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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lesson had
been learnt from the break-down of the first Empire with the loss of
the American colonies. For after 1945
Britain granted independence to her
colonies with the minimum degree of violence and overcame difficulties,
such as
the Muslim and Hindu confrontation in India. This was as a result of the Labour
political
elite’s skill in 1945-51. The Conservatives had Africa to deal with
between 1951-63. Kenya and Uganda
were the most difficult cases and the work
in Chapter Six indicated how they were resolved. The French on the
other hand
took a different course of action to maintain their interests. They overtly took
direct
military action, a course that Britain took to confront the separatists in
America which led to the
establishment of the United States of America with no
link with the mother country. The French involved
themselves in prolonged wars
in North Africa (Algeria) and in Asia (French Indo-China), but all led
to
resentments and bitter feeling towards the mother country. As the work in Chapter
One show, there
will be considerable disadvantage for any government which
depends solely upon military power to maintain
control. In the long term it is
important for all people in positions of authority that they should have
their
position respected as legitimate (rightful) by those over whom they seek to have
power or
influence.

Professor B. Crick has put it
this way:

“probably all
governments require some capacity for, or potentiality of,
force or violence, but probably no government can
maintain itself through
time, ae distinct from defence and attack at specified moments,
without
legitimacy itself in some way getting itself loved, respected, even just
accepted as inevitable,
otherwise it would need constant recourse to open
violence – which is rarely the case”1

In this
respect the exercise of power became a matter of the practice of
authority. Authority is the quality of being
able to get people to do things because
they think the individual or group has the right to tell them what to
do. Those in

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