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.

Post-imperial incomprehension

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Posh Boy Cameron spends a lot of his time swanning around telling other countries what they must or must not do. Most recently, Israel and Iran have received the benefit of his wisdom and advice, and have particularly been urged to remain calm rather than fight each other. Whilst I can’t disagree with the sentiment that it would be better if armies and armed groups weren’t killing each other along with any civilians who happen to get in the way, or even look askance at the men with guns, I can’t help but wonder if he has the remotest idea of how such advice, coming from such a person, is likely to sound to those being advised.

It’s hard to deal with complex history in a few short sentences, but in essence, Israel is a state that was born from a terrorist campaign against the colonial power at the time – which was, of course, the British Empire. Iran’s status as a theocratic Islamic state came about as a result of a revolt against the then Shah, a monarch who gained absolute power after the democratic government was overthrown by the CIA and British-backed army in order to protect British oil interests in the country. And the successor state to the British Empire, namely the UK, has, like its predecessor, a long history of violent intervention in the wider region in pursuit of its own, largely economic, interests. In short, neither country has much reason to look back on past British actions in the region with what one might call fondness, let alone see it as some sort of role model.

The idea that a recycled Old Etonian has-been who somehow managed to accidentally lead his own country out of the world’s largest and most successful trading bloc is somehow the ideal person to act on behalf of the wider world in delivering desist messages to two former imperial possessions (or semi-possessions) would seem strange to anyone who isn’t suffering from Post Imperial Stress Disorder (PISD), with its associated requirement to give the impression of being a great power in a position to deliver instructions to lesser mortals. A category which includes all foreigners in general. He genuinely seems not to comprehend why his instructions to the natives are not being followed, but that incomprehension is just another symptom of the disorder.

The past won't conform to prejudices

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As far as I’m aware, none of those arguing about whether a book which has been commissioned to tell the ‘patriotic’ story of the English Monarchy should or should not be circulated to children in Wales via schools has actually seen the content as yet. Certainly the public at large hasn’t yet seen it, and debating whether to distribute it or not without seeing the content can only be based on a mixture of supposition and prejudice. Having said that, one thing of which we can be certain is that any book which sets out to tell a story from a ‘patriotic’ standpoint (and that is the clearly-stated intention of those who have commissioned the work) is, by definition, not setting out to give a balanced or objective view. That, in effect, makes it, wholly intentionally, a work of propaganda rather than information. Whether a work of propaganda should be distributed in schools is a matter of opinion; for what it’s worth, I see no harm in that at secondary level if the intention its to study and analyse the work in comparison with other versions of the same events; critical analysis is a valuable skill. There should surely, though, be no place for the distribution of one-sided propaganda in primary schools – not in a democracy, anyway, or even a semi-democracy like the UK.

There’s something rather Soviet-era about such a blatant approach to ensuring that a particular version of history is inculcated into children as part of their education, but in truth all states seek to ensure that their citizens share a common understanding of history, as a means of building a sense of commonality and belonging. The problem in this instance is that the current rulers of the UK are stuck in a time-warp, and are trying to reinforce a narrative which has become outdated, using the methods of a long-gone era when people had no other sources of information, methods which simply look crass in the devolved landscape of the twenty-first century. I don’t believe that it would be impossible to build a new narrative of the UK fit for the current era, but it would look nothing like the immediate post-war narrative to which the current government seem to want to return (let alone the eighteenth century narrative more favoured by the Rees-Moggs of this world). Whilst ‘history’ is built on a series of facts which are themselves unchanging, the interpretation and relative importance of those facts is always changing, as new facts come to light and new perspectives are applied, in a process which exceptionalist Anglo-British nationalists seem incapable of grasping.

