Franco-British Union

The Franco-British Union (French: Union franco-britannique) is a dual state and bi-confederation of the United Kingdom (UK) and the French Republic, located in North-Western Europe. The United Kingdom consists of the island of Great Britain, the far northern region of the island of Ireland and several smaller outlying islands, and is separated from France and the European mainland by a strait of water known as the English Channel. The territory of metropolitan France reaches from the English Channel coast in the north to the Mediterranean Sea and the border with Spain to the south.

The confederation between the two states was formed during World War II as part of a close alliance between the two neighbouring powers against Axis forces, and following the end of the war and the start of the Cold War, as a bulwark against the expanding Communist bloc, formed at the heart of Europe's old colonial empires. The country is the leading nation of the Alliance of Free States and one of the world's superpowers, alongside the United American Republics and the Soviet Union.

French and British Empires
Blah blah blah Romans blah blah Celts blah blah Middle Ages blah blah imperialism

In 1904, France and the United Kingdom signed the Entente Cordiale, a series of diplomatic agreements that forged an alliance between the two European colonial powers, which in the past had suffered from an often fractitious relationship. Reaching mutual agreements on each of the empires' respective future colonial expansions, the arrangement united the nations against the insurgent European power of Germany and its allies. In 1907, France and Britain would enter into a further alliance with the Russian Empire, forming the Triple Entente. The web of alliances between the European bourgeois powers had by now developed into two main factions - the Entente, dominated by Britain, France and Russia, and the Central Powers, dominated by Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. This set the stage for the First World War, one of the first large-scale post-industrial conflicts, which would devastate Europe and the countries across the world drawn into it, ultimately serving as a catalyst for the rise of socialism worldwide.

The trigger for the War would finally come on 28 June 1914, when a groups of Serbian nationalists assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in Bosnia. In response Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia in spite of the assassins' lack of government sponsorship, triggering a Russian response and from then on, the rest of the Entente and Central Powers through their complex series of military alliances. In order to bypass the highly militiarized Franco-German border, Germany would invade the states of Belgium and Luxembourg. The UK would finally be drawn into the conflict by the violation of Belgian neutrality. In spite of their best laid plans, logistical difficulties and a slower-than-expected conquest of Belgium resulted in Reich losing much of its forecast advantages. The Western Front would soon be locked into an uncomfortable stalemate, with much of north-east France stuck in a gridlock between the alliances. The United States under William Howard Taft would soon enter the war in order to support their Entente allies, and the bloody, industrial-scale war would drag on with little in the way gains for either side. This was perhaps exemplified the best at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, a prolonged struggle lasting several months that left well over a million dead, yet only marked a few kilometres in frontline movement. Meanwhile, Russia would face a revolution at home before the war had even finished, and following the rise of the Bolsheviks in the second phase of the revolution, would soon withdraw from the war entirely. However, despite being able to concentrate their forces on the Western Front, Germany would soon face severe pushback towards the border following an initial surge. Meanwhile, the Allies would soon find themselves unable to supply food or equipment to their troops, leaving the war almost impossible to continue from either side. An armistice was finally reached in October, with both the US and Germany facing significant internal unrest in the form of mutinies and strikes, in the form of the Biennio Rosso and the German Revolution respectively. The war was officially ended on 30 May 1919, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles resulting in territorial gains for France, the confiscation of German overseas colonies and Germany ordered to pay reparations to the Entente. While the Entente had won, the empires of France and Britain soon found themselves in a rapidly changing world. The Red Tide had begun.

In the aftermath of WW1, the UK would also have to contend with the Irish War of Independence. With the conflict's roots dating back to a long history of colonialism on the island by its larger neighbour, the conflict had additional community-based sectarian dimensions, with the Protestant population concentrated in Ulster (a community marked by descent from Scottish and English settlers as well as Irish) largely remaining loyal to the British crown, in contrast to the mostly Catholic population of the rest of the island. Following a landslide victory for Irish nationalists in the elections of December 1918, they declared independence and attempted to form a breakaway government in 1919, following which conflict between British forces and separatists would escalate throughout the year. Following increasing attacks against the army and police, the British authorities would recruit reinforcements for the Royal Irish Constabulary from Great Britain. Known as the "Black and Tans", these recruits became notorious for their brutality, serving as de facto death squads, alienating public opinion against the war. Exhausted following the war in Europe and facing overseas diplomatic pressure, Britain would eventually come to a peace agreement with rebels. The Anglo-Irish treaty was signed in 1921, with Ireland being partitioned between the 25-county Southern Ireland, which recieved Dominion status, and the Protestant-majority Northern Ireland, which remained part of the UK. However, sections of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) which continuted to oppose the Treaty and the partition of Ireland would continue to rebel against the British state, leading to a continuing low-level insurgency in Ireland.

