Nationhood to Planethood.

Some say it started back in the last years of the 20th Century. Certainly it was the Internet that enabled the right people to communicate with each other and work out the details that enabled it to simply happen.

For most historians it started before the end of the first decade of the 21st Century.

As a revolution it was a very strange one. No one started it, certainly not the man who would become the centre pin of the whole movement. When he entered politics he never dreamed that one day he would be elected leader of his country. To contemplate changing world politics for every citizen of the world would have been impossible.

He had chalked up many firsts, even before becoming president of the country known as the United States of America. Not only did he have unprecedented confidence of the people of his home country but the unreserved respect and admiration of the leaders of all other nations and their citizens. His struggles, during the recession, in attempting to pull the world economy up by its boot straps was doomed to fail. No one man, or one nation had the power and resources to do that. Recognising that without a change in the attitude and behaviour of the world, particularly of the industrialised nations, his campaign “We are all in it together” spread the word as he travelled around the world to gain support for his ideas.

For most historians the change began on a short visit to the United Kingdom.  At that time, still a monarchy, and proud of nearly 750 years of parliamentary democracy, it had just gone through a relatively drawn out media frenzy concerning the expenses claims by their elected members of parliament in the middle of the great recession. The arrival, for a short visit, by the President of the United States, was a welcome diversion.

He flew into London’s third airport and only 18 kilometres from the birth place of his ancestors. A keen historian he took the opportunity to visit the church yard to see where his ancestor laid. Throughout his visit the over whelming turnout of the local people to wave and cheer touched him deeply. There had not been such love and support for an American since the singer and actor Paul Robeson filmed in England in the early part of the 20th Century.

One news reporter, whilst interviewing the President, suggested that he should become a dual national. Later another interviewer produced a survey that suggested if he headed a parliamentary party at the next election he would have the vote of 95% of the electorate.

A week later a barrister contacted the President and pointed out that he could indeed apply for citizenship of the United Kingdom and that it would not require him to betray his oath to the American people. This was backed up by legal authority from the United States. The two barristers then worked out what would be necessary to make it happen.

So it was that he applied for, and became a citizen of the United Kingdom.  A process that ought to have take time and some obstacles to overcome took weeks and a special act of parliament. There was no objections raised from anyone so well planned had the preparations been.  A first for lawyers and possibly never to be repeated by the profession.

His meetings with the Queen had already proved very successful and they stared a mutual admiration. His change in status enabled the next step – he was knighted and appointed to the Order of the Garter.

Parliamentary elections where due and a large number of independent candidates announced they would stand on a platform of honesty, integrity and common sense.  The media took this common thread and distilled it into some kind of group policy, forever wanting to pigeon hole and name every new phenomena. Spotting this lead a newspaper discovered that it could have been lifted straight out of the political campaigns of the President of the United States.  

When the obvious stares you in the face you either embrace it or ignore it. The independent candidates reformed into a new political party and invited the President of the United States to be the head of the party. All objections were over ruled and so a serving head of another country became the figure head of a party with no members of parliament.  

He didn’t even have to stand for election, being already a member of the House of Lords.

The campaign was well formed and the President even took time to visit every constituency to support the new party. It was a diversion after all.

They added to their campaign that they would, if elected, apply to become the next state of the union. Largely overlooked because it took decades for the United Kingdom to apply for membership of the European Union, and with no track record commenter’s dismissed the new party as a one week wonder.

On election day the vote was not 95% as previously indicated. One can never trust the polls, but it was over 75% of the turnout, making it the biggest turn out,  in recorded history, of any country. What was also interesting, as the status of an unelected head of a party had been so long debated, everyone spoiled their papers by adding a note naming the Party leader for Prime Minister.  By law these papers should not have counted. But the view of the majority of the population was clear – the new order would stand.

The next step should have took years, but no party had ever had such over whelming support. Within months leading lawyers in the United States and United Kingdom worked out how the latter could apply for statehood and retain the British Constitution as its state law only over written by the laws of the American Constitution. The change was of course two ways. The population of the United States of America rose by over 60 million people.  The United Kingdom was remapped to conform to the way senators are elected and within a year the British people had elections again, this time for the House of Representatives.

 The peoples of Scotland and Wales took to the new status and duality as parliaments in their own country now being states of the United States. So it was that the 51st, 52nd, 53rd and 54th states where added to the Union.

It had long been though that Eire would be the 51st state. So it came as no surprise that the internet buzzed with discussion in Eire, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Within days of each other they all applied to join the Union.

So it was that the primary English speaking countries of the world became one nation.

The way the United States worked did not change in principle but there was a strong element of compromise added to the mix, no less than the fact that if England, the largest state by population, did not approve it was hard to pass the proposed law.

The United Kingdom once ruled and managed a quarter of the earth, first as an empire and then as the head of the Commonwealth of Nations. The struggle for independence was often fought for bitterly. The speed at which these nations applied to join the evolving United States was not expected.

The President, as already explained, had support and respect from all the citizens of the world, including their leaders. His ancestry already gave him the genes from diverse nations. His education and upbringing added to that mix making him a prime candidate for the first citizen of the world.  The honour laid upon him at a special meeting of the United Nations was concluded when every member of the Commonwealth handed in an application to join the union.

The rest, as they say is history.

As laid down by the constitution a President is only allowed to serve two terms of office. The laws where modified slightly after the 75th state joined on the grounds that the country really was not the same as when he was first elected. So he served 12 years and became the first elected President of the World, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of the Nations of Earth.

Gerald McMullon

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