It isn’t just the much-debated book which underlines the attachment of our rulers to an outdated view; we’ve recently had the Education Minister, Nadhim Zahawi arguing that pupils should be taught about the benefits of the empire and colonialisation as well as the brutality. In a limited sense, he has a point. People probably should know and understand that when they look at grand old houses in the countryside and grand old buildings in our city centres, they are indeed seeing the benefits of colonialism – for the colonialists. And it would be far from an entirely bad thing if many of those railing against immigrants and refugees coming here from poorer countries had been taught, and had understood, that much of what makes the UK a wealthy country was acquired by transporting stolen wealth from those poorer countries. I suspect, though, that that isn’t what Zahawi and his ilk have in mind. His statement referred to the way the colonists set up administrative systems and exported the British Civil Service (and others have referred to building railways) – he’s talking about the ‘benefits’ which should be taken into account on the plus side of the equation when the exploitation, the massacres, and the slavery are being criticised. To call these ‘benefits’ of colonisation, though, requires us to assume that leaving those areas uncolonized, letting them benefit from their own natural resources and developing links through trade and commerce rather than conquest, would not have left them better off, and that they would never have developed such administrative systems of their own accord. It’s an arrogant assumption, to say the least. It might be less pejoratively-worded, but at root it’s simply a modern variation on the old idea that Britain brought civilisation and cricket to the savages, in return for which they should be grateful enough to overlook the worst excesses.

Whether we are talking about the monarchy or the empire, understanding our history is important in giving us a sense of who we are, but that requires an ever-changing analysis of the facts. We cannot change the past. Whilst some of us might wish that it were possible to airbrush the monarchy and the empire from history, that would be no more honest than presenting them as unchanging symbols of what it means to be British. Trying to imbue our children with a biased view of either the monarchy or the empire does them no favours when they will eventually find themselves in a world which has a totally different understanding. Addressing that is rather more important than sloganizing about the distribution of a book.

Madness seems to be infectious

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The idea that the government thinks that increasing the country’s ‘lethality’ and willingness to use military force to impose its will on others isn’t exactly something to be welcomed.  And quite what it has to do with Brexit escapes me completely; there is nothing in our treaty commitments to the EU which in any way prevents us sending an aircraft carrier wherever we want (as long as it isn’t to threaten action against other EU member states, of course).  There is a negative Brexit effect in that the inevitable short term hit to Treasury revenues makes it harder to afford post-Brexit, but Theresa can always shake that tree in the garden at Downing Street.

There can be few things that quite underline the delusions of grandeur which have driven the Anglo-British not-nationalist-at-all project called Brexit than the idea that freed of the non-existent EU constraints on the UK we can return to the days of Empire and send our gunboats around the world threatening the unruly natives - like those upstart Chinese for instance.  I mean, who do they think they are with their mere 1.2 billion people to think that they could ever resist the demands of the UK?  And there can be few things which do more to reveal it as the fantasy which it is than the fact that the boat that is being sent isn’t planned to be fully operational until 2021, with only what’s called an “initial operational capacity” due to be available from some time in 2020.  That’ll put the wind up them, no?  When they stop laughing, maybe.  And predicting where the new boat might be needed two years hence is an amazing feat from a government who can’t tell us what’s going to happen next month.

In fairness, though, they really shouldn’t laugh.  Writing in the Guardian, Simon Jenkins says that the defence secretary’s brain has gone absent without leave.  I think he’s being unusually kind; a man who thinks the UK can simply tell Russia to “go away and shut up”, and that a half-operational boat with a few borrowed airplanes can threaten the largest full-time military forces in the world might just be as crazy as his leader, who is busily doing nothing whilst jobs and economic activity leach irreversibly out of the UK in an attempt to convince the world that she really would cause a major recession lasting for several years by leaving the UK without a deal if she can’t get her own way.

The whole concept of “Mutually Assured Destruction” might have had the apparently descriptive acronym MAD, but in reality it was always based on the assumption that those in charge would behave rationally when push came to shove.  What happens when a government really can’t be depended on to do that is an untested proposition to date.  I’m wondering, though, for how long that will remain true.

Being a good neighbour

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Increasingly desperate Brexiteers have resorted recently to accusing the EU of breaking its own treaties by not accommodating the UK’s demands, on the basis that those treaties require the EU to "develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness”, and some have even suggested that failure to do this leaves the UK open to follow Trump’s advice to the Prime Minister and sue the EU.  Leaving aside the irony of the PM trying to use an institution which she has said the UK wants to have nothing to do with (the European Court of Justice), to say nothing of the question as to whether taking legal action would help or hinder the negotiation of any agreement, there is an even more fundamental problem with the idea.  In effect, the UK would be trying to sue someone else for the consequences of its own actions, and it doesn’t take much of a legal brain to come to a conclusion about the likely prospects for success in that endeavour.

