The imperial mindset lives on

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No empire was ever created with the active and enthusiastic participation of the populations incorporated into that empire. Empires are, and always have been, based on conquest and war, often savage and brutal. The passage of time and a combination of an influx of people from the conquering power coupled with relentless propaganda about how much worse off people would be if they actually decided to run their own affairs sometimes convinces the conquered to accept their status but, more often than not, disputes about ownership and sovereignty rumble on, sometimes for centuries. Even though they know that the territories were seized by force in the first place, imperial powers somehow end up believing that they have some sort of natural right to the possessions thus gained.

Those in the Tory Party who still have that imperial mindset (i.e. almost all of them) have been outraged by the agreement of the Labour government to transfer what seems to be partial sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Handing over a few remote islands in the Indian Ocean is, apparently, an unparalleled act of treason (somewhat ignoring the fact that it was the previous Tory Government which opened the negotiations). But in truth, Labour aren’t much better. They have negotiated over the heads of the Chagossians themselves who have had no input into the process, and whose ancestral homelands have been treated as something to be traded and transferred. And, in some form or another, the transfer has been made conditional on retaining some sort of control over Diego Garcia, the large US/UK military base, from which Chagossians will continue to be excluded.

It's presented as some sort of final resolution of a long-outstanding post-colonial problem, but the reality will almost certainly turn out to be different. There is a question as to whether the negotiations have truly been conducted between equals, or whether there isn’t an element of power differential at play. And no ‘agreement’ which has been reached, no matter how well negotiated, where one of the negotiators holds most of the cards is ever likely to stick in the long term. The UK should have learned that from the case of Gibraltar, for instance. In theory, it was ceded to the UK ‘in perpetuity’ under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, but that treaty was effectively simply recognising that the peninsular had already been seized by force. The territory was ceded under pressure as part of the settlement of a war, but it was hardly a negotiation between equals, and Spain's claim to the territory is still live.

‘Perpetuity’ might appear to be a word with a clear meaning, but in terms of territorial disputes, it simply means ‘until the balance of power changes’. It may be a decade or two away, but the question of sovereignty over Diego Garcia hasn’t really been ‘resolved’ at all, merely postponed. And the wishes of the Chagossians will make themselves known in due course, not necessarily in the form of acceptance of the deal done between two far away governments. The British, or perhaps I should say English, Empire won’t ever be truly over until the last remnants have been disposed of, and there’s a lot more outrage still to come from those who retain the imperial mindset.