Franco-British Union

Franco-British Union (French: Union franco-britannique) is a dual state and bi-confederation of the United Kingdom and the French Republic, located in North-Western Europe. 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. (Atrocities go here) 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 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.

Government and politics
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, befitting the state's role as the world's biggest capitalist power. Traditionally, the largest opposition party has been the democratic socialist Labour Party, which along with the Marxist-DeLeonist Entente Section of the Communist International makes up the bulk of the Union's legislative "Left Opposition".

Foreign relations
AFS, Commonwealth, etc

Economy
World's most prominent laissez-faire capitalist economy, but more welfare than OTL as a defensive manuver in the face of the Red Tide, afraid of being eclipsed by the Indians/Nigerian/Brazilians