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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most
suitable market; with the Empire increasingly being regarded as a
commercial advantage only in so far as it
provided a ready and secure outlet. To
this extent safeguarding it from the influence of other powers was
considered
important.

The
circumstances up to the Second World War and after, which have been
discussed, however, brought British
presence in the colonies to a minimum that,
ironically, British investors and traders had been preferring as
far back as the
nineteenth century. This substantial degree of reduction in British
governmental
presence came about by the evolution of the Modern Commonwealth. Although
many traders
preferred a minimum British presence, i.e. relieved of the apparatus
of imperial control, nevertheless it was
not this but only the pressures and
especially the abruptness of the crisis after the Second World War which
actually
made Britain proceed with the creation of the Commonwealth. This minimum
British presence in
her sphere of influence, was to help safeguard her commercial
interests from falling into the hands of other
powers such as the Soviets or other
Western competitors after the War. Since with or without an Empire free
trade
could exist in any event; it was a question of how to maintain, effectively, an
established outlet
for the UK and, most importantly, to protect the sterling area
after the War which gave an important
incentive to retaining the minimum British
presence that was embodied in the solution of the Modern
Commonwealth.

The
determination to maintain Britain’s world roles, therefore, it could be
said, was positively
Churchillian, among the British political elite. Given the
changed conditions, the British political elite
with their skill of compromise
managed to overcome the difficulties that were ahead of them in relation to
the
future of the Empire after 1945. In other words, the British political elite made
the best out of a
bad situation, as has been seen during the course of this book,
above all in succeeding for the most part in
holding the former imperial links
together. It might be said that in the national consciousness, of the elite
at least, a

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