It’s true, of course, that the EU does have a treaty obligation to be a good neighbour, but demanding that the EU gives in to each and every demand from the awkward and obstreperous bloke next door is going well beyond neighbourliness.  Helping someone out is one thing; doing whatever he says is quite another.  The UK’s stance at the moment isn’t so much asking for a helping hand as refusing to step into the lifeboat unless the captain and crew first agree to repaint the boat, replace the engine, and change direction; and it’s backed up with the threat that if the captain doesn’t agree it will drown itself and blame the lifeboat crew.  The UK isn’t asking for neighbourliness, it’s asking for submission.

The Brexiteers don’t see things that way, naturally.  They portray the UK as a victim being punished by those horrid Europeans for daring to want to leave, and they start with a belief that the UK has an entitlement to unique treatment, because – well, because it’s the UK and is therefore special.  The idea that the UK is just another third-party state on the fringes of Europe (which is the logical outcome of Brexit) and can be treated with the same degree of good neighbourliness as other states such as Norway is anathema to them.  It doesn’t fit their world view.  The Anglo-British nationalists driving the Brexit project are stuck in a view of the UK and its place in the world which pre-dates the second world war, and probably the first as well.  It’s a world of empires and dominance, where others are there to be divided and ruled; a world in which the English language is pre-eminent and those countries which use that language form a natural set of trading partners for what they still fondly see as the mother country.  It's a world in which others may be our neighbours, but we are never mere neighbours to anyone.

It’s also a world which disappeared more than half a century ago; they just can’t see it.

Trains, boats and planes

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Many years ago, I had a boss who regularly used to say that “if we had some ham, we could have some ham and eggs if we had some eggs”.  His point, albeit repeated ad nauseam, was a valid one: people always come up with new obstacles and dependencies which prevent them getting on with the task in hand, and as soon as one dependency is resolved, there’s always another one.  And sometimes, they’re even circular.

It was the Foreign Secretary who brought this to mind this week, with his expression of a wish to have a new aeroplane to fly himself and other Brexiters around the world doing new trade deals.  Suitably painted, (presumably in union flags – but definitely not grey, apparently) this would project this undefinable thing called ‘soft power’ in ways which would make people fall over themselves to do new trade deals.  He’s got form on this as well; it’s not so long ago that he was calling for a new royal yacht with the same objective in mind. 

They told us that Brexit would be easy; that the rest of the world would be falling over themselves to do new deals with us if only we supported Brexit.  But now it seems that we need a bit more than that.  If only we had a royal yacht we’d be able to do lots of deals if only we had a shiny new aeroplane as well.  I don’t doubt that if we gave him both, he’d come up with a host of other essentials which are prerequisites for doing the deals of the century; failure will never be his fault, it will always be everyone else’s for not giving him the proper tools for the job.

Meanwhile, in a faraway universe whose existence Brexiters continually deny, those countries which were supposed to be lining up to do deals with the UK are actually lining up to do deals with the EU.  Apparently, from their clearly misguided perspectives, a market of 600 million is more attractive than a market of 60 million.  Who in their right mind would ever have thought that?  Even worse, those antipodeans don’t even realise that they are supposed to get new yachts and aeroplanes first, so that they can project their ‘soft power’.  If we would only buy Boris a plane and a boat, he’d be down under like a shot projecting a bit of this ‘soft power’ stuff, and then they’d fall into line and understand that they need to talk to their former colonialists and masters first, not those beastly European types.

Alternatively, the UK could make a positive effort to try and engage with the rest of the world on terms that everyone else understands, rather than demanding that they all fall into line with the UK.  Just a thought.

The long road to acceptance

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A debate that I’ve often had with some independentistas over the years is about the nature of national identity.  For me, national identity is ultimately a subjective concept rather than an objective one.  There are objective realities which may affect the sense of identity felt by an individual, such as history, language, place of birth, place of residence, but the decision to ‘feel’ Welsh, English or whatever is an inherently subjective one.  Identity is also fluid and flexible; it can change over time and it means different things to different people.  Such an approach also allows of the possibility that people can feel multiple identities, such as Welsh, British, and European, all at the same time, and even in different proportions in different contexts.

