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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elsewhere, but, as we have seen, she was facing mounting economic pressures.
Therefore, having had a
substantial programme of domestic reforms ahead of it,
the incoming Labour Government struggled to decide
on Britain’s future role. As
Bernard Porter has put it, Labour’s plan for the decolonisation of
the Empire was
“the letting go of what, after a war, just could not be held.”40

The
Labour Government’s giving up of the Empire’ did not mean the end
of British influence in the
former colonies. It has to be put into the context of a
development approach to the colonies, “which
would put real flesh on the old
bones of trusteeship.”41 The
idea of colonial development was essentially based
upon shrewd economic considerations, being aimed at
retaining Britain’s trading
and financial role in the former colonies and, as a result, maintaining
Britain’s
economic and political position as a world power. The Labour political elite
achieved
this by developing the British Commonwealth into the Modern
Commonwealth ‘club’, which was
defined in Chapter Three. It happened
essentially because after the War Britain was no longer able to
defend its colonial
rule. This had been foreseen a long time before the end of World War Two,
by
both the Conservatives and the Labour politicians-especially by the progressive
Conservatives
such as Oliver Stanley, the wartime Colonial Secretary, and
Andrew Cohen, later to be the Governor of
Uganda. In fact, the Labour
Government’s development policies for the colonies had been laid down by
the
Colonial Development and Welfare Act of 1940 and its successor in 1945, both
products of the
war-time coalition. Therefore, the Modern Commonwealth
continued the imperial connection. It is
reinforced and valued among the newly
independent countries by the economic development incentive brought
about by
the Colonial Development Act. The member countries of this ‘club’, as a result,
are
responsible for their own defence. Hence Britain’s economic interests in the
former colonies were
protected, whilst she reduced the cost of defence. Moreover,
Britain, being an important capitalist
country, by winning support from the

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