I recently stumbled across this old* Huffington Post article by James Bloodworth, editor of Left Foot Forward, speculating about what a British fascism would look like. I don’t think it’s actually very good but it’s a fascinating question to ponder.
And yet, were a far-Right government ever to win power in Britain – and never get too complacent, for a Searchlight poll last February found a staggeringly high number of voters who said they would be prepared to vote for party of the far-Right if it renounced violence – what might it do in its first year of power?
This is pure speculation of course, but interesting all the same, I think.
One of my favourite works of fiction in recent years was Dominion by C.J. Sansom which depicts a Britain that surrendered in World War 2 and has become a satellite state of Nazi Germany. I found it much more plausible than Bloodworth’s speculations but perhaps that’s in part due to gradually showing this world over 500 pages rather than baldly stating it in a 1500 word blog post.
Thanks to Danny Birchall for sharing this film – “It Happened Here”:
There’s also a 2004 documentary drama which addressed this question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NnsRCt8TGM (embedding disabled)
I wonder if counter-factual drama of this sort can be included within the remit of design fiction for digital public sociology?
*Well 2012. I’m not sure when that became ‘old’.
Mark Carrigan 