National Humanist Imperial Labor Party

The National Humanist Imperial Labor Party was a human political party in the Terran Empire. Founded in 2491, it was active until the founding of the Republic. It developed out of populist and human-nationalist political parties and the militaristic culture of the Terran Empire, combining far-right nationalism and revolutionary zeal to create an ideology that exalted humanity and human cultural achievements and advocated for the unification of the human race as a political entity. As an organization, the National Humanist party distanced itself from conservatism and instead defined itself as part of the revolutionary right, and operated in such a way to draw the working class, spacers, and colonists away from Communist and Socialist parties and towards populist, integralist nationalism. Initially, its political strategy consisted of anti-capitalist, anti-communist, and anti-monarchy rhetoric. However, as the party matured and reorganized itself in the 2590s, it adjusted its rhetoric to appeal to middle class colonists and industrial magnates, and gain seats in Parliament as well as cabinet positions.
The NHILP fostered several subsidiary parties in other human nations while it rose to become one of the largest political parties in the Terran Empire during the 2600s. At its height, 10% of the Imperial population were members of the party, and it dominated the Imperial Parliament as the leader of a wartime national unity coalition. Its foreign offices and sister-parties were similarly large and partnership with them was necessary for parliamentary coalitions, allowing the NHILP to influence international politics and put ideology into action.
The NHILP proposed and advocated for the exclusionary segregation of alien species from human public life. This was accomplished gradually over the course of the 27th century, during which time the NHILP and its foreign offices became major parliamentary parties and was able to bargain for these policies as part of coalition governments. In the Terran Empire, a National Humanist Party member held the office of Prime Minister from 2637 until the abolition of political parties and the dismantling of the Empire.
== History ==
=== Origins ===
The National Humanist Imperial Labor Party spawned from the ashes of a shattered coalition of republican, human-unitary, and nationalist political parties in the Terran Empire, chiefly the Empire of Man Party and the National People's Party. Branded as seditious and dangerous, these parties were banned in 2481 during the reign of Emperor Baldwin III and many of its members were arrested. In 2491, its former members who remained free assembled and founded a new party under the leadership of Gregory Greisler, an academic writer and former political organizer of the National People's Party.
Greisler himself conceived the name: National for its nationalist character, Humanist for its emphasis on human unity and power, Imperial for its identification with the Terran Empire, and Labor for its appeal to working-class people. He operated as head of the Party leadership council, based on Renner, a heavily industrialized Outer Colony world. The Party began agitation by appealing to the world's industrial workers on an economic basis, advocating for workplace democracy, the unity of worker's unions, and opposition to alien guest-workers and traders 'stealing' jobs from humans. Their rhetoric gained them supporters on other worlds, with offices sprouting up across the Outer Colonies and other colonial provinces. Greisler died in 2520, leaving the management of the Party to the leadership council.
=== Rise in the colonies ===
As the Party's offices continued to spread throughout the colonies, the issue of Party finances had to be addressed. Eventually, the Party would not be able to fund its expansion through member dues alone and had to seek major backers. Attempts were made to appeal to industrialists, aristocrats, and corporate donors throughout the late 26th century. Its rhetoric, however, appealed little to the economic interests of the upper class. Outside of romanticist aristocrats, the Party was unable to gain major donors and backers on Earth. Meanwhile, it made tremendous strides in filling local offices on numerous worlds, star systems, and provincial parliaments in the Outer Colonies, Outer Rim, and the Marches. It was unable to make serious strides towards Imperial office, however, until the electoral reforms in 2551 both reduced the number of MPs and instituted party-list proportional representation.
