Thread by @Will_Tanner_1

When was the last time that England and her glorious Empire could have been saved from becoming a decaying, socialist hell?

Many say, incorrectly, either WWI, when the empire was exhausted, or WWII when it was bankrupted

The real answer is 1911, with the Parliament Bill🧵👇

The fight that led to the Parliament Bill began in 1909, with Winston Churchill's so-called People's Budget

By that point, Churchill had shifted to the Liberals from the Conservatives and was allied with Lloyd George to tax the landed elite into oblivion, despite his family being part of that elite.

The bill sparked a huge fight that culminated in England declaring war on its traditions and history in the name of socialism

The problem with the People's Budget was that it was the first overtly socialist law to come to England

In fact, it was entirely unprecedented and is known today as a "revolutionary concept" because it was expressly crafted to redistribute wealth, taxing landed wealth and income to fund welfare programs of the sort that have now bankrupted Britain

Because of its very nature, the bill was a shot across the bow of the landed elite, and fomented a great deal of social unrest and internal anger

The House of Lords, furious that class traitor Churchill would try to tax them out of existence to fund welfare programs, threw the People's Budget out, exercising their veto power

But that sparked a crisis

For one, the class warfare of the sort seen in the Punch cartoon below had already been fomented by Churchill and Lloyd George

Secondly, and much more importantly, it was unclear if the Lords had a veto power over a budgetary bill

Those two issues combined into a much more serious one: the British public asked why the hereditary Lords could retard democracy by vetoing what bills the Commons passed

As could be expected, that question turned into outright class warfare and a desire to destroy the Lords, or at least rid it of its permanent veto power

At that point, Lloyd George took over leading the class warfare charge. Churchill was, as could be expected, getting cold feet, and Welsh-born Lloyd George made a much more likely enemy of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy

His proposal to rid the country of the Lords was the Parliament Bill

Under it, the Lords could only delay/veto monetary bills for a month, effectively ending any veto power they had over those bills

Meanwhile, it allowed only a two-year delay, rather than a total veto, for other bills. While this meant bills could be effectively killed toward the end of a Parliament, it also meant that the early years of one couldn't be blocked by the peerage

The peerage was split over how to react, as the Lords would have to pass the bill for it to go into effect. George V, led astray by evil advisers, said he'd create hundreds of peers to ensure it was passed if the current Lords didn't do so

Eventually, a group of demoralized defeatists coalesced around just passing the bill, they became the majority. they called themselves the Hedgers, because they saw themselves as trying to hedge the risk

On the other side were the so-called "Diehards," who were against passing it at all costs. The also called themselves the Ditchers, as they saw themselves as willing to fight a last-ditch stand against Liberalism. They were led by Lord Willoughby de Broke and aided by most of the wealthy peers, including the hardline Tory and future WWI war hero, the 2nd Duke of Westminster

Eventually, the Hedgers won out despite the threats from those in the Diehards like Lord Willoughby de Broke that the county militias, largely led by Diehards and composed of those favorable to their cause, would be called up to fight the bill

So, unfortunately for England in the near future, the Bill was passed and the Lords lost their power

Churchill and George V appeared to regret what they had done, but by then it was too late and Lord de Broke's Diehards defeated

The Parliament Bill was really a turning point for the Empire

Even superficially, it marked England's shift from Victorian/Edwardian prosperity and preeminence to the long, bloody, painful decay of the 20th century. Within a few years, Lloyd George's government was sending England's best to die pointlessly in the fields of Flanders. As they bled out, the families of the Old Etonians who were killed en masse were taxed relentlessly to fund the war, and were financially bled out by endless income and death taxes, as Cannadine discussed in "The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy"

But the bigger problem was the shift in mindset and policy that the bill marked

The social shift is what resulted near-immediately.

