Elections in a United Anglosphere

[Clark Kent]

Let's say that, hypothetically, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all decide to join the United States. All four British countries, all Canadian provinces (except PEI, which is absorbed into New Brunswick), all Australian states, and New Zealand are each admitted as one state. Everybody is as patriotic to this new greater United States as they are to their existing nation, and because of American laws, secessionists (Quebec, Scotland, etc.) can't really do much. All local laws stay in place as state laws, except for those that contradict the US Constitution. For example, the British states get to keep the NHS at the state level, but their laws limiting free speech are thrown out.

What kind of impact does this have on the world? What do elections look like, and what parties emerge?

EDIT: Also, maps welcome.

[Kingpoleon]

I'd assume we would have a system similar to the U. K. in terms of political parties. Let's say the three main parties are the Progressive Democratic(center-left), Liberal Reform(center), and the National Republican(center-right). A SNP equivalent, something like the United Autonomous Party, would be a wide ranging autonomous/separatist group. A UKIP, let's call it the National Union Party, would form the right to far right wing. Finally, a Solidarity Party forms the left to far left wing.

The Anglosphere has about 450,000,000 people in it, so any population proportional representation would probably have one million people per district.

[Clark Kent]

I agree that we'd get a multiparty system with two or three main parties.

Possible names and politicians:

Progressive Party - Most members of the Canadian NDP, American progressive Democrats, most British and New Zealand Laborites; Left-wing

Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warren
Keith Ellison
Sherrod Brown
Thomas Mulcair
Jeremy Corbyn

Liberal Democratic Party - Mainstream/establishment Democrats, most Canadian Liberals, Australian Laborites, moderate/conservative British Laborites; Center-left to center

Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton
Joe Biden
Justin Trudeau
Julia Gillard
Tony Blair

Conservative Party - Mainstream/establishment Republicans, most British and Canadian Conservatives, Australian Liberals/Nationals, New Zealand Nationals; Center-right

John Kasich
Jeb! Bush
Marco Rubio
Mitt Romney
David Cameron
Malcolm Turnbull
Stephen Harper
Theresa May
Tony Abbott

National Party - Paleocons, some libertarians, populists, UKIP, and the Tea Party; Right-wing

Ted Cruz
Rand Paul
Pat Buchanan
Nigel Farage
Boris Johnson

Liberal Party - Classical liberals, some libertarians; Center

Gary Johnson
Nick Clegg
Clive Palmer
David Seymour
David Leyonhjelm

[Kingpoleon]

Now, see, I think the Liberals and Liberal Democrats have too much crossover. Maybe put Biden and Trudeau in the Liberals and the others in the Progressive Party. Clegg and Trudeau are a lot closer ideologically than Trudeau and Blair.

[Clark Kent]

Now, see, I think the Liberals and Liberal Democrats have too much crossover. Maybe put Biden and Trudeau in the Liberals and the others in the Progressive Party. Clegg and Trudeau are a lot closer ideologically than Trudeau and Blair.

The way Wikipedia could describe it, I'd say that the Liberal Democrats are more "social liberals" and the Liberals are more "classical liberals".

[Clark Kent]

So this would mean the other smaller countries that became states are forced to adopt American gun laws, right?  If so, that would be a major, major controversy, to the point where I would expect a single issue gun control party to try to deadlock the Senate and control SCOTUS appointments.

Federal laws, yes, but England, the Australian states, etc. can still pass strict gun laws like New York or California.

[Clark Kent]

Well, there's already one potential political issue. Any more we can think of?

[Boston Bread]

I don't think US establishment GOPers and other Anglosphere conservatives would be in the same party. They would disagree on abortion, doing anything on climate change, universal healthcare, opposition to which is very important to mainstream American conservatism. Chances are the GOP would be on its own, while another Conservative party represents the mainstream right elsewhere.

[Kingpoleon]

I don't think US establishment GOPers and other Anglosphere conservatives would be in the same party. They would disagree on abortion, doing anything on climate change, universal healthcare, opposition to which is very important to mainstream American conservatism. Chances are the GOP would be on its own, while another Conservative party represents the mainstream right elsewhere.

They could easily merge behind someone like Mitch Daniels or Boris Johnson.

[Clark Kent]

I don't think US establishment GOPers and other Anglosphere conservatives would be in the same party. They would disagree on abortion, doing anything on climate change, universal healthcare, opposition to which is very important to mainstream American conservatism. Chances are the GOP would be on its own, while another Conservative party represents the mainstream right elsewhere.

Someone like Mitt Romney, George Pataki, or William Weld could easily unite them. Plus, most of the Tea Partyers would be with UKIP et. al. in the National Party.

[Clark Kent]

Bump

[Kingpoleon]

I'd assume passports, gun control, and birth certificate would all be ultra-national issues.

[Clark Kent]

I'd assume passports, gun control, and birth certificate would all be ultra-national issues.

Passports would be national issues, like they are now. Birth certificates and gun control would still be state issues.

[IceAgeComing]

the only sensible POD which would make this make any sense involves the US never existing, and perhaps a long protracted American Independence War leading to a negotiated peace that gave the American Colonies (probably including Canada, and sadly probably excluding areas with majority native populations) parliamentary representation along with significant local powers and that would set a precedent that would be extended to Australia or New Zealand in the late 19th or early 20th century; perhaps also South Africa and maybe India as well.

In terms of parties it depends on what sort of party system you have: FPTP you'd have broad-spectrum centre-left and centre-right parties (similar probably to Labour and the Tories really); most probably a liberal party sitting in the middle, there'd be a rise of a radical-right party (similar to UKIP or the right-wing of the GOP) and if you had PR there'd probably be .  Regionalist parties would play a prominent role in such a large diverse state: not necessarily movements for independence (although I'd imagine that nationalist movements would still exist in places like Quebec especially since the language issue would be very prominent); .  Certainly the parties won't be particularly unitary and you might end up seeing a situation like Belgium where each area has their own separate political parties that work together to form clumsy coalitions with lots of parties; and sometimes groups working with parties that aren't their ideological equivalent elsewhere.

Even under the unrealistic scenario laid out in the OP its not like the independence movements would ever die out; if anything they'd just get stronger in places like Wales.  Frankly the first election after that you'd probably see nationalist parties, both those of the left like the SNP or the BQ or Plaid and those of the right like UKIP win huge majorities in local parliaments and probably form a bulk of, since any move in that direction would have been based on a very slim majority of people overall, which wouldn't exist in somewhere like Scotland where you have a large independence movement.  You'd probably see things go down the Catalunya route where an SNP-lead Scottish Parliament would have votes on independence that they'd probably have votes that would be boycotted by firm Americanists; and if ever you got 50% of the electorate voting for it you'd probably see international sympathy be on the side of Scotland and although that wouldn't be particularly important since America is very big it'd be something that Russia or other countries would point at as an example of America being bad.  Its pretty clear that is a totally different case to the Civil War anyway: the latter was the leaders of states deciding to take arms against the country that they were a part of because they didn't like an election result and because they wanted to still hold slaves; while the former would be a democratic movement allowing a group of people to have their right of self-determination, and the result of which ought to be respected on all sides.