Also in the 2550s, spacer businessman and politician Finbarr McGrady developed political convictions at odds with the Conservative leanings his family had taken in the past centuries. Becoming a committed human nationalist and an advocate for unity, he pushed his family towards the National Humanist party, which had grown popular in the colonies. His son, Teague, continued nationalist agitation during his years as head of the family and brought the NHILP to power in Wallerstein. Teague's daughter Patricia made the final leap towards nationwide involvement in Party politics, making generous donations to the Party national office. Her patronage greatly aided the Party's expansion into the Inner Colonies province and the Inner Sphere Imperial District, and eased the financial burdens it had been experiencing. In 2562, the Party relocated its headquarters to Earth to place itself closer to the halls of power and to appeal to Earth aristocrats as well as to spacers and colonists. Previously known just as a colonial radical party, the National Humanists quickly became popular in urbanized, middle-class worlds. Party rhetoric shifted from republican, anti-capitalist, and anti-alien to dominantly anti-communist and pro-military. Soon, in every provincial parliament and in many colonial councils, the National Humanists had at least a few members. By the 2560s, they dominated politics in the Inner and Outer Colonies and frontier provinces. In 2562, it won enough seats to enable it to become part of a right-wing coalition government. The Party was given minor ministerial offices, and increased its share of the electorate in the election of 2567.
=== Rise and fall ===
In 2572, Philip Lighthorse Leigh of the Social Democratic Labor Party. who had served as Prime Minister through the reigns of the last 3 emperors, was subject to a motion of no confidence in the midst of a general election. He resigned, deeply hurting his party's ability to campaign. The NHILP was able to appeal to working-class socialist voters through populist rhetoric condemning alien mercantilism. The Imperial Conservative Party and NHILP formed a coalition to keep the SDLP out. Party Chairman Leon Botha was able to negotiate the appointment of leading National Humanists to the ministries of the Interior, Justice, and Education, while the Conservatives would hold the Premiership as well as the four key ministries of state: Foreign Affairs, War, Treasury, and Welfare. This allowed the National Humanists significant influence over the direction of nationwide educational programs and over the police and intelligence agencies.
However, Botha was unable to curb abuses by corrupt members of the Party, who used control over police forces to cover up criminal activity. The scandal broke later that year when several Party leaders were indicted on racketeering and corruption charges. Botha was disgraced and the Prime Minister demanded his resignation as well as that of the other National Humanists in government. The Party lost badly in a snap election in December by a wide margin, forcing a national unity coalition between the Tories and the Social Democrats. The NHILP received less than 3% of the vote.
=== Return and continued rise ===
After 2572, the Party ejected its corrupt, criminal members and began reforming itself. The new Party Chairman, Alberto Fiorini, ruthlessly purged these members as well as his rivals. He instituted a new, centralized organization with himself as "Guide of the Movement", and strengthened the power of the Party Chairman within the reformed Party Steering Committee. A second, parallel committee was formed as the Party Political Bureau, chaired by a person of the Chairman's choosing, which would make decisions on which members of the Party would be on the Parliamentary list and what place they had on the list. The Party's officials and properties would be defended by a paramilitary group called the National Volunteer Force; it would be run by differing strata of the Party Administrative Corps; intelligence and information gathering would be handled by the Party Security Bureau; and youth involvement would fall under the Humanist Youth League. These were just the first of several paramilitary groups formed by the NHILP to engage its members in a full-spectrum social change. Fiorini devised a hierarchical system of paramilitary ranks and symbols, cribbing from Imperial military imagery. Further, he put the human trafficking ring that had been run by corrupt Party members to use as a public organization to assist in moving human refugees from foreign worlds into the Terran Empire and its allies. These actions did much to polish the Party's image, and to make it more tightly organized.
The Party suffered setbacks, however. The Emperor issued in 2589 a ban on military servicemembers being members of any political party, in order to combat political militancy that threatened military unity. The NVF shifted to recruiting frustrated veterans, creating a highly militant subculture and bringing greater discipline to the fighting force. Party Guide Fiorini was jailed for political agitation and replaced by his protégé Anthony Drendle in 2590, who publicly took steerage of the Party after the Emperor's death and the political situation was normalized. Over the course of the next few election cycles, the NVF fought often with Communist 'urban guerillas' and paramilitaries in street brawls. The NHILP made extensive electoral gains in local legislatures and governments throughout the Terran Empire and its allied states, as well as influence in labor unions throughout the Empire. In the 2602 general election, the NHILP bounced back from its troubles and gained 85 out of 800 seats in the Parliament; it sought to make a coalition with the Conservatives, but this was rebuffed. The Social Democrats had split into a National Government branch that sided with the Tories and Liberals against the NHILP, and a far left branch that formed a coalition with the Communists and other leftist republican parties. This gave the National Government coalition enough of a majority that it didn't need the National Humanists to govern. This seemed to change, however, in the 2607 elections when the NHILP vote share jumped to 18%.