Others reject that approach and demand that people accept the identity that they wish to give them.  In that vein, some Welsh independentistas demand that people choose between being Welsh or British – or even more strongly, demand that they accept that they are Welsh whether they want to be or not.  It’s a closed approach to the subject.  And it seems to me that it’s not only counter-productive, but it also denies the reality of life in Wales.  If people want to consider themselves both Welsh and British – which is where most people in Wales would probably place themselves today – who are we to tell them that they can’t have that option; they must choose one or the other?  Besides, for those of us who believe that sovereignty belongs to all of us rather than having been invested by god in the monarch, whether people feel a common sense of identity is merely an aid to any decision to take control of their own lives rather than a prerequisite.

One of the uglier aspects of the Brexit landscape in the UK is the way in which the cheerleaders for Brexit take a very black and white (pun not entirely unintended) view of identity and seek to impose that on the rest of us.  We’ve had Theresa May claiming that anyone who wants to be a citizen of the world is actually a citizen of nowhere, and last week, Boris Johnson decried the ‘split personality’ of young people who think that they can be European as well as, or even instead of, being British.  And Boris isn’t the only one who thinks that the UK can and should be the ‘greatest country in the world’; it seems to be a core belief for many of them.  Another aspect of this has been the branding as ‘traitors’ of anyone who doesn’t ‘get behind’ the decision to leave.

It’s a form of nationalism which I fear, with its inherent notions of superiority and exclusiveness.  I don’t particularly want to live in the ‘greatest’ country; I want to live in a confident and relaxed country which sees itself as just one part of the wider world community, and as an equal with other parts.  There’s nothing wrong with taking pride in past achievements as long as we also acknowledge past mistakes, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting ‘our’ side to do well in rugby or football, but when the people of a country start to believe that they are in any sense ‘better’ or ‘greater’ than everyone else, it becomes unhealthy and dangerous.  Yet it is precisely that belief which seems to be coming to the fore at present.

Life outside the EU – if that actually happens – is likely to be something of a revelation to those who take such a view, even if perversely, in the short term, it serves only to reinforce their view that ‘we’ must be better or the rest of them wouldn’t be out to get us.  The road away from painting a quarter of the world red on the map to an acceptance of the reality of the UK’s position in the world has been a long and tortuous one.  It still has a few twists and turns to come as the readjustment continues.  Life post-Brexit will be uncomfortable for those of us who take a rather more flexible view on identity, but it would probably turn out to be the last hurrah for the faded glory of the past.

But if there’s an element of hope and optimism to be found in the whole Brexit shambles it is that the outcome could yet be a humbled UK deciding to remain, followed in due course by the independence of the last remaining outposts of empire.  An England which could be at peace with itself, and accept a role as an equal partner, rather than trying to make its own rules and dominate others, would find it had rather more friends in the world than the UK seems to have – or even want – at the moment.

Big boats for rich people

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It has seemed from the outset that many of those arguing for Brexit were harking back to what they see as the ‘good old days’; a time when Britannia ruled the waves, natives elsewhere were suitably deferential, and if all else failed, then a gunboat or two could be deployed. 

But it’s hard to think of a better example of that sort of thinking than this story about those who are seeking, in a very literal sense, to get Britannia back on the waves.  The call for the UK to either recommission the royal yacht, or else commission a new one, has it all.  Symbolism of global Britain and a good dose of nostalgia; these are key elements of the Brexit mindset.  The USP for this little proposal is clear – ‘do business with us: we can’t offer you access to the single market, but we can offer you a chance to sign the contract on a very big yacht and maybe even meet one of our royals’.  That obviously trumps the mere economics of any deal, doesn’t it?

It will be costly, but not to worry; one of the instigators of the scheme doesn’t want the taxpayer to fund it, oh no.  Instead, an appeal will be launched for donations from across the Commonwealth (another throwback to the imperial past) from people who will be only too happy to contribute large sums to provide a new boat for one of the UK’s richest families.  Can’t you just feel the genuflection oozing through the population as we all joyously contribute our few penn’orth as well?