France and the United Kingdom were not spared from the worker uprisings sweeping the West on home territory, with large-scale industrial action regularly affecting major cities. However, with the boom of the Roaring Twenties manging to make a hit fairly quickly, conflict soon abated. However, fear of Communism in Britain and France remained high, especially with the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Revolution. In January 1926, one radio play about a hypothetical revolution caused panic in London, revealing the unease rife within British society.

With the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the two powers would once again be under strain. Britain was forced to abandon the gold standard in 1931, the indigenous population of "non-white" colonies (such as India) increasingly agitated for Home Rule status, and both domestic far-right and far-left movements grew in support. 1933 would see the MacArthur Putsch in the United States and the subsequent outbreak of the Second American Civil War, a conflict which neither France nor Britain were able to effectively intervene in at the time, as such a scenario had not been properly foreseen or prepared for in advance. The British government, under the control of the Conservative Party and with strong ties to Canada, was more definitive in their opposition to the Reds, while France, under the control of a centre-left coalition government, effectively opted for a position of neutrality. British prime minister Stanley Baldwin declared a state of emergency across the Commonwealth on 1 July following the Red victory in the Battle of Washington D.C., and reservists were drafted back into the Navy in a rushed attempt to prepare for an emergency scenario. However, due to the Depression and the unforseen nature of the events, war was not a viable option. Following unofficial meetings with diplomats representing the newly-formed United Republics in Canada, the UK decided to cancel debt obligations to the NSF-led US government, further throwing the White forces into financial ruin, while France and Britain would finally grant official recognition to the United Republics government on 20 September. However, the alliance between Britain and America had been shattered, with the UASR government angered by British support for the MacArthur regime.

During the rest of the 1930s, the United Kingdom would refocus itself on orienting its foreign policy against the UASR, building up military force in Canada and seeking anti-communist allies in the remaining capitalist states of Latin America. Meanwhile, following the collapse of Edouard Daladier coalition government in France in November 1933, the French state would shift to the right, and adopt similar foreign policies to their British counterparts. The secret Kiel Conference of 1934 would even see diplomatic rapprochment between Britain and France and the new Nazi regime governing Germany, as an attempted gambit against the Soviet Union. Measures agreed in the Conference allowed for Germany to militarize itself in spite of the agreements of the Versailles treaty, and increased economic ties, allowing for the German economy to recover well from the Great Depression.

Demographics
The largest demographic groups in the Franco-British Union are the Anglo-Saxons and the French. Assorted Celtic groups in the FBU form a substantial minority, with the French Bretons forming the largest such Celtic minority followed by the Scots. Afro-British and Afro-French are a large growing minority following increased immigration from African nations like Algeria and the East African Federation into the Union, as are Indian and Arabian immigration. There is a significant East Asian community, the descendants of wealthy expatriates from China, Vietnam, and Japan. Some migrant populations from elsewhere in Europe are common, whether on a temporary or permanent basis.

Politics & Government
The Franco-British Union is a confederal state consisting of the countries of the United Kingdom (commonly known as Britain) and France, a constitutional monarchy and a presidential republic respectively. Both of them have bicameral legislatures, and there is also a single federal bicameral legislature for the union at-large. FBU politics have been dominated by the anti-communist People's Alliance almost since its inception; formed from a combination of much of the remainder of the British Liberal party, nearly the entirey of the British Conservative Party, the confusingly named Radical Socialist and Radical Republican party of France (in actuality firmly in the social liberal centre), the French Democratic Republican Party, Oswald Mosley's New Party, remnants of the French Social Party and later the rightward sections of the SFIO and Labour parties that split off over Labour-SFIO's more leftist turns.

As a big tent party and the predominant party of FBU politics, the factions within the People's Alliance are almost as important as fully separate parties. The various factions of the People's Alliance run nearly the entire gamut of liberalism from the rightward sections of Social Democracy and even Spanish inspired left-Carlism at the farthest left to one nation tories and free market fundamentalist neoliberals at the right. The centre of the party is generally regarded as triangulated between the Mosley inspired New Party's managerialism and class peace tactics, the French Radicals' Social Liberalism, and Christian Democracy. Overall, its economic policy has tended towards Dirigisme to more effectively manage resources and to foster a beneficial relationship with the largest companies within the Entente cordiale rather than allow them to act freely in a manner that might be harmful to the nation in the long run. Its social policy has traditionally been cautiously conservative but accepting of gradual change as issues become mainstream.

