U.N.S.R

THE UNION OF NORTHERN SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
The social democratic states of the U.N.S.R emerged in the North of England prior to the Great War of 2077 and after the Second British Civil War, uniting the major Northern counties in a political alliance for the mutual benefit of each nation. The four founding states of the U.N.S.R are the Republic of Yorkshire, The Merseyside Republic, the Republic of Manchester and the Newcastle Republic. The governments of the U.N.S.R. are democratically elected regulatory bodies, ruled by a President and a High Council, using a model of government descended from the hierarchies of the Pre-War Trade Unions. The U.N.S.R can be effectively described as a dictatorship of the proletariat. The citizens of the U.N.S.R are descended from the English working-class communities of pre-War Britain, and the society of post-apocalyptic Northern England was founded on a Marxist socialist ideology intended to liberate the labourers from wage-slavery through an economic system of state-funded welfare, and a private sector dominated by employee-owned co-operative enterprises.

History
The pre-War mining communities of Northern England formed the political, cultural and social foundations of Northern society. The collieries provided the main source of employment for many working-class communities and the coal industry provided one of Britain’s most valuable natural resources. The industry rose to even greater prominence during the fossil fuel crisis which emerged in the 21st century. The gradual decline in fossil fuel reserves drastically increased the value of coal, and the British government placed high pressure on the Yorkshire collieries to increase their productivity. The scarcity of oil and petroleum had caused the production and use of auto-mobiles to decrease, and as a result Britain developed a dependence on public transport, and in particular, the resurrected Steam Train. The Government pressure to increase coal production led to progressively poorer working conditions, with miners forced to work long working hours with deteriorating equipment in dangerous conditions. The NMU initiated a nationwide miner’s strike in the year 2051, protesting the abuse of worker’s rights, the state of the working conditions in the mines, and the several months of unpaid wages. The NMU organised various peaceful protest marches throughout the country, and authorised the picketing of the collieries by the miners’ workforce. The coal power-plants which generated the majority of British electricity frequently shut-down due to the lack of available fuel provided, causing frequent nationwide power-cuts. In response to the worker’s strikes and the critical levels of the energy crisis, the Prime Minister declared the power shortage to be a national disaster, and using the Emergency Powers Ordinance authorised the deployment of military personnel to the collieries, ordering them to take command of the facilities, restore them to working condition and control civilian unrest in the region. The coal-mines were converted into temporary military installations, complete with barracks, armouries, and officer headquarters; perimeter fences were established and patrolled, and a heavy military presence was maintained. Protest marches and parades in the major cities were dispersed by armed forces and riot police, and the picketers were either placed under military arrest or removed from the area. A county-wide curfew was imposed upon the entire state of Yorkshire, prohibiting citizens from leaving their homes after 9 PM. In order to restore the fuel supply to the power stations, the Prime Minister authorised the commission of a mechanised workforce of modified Mr. Handy construction robots to replace the suspended personnel, and ordered the deployment of a division of machine labourers to each of the major collieries in the Northern counties.