=== Late Empire ===
In 2608, Prime Minister Rycon died and the Emperor appointed the King of Newfoundland, another conservative aristocrat, to the Premiership. As the Colonial Home Rule Party, which had a consistent vote share of 10-11%, held a policy of abstention; as a result, when the NHILP staged a walkout, it broke quorum and shut down parliament. As all spending bills had to originate in the Commons, and the National Humanists prevented the Commons from debating any bills, the result was a loss of supply. After a year of negotiations, the government acquiesced to Party demands by appointing Drendle to Deputy Prime Minister and appointing NHILP members to the several key ministries, including Interior, Culture, Education, and Commerce. Duke Frederik of Nieuwvaalia was appointed Prime Minister after the 2617 election, but otherwise the cabinet was the same as the Newfoundland ministry. The Duke of Nieuwvaalia stepped down before the 2627 election, a year before his death. He was replaced by Richard Windsor, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, who served for ten years.
Under Drendle's steerage, the Party greatly expanded its operations in allied nations. He was replaced as Party Chairman after his 2629 death in a motor vehicle accident with Alfredo Suarez Hennessey. Hennessey was appointed Deputy PM and led the party to further gains in local officers, and continued Drendle's policy of foreign expansion and entrenchment, grooming the National Humanist movement as a truly pan-human nationalist revolution. Hennessey also articulated a party platform that firmly accepted androids as part of the human race. He advocated and pushed for National Humanist policies to be enacted into law, such as the Expulsion Act of 2631 which evicted all aliens from Earth and the Solar System; and the Sedition Act of 2631 which banned parties that had provable connections to terrorist organizations, such as the Colonial Home Rule Party. Hennessey served as Deputy PM and as Minister of Justice through three conservative ministries and the death of the Emperor Francis Charles VI in 2631.
The election of 2637 returned 200 seats for the National Humanists, accompanied by their coalition partner the Tories receiving 205, granting them a slim majority under Tory leadership. The opposition Democratic Front, an electoral alliance between the Social Democrats and the Communists, had a combined 33% hold, and the Liberal Refoundation Party won 16%. The situation compelled the recently-of-age Emperor Francis Charles VII to appoint a compromise Prime Minister in Frederick Rycon, who was a member of both coalition parties and head of the aristocratic wing of the NHILP. The NHILP gained the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the cabinet reshuffle. However in 2641 the Emperor's only son and heir died and his wife hanged herself, plunging the Emperor into severe depression. Parliament was suspended on the eve of the election, in which the NHILP was expected to gain a plurality of seats. The Emperor reigned with the Rycon cabinet alone for ten years, and reconvened parliament in 2651 with the same composition and membership. The election of 2652 brought a conservative-dominated coalition including the Liberals and the NHILP, as well as introducing the new party leadership to parliamentary politics. George Francis Rothschild and Henry Addington had stood for selection by the Party Steering Committee for the Chairmanship after Hennessey's death in 2650. Addington won the leadership election and instituted a more radical party platform regarding aliens, foreign relations, and militarization. In the 2657 election, the NHILP won 28% of the vote and Addington was begrudgingly appointed Prime Minister. Addington also began the process of synchronizing the Party's ranks and positions with those of the Imperial government, as many civil service positions across the Empire were filled by Party loyalists. These moves shocked the conservative-aristocratic wing of the Party, as well as their coalition partner, the Tories. It is now understood by historians that the civil war in the Terran Empire may have been the only force keeping political cohesion in the unsteady coalition.