Before the bill, the landed elite, both the gentry and the peerage, were widely honored and respected and seen as the goal state of anyone and everyone. Wealthy businessmen sold their companies to buy landed estates and construct gorgeous country houses, even as the agricultural depression of the 1880s made those estates less profitable than they used to be

Why? Because land was power. Tenants largely voted for the candidates put forth by their landlords, it was generally only landed gentlemen who got peerages and the powerful seat in the Lords that meant, and the resources of an estate, from the house that could host events to the votes of the tenancy, were easily translated into political influence

What that meant was that the political parties and their leaders were tied to the land of England, from the landlords at the top to the day laborers at the bottom, and the farmers in the middle. Instead of being overly concerned with Continental affairs and being dominated by the cosmopolitan managerial elite we're used to today, those in charge were committed to the country's success because their wealth was tied up in its land. There were exceptions, of course, but that was the general rule

Altogether, then, before the Parliament Bill and Churchill's People's Budget that precipitated it, there wasn't an internal war in England against its traditions and history. The empire and those who led it were self-confident, committed to its success, and through their country seats and old titles, tied to its histories and traditions

After the bill, much of that disappeared. Estates were taxed at obscene rates, the Lords no longer had power, and global commercial interests won out over the internal landed, agricultural and industrial interest that profited from England-first policy. From then on, there was much more internal unrest and class warfare, whether in terms of taxation or national class war like the General Strike of the Interwar era.

While the social changes were swift and severe, the policy changes were somewhat more gradual but even more destructive

Namely, the transition from aristocratic government to bureaucratic government meant massive change in what was accepted

Take taxes. To the landed elite, direct taxes like death or income tax should serve a valuable national end and generally only be established in time of war. So they were more than willing to pay both in the Napoleonic Wars, but repealed them immediately afterward and kept reasonable throughout the conflict. To the bureaucrats, however, taxes are a way of effecting massive social change. So, the direct taxes are not only kept around permanently but raised dramatically, such as the 90% of Harold Wilson' 1960s, even when unnecessary from a financial, national interest perspective

Another example is regulation. To the landed elite, a gentleman should be the lord of his own domain except when absolutely necessary. So there are laws that restrict anti-social behavior, such as murder, but otherwise regulation and laws are kept limited so as not to infringe upon the liberty of the people. To bureaucrats, however, regulations and laws are a way of cementing and expanding their own bureaucratic domains. So, such laws and regulations have to expand relentlessly so that there are always more slots for more bureaucrats with more power and pay. That leads to rapid infringements upon liberty, even the traditionally understood rights of Englishmen

And, of course, there's the matter of private property. To a landed gentleman, property is sacrosanct because it is the basis of his life, wealth, and power; that same view generally imbues the classes under him, as they want to be like him. To the bureaucrat, however, private property is a threat. It's a basis for non-bureaucratic power, leads to anti-regulatory sentiment, and so on. So, it's attacked, whether through taxation like death duties, government fiat, or other devices. This happened in England under Attlee, who was elected in 1945 and quickly "nationalized" (stole) everything from railroads to coal mines while taxing agricultural estates out of existence. Harold Wilson picked up where he left off and further destroyed it

Thus, the high-level results of the Parliament Bill were:

1) hostility to English tradition and emblems of its glory,

2) the destruction of the gentlemanly class that administered the empire and served in its armies, and

3) prosperity-destroying taxation and regulation that wiped away the English pre-eminence in industry and agriculture that enabled its imperial ambitions

So, before it you had a prosperous and free society led by those with a tradition of service, at little cost to the state, and a vast empire that supplied it with resources. After it, the bureaucrats quickly bankrupted the empire in WWI and II, taxed away its prosperity and gentlemen, and then gave the empire up because they didn't see the point of imperial splendor, glory, and paternalism

Thus, the glory of England ended because of the Parliament Bill

Though it took a few decades for the changes wrought and made possible by it to play out, particularly the heavy taxation and shift of political power away from the landed elite, those changes were disastrous, and weren't ones the empire could survive, even had WWI and II not soon happened; the taxation and class warfare would have gone the same way anyway, as seen in the '20s, '60s, and '70s, or with Starmer today and his attempt to tax farmers out of existence, as @NoFarmsNoFoods is fighting

The pre-Parliament Bill landed elite would never have done anything approaching these attacks on liberty, property, and prosperity. But the bureaucracy that followed it? This is the natural result, what it always wanted