The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)

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system. It is a zero sum game: what the government side loses the opposition side
gains: ‘the
more their is of mine the less their is of yours.”9

For
quite a long time the United Kingdom has been alternately governed
by the Conservative Party or the
Labour Party. As was seen in Chapter One,
“originally a two-party system evolved for historical
reasons as early as the
seventeenth century; and it has been maintained partly by the electoral
system
which penalises minority parties,”10 such as the
Liberal-Social Democratic
Alliance in the 1987 General Election. “It is also maintained, though,
because it
is seen to possess valuable attributes.”11 One might
add that the two-party system
is, in fact, the key to understanding how the Constitution really works; it
is
responsible for six of its characteristics: “the near certainty that one party or the
other
will have a clear majority in the House; the consequent formation of a
Cabinet drawn from this majority
party; the stability of this Cabinet, since its
majority is guaranteed; the durability of this Cabinet
for the full term of the
Parliament’s life; the unambiguous responsibility of the Cabinet for what
happens
during its term of office; and the presentation to the electorate of a clear choice
between
the government party and the opposition.”12

The Labour Political Elite and Protecting British Power and Interests in the
Decolonisation Process

We
have seen the process of accountability in the British political system
and that all policies are debated
before being implemented. We can now proceed
with the attitudes and policy ideas of the different
categories of the British
political elite involved in the decolonisation process from 1945 to 1963, with
a
view to seeing how they sought to maintain Britain’s national interest. Our
investigation
begins with the Labour Cabinet’s policies towards the
decolonisation of the British Empire, and how
it came about that the Labour
leaders found themselves dealing with the problem, and in the way that they
did.

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