The party was formed in the wake of World War II following the end of the Clement Attlee government in response to the Third Red Scare with the consolidation of the Socialist Republics of China, Choson, and Nippon and the partition of Germany and Italy and the sparking of conflict in the Horn of Africa, West Asia, and Southeast Asia. Formed in 1949 from its constituent parties with the assent of party leaders Edouard Daladier, Paul Reynaud, Oswald Mosley, and Anthony Eden, the party seized power in the 1950 General Election and held fast onto it afterwards, only occasionally needing to resort to forming coalitions to retain its hold on politics. From its first Prime Minister; Anthony Eden, to its latest one, Christine Lagarde who has assumed leadership following Anthony Blair's retirement citing "exhaustion" with politics, the People's Alliance has a somewhat notoriously high turnover rate for its premiership.

Traditionally, the largest opposition party has been the democratic socialist Labour Party, a short hand for its full name of "The Entente of the British Labour Party and the French Section of the Worker's International (L'entente de le parti travailliste britannique et le section française de l'Internationale ouvrière) (often referred to as Labour-SFIO for short). The party is traditionally a collection of Social Democrats, Democratic Socialists, and Austro-Marxists who represent the party's right, centre, and left respectively who are committed to an "evolutionary" model of socialism based on what they believe are the unique conditions of the Franco-British Union. Traditionally strong among organised labour, the party has traditionally rejected insurgency and political violence and typically views the Comintern as something to keep at arm's length, admired perhaps but not looked to for leadership as only an organically western European movement can truly navigate the conditions of Western Europe. Following the death of Iain M. Banks in a battle with cancer, the author has been succeeded as joint party leader by his former French deputy; the young Frenchwoman Emanuelle Cosse, with British leftist stalwart Jeremy Corbyn being chosen as her British deputy.

The second mainstream party among the left opposition is the Entente Section of the Communist International (Section Entente de l'Internationale Communiste). Formed from a merger of the Commonwealth Worker's Party in Britain and the French Communist Party during the second world war, the party is presently dominated by its Orthodox Marxist faction under the overall leadership of Secretary General Peter Capaldi. The current faction has not only made peace within the rather famously internall divided party but also with its traditional rival for the leftist vote; the Labour Party. For most of the 20th century it was joked that ESCI and Labour-SFIO hated each other more than the People's Alliance something that the two decided to correct by making amends over their differences in approaches to socialism and how to achieve revolutionary transformation. Now forming a coalition the two parties make up the bulk of the Union's legislative "Left Opposition".

More minor parties in the left opposition have sometimes drifted in and out of public consciousness and politics. The Albania-supported CPEC formed out of Stalinist hardliners in both France and Britain for a time repudiated the ESCI for its "deviationism" and "decadence" and castigated Labour-SFIO as "social fascists" and espoused politics inspired by Hoxha's Albania and the first period of the Socialist Republic of Nippon as well as their interpretation of Stalinist orthodoxy. The Socialist Party of the Entente Cordial (formerly the Socialist Party of Great Britain) instead criticises comintern policies from a more Menshevik position, attaking their lack of commitment to electoralism and securing public mandate to the continuation of the Cold War as well as Labour for being "handmaidens with delusions of grandeur" while being attacked in return as "grandiose utopian liberals" by the ESCI and "utterly incapable of action" by Labour. Other leftist movements include the Green Party of the Entente which has joined the current coalition with the ESCI and Labour-SFIO and assorted Celtic nationalist parties which have not.

The People's Alliance also faces some dissent towards its right, who usually contend that the political establishment is insufficiently committed to the battle for civilisation, opportunity, anti-communism, the free market, Anglo or French identity, or any number of other issues. The right opposition consists primarily of the Liberty, a market liberal party that ranges from simply austere free market fundamentalism to outright minarchist depending on the faction. While relatively young and heavily factionalist, it has managed to become a fixture in politics to a degree no other right opposition party has managed. Its primary unifying element is an unabashed commitment to laissez-faire Capitalism and an opposition to "concessions" to the left as well as a theoretical commitment to culturally libertine policies such as relaxed views on drug use and greater acceptance of the LGBT community. Though in practise as the LGBT movement grew more prominent; particularly the transgender section, Liberty has often outright opposed "babying" the community and has a history of less than fortunate remarks on race and gender as well as a long list of underaged sex scandals.

It is joined in the right opposition by eclectic gathering of small heterodox conservative and extreme right wing parties. The French nationalist and integralist Action française (AF) is one of the longest running far right parties in the FBU, joined more recently by the English Defense League. These two parties are most famous for opposing the existence of the FBU as a whole, with party orthodoxy holding that for a true commitment to fatherland and civilisation this very internationalist union must be split. This in recent years lead to the two parties losing ground to the more conciliatory Normanist Movement; a darling of the fascist adjacent far right that wholeheartedly believes in the shared history of Britain and France while still promoting many of the quasi-fascist policies that drew the AF and EDL's voterbases in the first place. While the more extreme sections of the right opposition detest the establishment (and are generally detested by the establishment in turn), they traditionally vote in lock step with the People's Alliance against the left opposition's measures if they're perceived as a threat. This has lead to the accusation that these parties are essentially drain traps and cat's paws used as cudgels against the left.

