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

140

Having examined in detail, both in this and in the previous chapter, the
causes of decolonisation of
the British Empire, and the reactions of the
Conservative Government during and after the War in the
United Kingdom, the
studies will be continued by examining ways in which the Conservative
leadership
between 1951-63 sought to maintain Britain’s influence and protect
her interests while carrying on
with the process of giving self-government to the
colonies.

There
was, in fact, a good deal of Justification for Disraeli’s claim when,
as noted earlier in this
chapter, he said that governments often continue with their
predecessor’s policies. This, indeed,
proved to be the case.

As
they were generally in harmony with the Labour Government of 1945-
51 regarding the decolonisation
process, the Conservative leaders of 1951-63
similarly had very little disagreement with their
predecessors’ strategies for
protecting British power and interests, and in general continued
Labour’s policies.
This is due to the fact that the policies of the Labour Government in
maintaining
Britain’s economic and political interests in the ex-colonies was, as a matter
of
fact, a Conservative device. It was the Labour Government, and in particular
Ernest Bevin,
Labour’s Foreign Secretary, who, in 1950, in the Sinhalese capital
of Colombo, made the concept of
‘trusteeship’, or the Colonial Development Act
of 1940, official: It became known as the Colombo
Plan, as we saw in Chapter
Five. In fact, in 1946, Ernest Bevin stated firmly and clearly that, “for
his part he
was ‘not prepared to sacrifice the British Empire”21 on the grounds that “if the
British Empire fell…it would mean the
standard of life in our constituencies
would fall rapidly.”22
Additionally, as Bernard Porter has put it, “development
and welfare’ was seductive because its
effect was to sanction what was expedient
now, while at the same time seeming to endorse most of what had
been done in
the past.”23 The Colombo Plan, which had
previously been known as the
Development Act of 1940 formulated by the Conservatives, was to imply
that

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