These people really do dwell in the past, a place which has rightly been called ‘another country’.  They can happily spout the utterly meaningless phrase that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ without understanding the rather more meaningful statement that ‘the past is in the past’.

Conflicting facts

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According to those who support leaving the European Union:

·         the UK is an important market for the other EU countries, so it is in their interest to allow continued full access to the single market,

·         leaving the EU will allow the UK government to give state aid to industries such as steel, which they cannot do currently under EU rules,

·         the UK can negotiate a free trade deal with China without having to consider the interests of 27 other EU members, and

·         the UK can impose tariffs on products, such as steel, which are being dumped at less than cost price by our competitors.

I don’t disagree with any of those statements in principle; they are all ‘true’ as far as they go.  The question, though, is whether and to what extent they can all be true in practice at the same time.  It appears that many of the Brexiters seriously believe that they can, but it looks like a highly unlikely proposition to me.  For instance, why on earth would the 27 remaining member states allow a free market with another state which was providing state subsidies to its industries in order for them to compete on price?  It would be self-destructive for them to do so.

But that unshakeable belief that ‘the world will come to us and deal with us on our terms’ is at the very heart of the problem; there is an exceptionalism which has dogged the UK’s membership of the EU from the outset – always seeking opt-outs and exclusions; rebates and special terms.  That separateness and superiority which characterises the UK’s approach to the world stage probably stems from an unwillingness to let go of the imperial past.  It’s a perspective which was certainly reflected in some of the rhetoric about being a ‘great trading nation’ and looking again to the Commonwealth.

Perhaps the shock of Brexit will finally bring a healthy dose of reality about the UK’s place in the world.

An idea whose time has gone

Tweet The spat between Cameron and the President of Sri Lanka drew more attention to the meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government than it would normally merit.  Such attention would normally be more focused on the visit by the hereditary head (or in this case deputy head) of the ex-colonial power.  For what it’s worth (and despite my instinctive understanding of the reaction of the President to being lectured by former colonialists), on the substantive issue of an enquiry into alleged war crimes, I’m with Cameron.  (Although he seems to have taken his time about noticing the issue.)

That isn’t the subject of this post, however.  What exactly is the Commonwealth for?  It’s a curious organisation, which has attempted to redefine itself a few times over the decades to become more modern and relevant; but at root, it is about maintaining links between the UK and its former colonies.  As the charter puts it, it’s for those countries which have “a shared inheritance in language, culture and the rule of law”, and are “bound together by shared history and tradition”. That would be the shared experience of conquest and an imposed language, in most cases.

Two of the main criteria for membership are acceptance of the monarch of the UK (or rather the “monarch of the Commonwealth realms” as they would prefer to put it, using a formula which allows even republics to accept a residual role for the monarch), and the use of the English language.  It’s open to countries which were part of the Empire or which have some sort of constitutional relationship with countries which were part of the Empire (colonies of colonies, and dependencies of dependencies).  This is a rule which may only be waived in exceptional circumstances – in the interests, presumably, of apparent non-exclusiveness.

From the point of view of the London establishment, the attraction of an organisation which allows them to live in the past and pretend that they still have some sort of empire, dispensing their largesse (in terms of aid and trade) more favourably to former colonies than to others is perhaps understandable.  It also gives the Windsors opportunities to visit exotic places (and in the case of one of them, insult the local natives).

From the point of view of the other members, it’s either the fact that Her Maj is still their head of state, or else the expectation of favourable terms for aid and trade that encourages them to see some value in the organisation.  But in the twenty-first century, is there really still an argument for retaining a pretend empire like this?  Whether it’s dreams of the past, or even possibly a feeling of guilt for past misdemeanours, is there really any justification for differentiating amongst those who need aid and trade to favour those who ‘we’ used to rule?

It’s an idea whose time has long gone; it belongs, like the empire, to the past.  It may be an academic question though.  Accepting Elizabeth II as head of the Commonwealth for as long as she lives is comparatively easy; she was, after all, on the throne when most of the members gained their independence.  I somehow doubt that the idea of a hereditary head of the organisation will survive the death of the current monarch.