The NHILP and its paramilitary organization increasingly assisted government forces in fighting insurrectionist movements throughout the 2650s and early 2660s. This was coupled with advocacy of a "final war" against both communist and capitalist international factions, and an aggressive foreign policy. However, these policy goals were stymied by the Democratic Front filibustering armed forces appropriations bills. The NHILP fought this by staging walkouts whenever a SDLP or Communist MP had the floor. The situation was resolved only when evidence was brought forth to the House of Lords which implicated the leadership of the Social Democratic Labor Party with colonial rebel campaigns of sabotage, espionage, and covert influence in colonial border worlds. Declared to be terrorist organizations by the House of Lords judicial committee, the SDLP and Communists were banned in 2661. The National Humanists won a majority in the 2662 election.
=== War ===
With all ministries besides the War and Treasury departments held by NHILP hard-liners, Addington began appointing like-minded radicals and organizers to high positions. The Addington ministry attempted to further the existing Imperial welfare state, while at the same time banning labor strikes in key industries, often using the Party militia to act as strikebreakers. Military spending continued to expand, with Addington anticipating imminent conflict and the need for military readiness. The ongoing civil war against insurrectionist, terrorist, and pirate forces became a point of obsession for Prime Minister Addington, who sought to end internecine human strife in the face of the impending "final war" against the aliens. Foreign policy issues arose during Addington's early ministry, including the Soviet Republic's expulsion of humans and the United Suns' embargo on superconductors.
The supermajority gained in 2662 also brought several new MPs, some of whom would be rivals to Addington's power base in the civil service and education system. Shannon McGrady, already a powerful provincial politician from the Inner Colonies, was chosen to be on the parliamentary slate. She would be made chair of the Political Bureau in 2664 and made a member of the Steering Committee. Also in 2665, the Steering Committee admitted the membership of Prince Maximilian Charles, eldest son of the Emperor, who had been a public spokesperson for the Party in the 2662 general election. By this point in time, the NHILP's foreign offices had become the majority party or the head of a coalition in the legislatures of every Terran ally, coordinating the entire network of parties towards the human-unity policy goal.
On 8 September 2665, the Terran Empire and its allies declared war on the Soviet Republic, sparking the conflict that would rapidly become the Great War. Addington remained Prime Minister under the watchful eye of Frederick Rycon. However, Addington's unpopularity with the Party leadership and the Terran people, despite his able management of the government, were deemed a liability in the next election cycle. In a power-sharing agreement that normalized relations with the Crown, Maximilian was named Prince Regent while the Emperor was himself away leading from the battle front. Maximilian would oversee national security matters and foreign affairs, Addington would retain oversight over the civil service and the welfare system, and Rycon would oversee the treasury and war departments. This effectively sidelined Addington.
The NHILP won a supermajority in the April 2667 general election. Maximilian ramped up Addington's social and military spending, instituted land reforms, nationalized and regulated industry, and pushed for a more aggressive war strategy. Most notably, he began the process of meeting the demands of the Colonial Liberation Organization, federalizing the Empire while centralizing public services and the military economy.
== Party Organs ==
The NHILP was composed of several organizations within the Party, each of which fulfilled certain functions. Its structure and organization changed over time, eventually taking its final form in the 2570s. The main party organs were the Party Steering Committee, the Political Bureau, the Party Administrative Corps, the Foreign Office, the Security Bureau, the Humanist Youth League, the Humanist Labor Front, and the paramilitary National Volunteer Force. Affiliated with the party were also several policy thinktanks, welfare organizations, and veterans' associations.
=== National Volunteer Force ===
The NVF was officially founded in 2572, as the successor to various ad-hoc armed groups that defended party properties and officials. The NVF was a true paramilitary organization, taking in many veterans from foreign wars and colonial conflicts, and instilling martial discipline and training. It consciously modeled itself after the Imperial Marines and their Shocktrooper Regiments, trained in mountain and urban warfare. The NVF initially purchased large quantities of surplus olive-drab uniforms for their troopers, earning them the nickname "Greenshirts".