
(*2) Although in this TL, Northern Ireland isn't as violent as OTL (especially without Bloody Sunday), it's still a highly divided community and comments as brash as Thatcher's won't be well received.
(*3) Continuing here, integration taking the form not just of investment in the overseas regions, but also in the elimination of vile rules such as racist employment policies.
(*4) Whilst I think the US-UK relations won't be negative, nor will they be bad, they just won't be as tight as OTL. There are a lot of common objectives, especially as part of the Cold War.
(*5) Some privatisations happen here, and some reformation of public bodies such as the British Airport Authority in to state owned corporations.
(*6) Hong Kong en route for a peaceful handover roughly as per OTL.
(*7) Whilst it won't pop up straight away, expect a right-wing UKIP/Brexit style party to pop up, even if it's not quite as popular as OTL.