by MARK CURTIS
The British Empire is still with us, in the UK’s island outposts and military bases, in the plunder of other countries’ resources, and in UK officials’ imperial mindset.
There’s long been a debate over whether Britain’s Empire – the largest the world has ever known – was a good or bad thing. There’s another question though – did it really end?
In some ways, obviously it did. Some 62 territories have gained independence from the UK in recent decades, mainly during the period from India’s fight for independence in 1947 until Zimbabwe’s in 1980.
But King Charles is still the head of state of 14 Commonwealth territories, from Australia to Saint Lucia, and the UK controls a further 14 ‘Overseas Territories’, such as Gibraltar and on the island of Cyprus.
The United Nations Special Committee on Decolonisation has a list of 17 territories which are “non-self governing”, or colonies in all but name. In 10 of them, the UK is the current administering power.
Many of the UK’s most important current military bases are in former colonies, such as Kenya and Belize.
UK-based multinational corporations, especially mining and oil companies, are still plundering the wealth of countries which used to be colonies and are now independent. There’s a strong correlation between where they operated then, and where they do now.
And money still being drained from those territories is regularly routed through UK-controlled island tax havens like the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands. Those territories are a true legacy of the City of London’s enormous commercial power in the era of formal colonialism.
Just as acute is the culture of intervention that still pervades the corridors of Whitehall – a mentality in officialdom of high-minded superiority that sees it as perfectly normal for Britain to send warships or aircraft to bomb foreign countries – like Yemen last month – supported by jingoistic mass media.
UK global might has certainly declined since it was the world’s superpower, a period which began with Britain’s defeat of the French and Spanish navies in 1805 until the second world war.
But Britain remains one of the world’s major military and soft powers, and one of the globe’s most influential countries, by some rankings.
So what the UK does still matters to millions of people around the world. And much of that influence remains pernicious.
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