The fourth and least substantial force is the so called "centrist opposition", which is an ever shifting grab bag of right-social democrats, social liberals, technocratic, and neoliberal parties; few of which last for more than a decade and even fewer ever manage to get more than ten seats. Continually vexed by the perception that they're simply cast aways from the People's Alliance who fell out of favour; something worsened by the tendency for the most prominent centre opposition parties at any given point to model itself after whichever factions of the people's alliances are currently out of favour; these parties are often regarded as more of a joke than a serious force in politics. The final, stubborn remnants of the old British whigs who refused assimilation into other parties and cling to the Whig Label in particular are often mocked as "dinosaurs who've missed the memo about their own extinction".

Perhaps the two most consistent faces within the dissident centre that arose after the second American revolution is the "Entente Branch of Technocracy inc"; originally formed from a selection of STEM professionals inspired by some conversations with the small handfuls of American technocrats who decided to leave rather than give the UASR a chance; and the Progressive Liberal Party inspired by the Empire of Brazil's own predominant Imperial Progressive party. While the former is definitely considered the more heterodox of the bunch, it has managed to remain present in politics for several decades through resisting virtually every effort to take its somewhat small but committed voting base from it. The Progressive Liberal Party is also currently small, but hopes to "make real, necessary change without throwing the baby out with the bathwater" in the FBU and has made some steady gains since it was registered within the FBU.

Foreign relations
AFS, Commonwealth, etc

Economy
The Franco-British Union is no longer the world's largest capitalist economy after having been passed by the Greater Indian Commonwealth in the 21st century but it retains a tremendous deal of influence through its substantially higher individual per capita wealth as well as its economic domination of western and northern Europe as well as north Africa. The degree of domination that the FBU holds over the European Continental Federation economically has lead to some labeling the entire organisation as an extension of the FBU's economy, a frequent bone of contention with Eurosceptic movements within the ECF. As a traditionally dirigiste entity, the entente government has cultivated close ties to the largest companies that call its metropole home that are deemed to have a substantial degree of importance to national security and traditionally involves organised labour in discussions, though it also heavily favours patriotic, business, and religious unions over those affiliated with the TUC and the IWW.

The FBU often has more neoliberal phases depending on the shifting forces within politics, but neoliberalism has never been able to permanently unseat dirigisme as the economic consensus of the Union. The neoclassical revival of the 1970s was halted by the crises of the 1980s that saw dirigiste polices return in full swing. Blair's Robbins Curve influenced policies meant to maximise revenue available for social programs with an overall trend towards greater rationalistation that emerged as the new Orthodoxy in the latter portion of the first decade of the 21st century have recently been challenged by Neo-Keynesian interventionist economics as the threat of an end to the period of "the long detente" becomes more apparent and economists become more pessimistic about being able to avoid renewed tensions.

TV
The Entente Broadcasting Corporation (Radiodiffusion de l'Entente) was formed in 1946, when British public radio and television broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation absorbed French state broadcaster Radiodiffusion Nationale.

As the main public broadcaster for the Franco-British Union, EBC is funded primarily by a budget set by the Entente Parliament and television license fees. While nominally independent of direct government control, it is overseen by the "Board of Governors", the members of which are government appointed. In practice, this means the EBC toes the line of the dominant People's Alliance, avoiding any direct criticism of the government or its actions. It also vets employees to prevent "radicalism" from influencing programming. In practice, this prevented communists or even moderate socialists from gaining employment until the early 1990's.

Prominent EBC shows include Doctor Who, Monty Python's Flying Circus, and the Rowan Atkinson Show. It also has branches and offices all around the world.

Starting in the 50's, with the Television Act of 1954, commercial television began to take hold from the EBC monopoly. ITV was directly formed from the act in 1955, and RKO-TV, owned and operated by Howard Hughes, would begin broadcasting in 1956. While both initially had provisions for "public service" as part of their licensing agreements, deregulation in 1971 would end those obligations for commercial television. This would pave the way for partisan right wing broadcasting, such as Hughes-Welch Broadcasting Company, founded by Hughes and Robert Welch, in 1976 and Rupert Murdoch's Sky TV in 1982. Ted Kennedy's Global News Network, formed in 1979 would use the novel technology of satellite broadcasting to provide 24 hour news.

Music
Franco-British music was heavily influenced both by local musicians prior to the formation of the union and heavily by imported American music.