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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the
twentieth century this surely represented the major political adjustment and
achievement of the British
political elite, which helped guarantee its own
position.

As Professor Zimmern has put it,

“this should not be
understood as the disintegration of the Empire, or a loss
of power and prestige, but as an intentional
process of reconstruction”.2

According
to Zimmern “British imperialism must adapt to the new
situations”. Henceforth the word
“British” could no longer be taken to denote a
particular race, nationality or territorial division
and the idea of “white
supremacy” could not be upheld, even though the Anglo-Saxon, as opposed
to
the Latins, might find it difficult to give up the race-consciousness.3 Zimmern
considered the theory that “nation and state were unhealthy terms; on
the other
hand, the movement for cultural self-determination which we find springing up
within the
Empire is perfectly sound, healthy and indeed inevitable”.4 London
did
not attempt, like Paris, a policy of assimilation; on the contrary, it had
depoliticised the concept
of nationality and particularly the notion of British, and
as a result bad made possible an association of
equal self-respecting communities.
Consequently, from the time India received its independence after the
Second
World War, the term the British Commonwealth was replaced by the term the
Modern Commonwealth, or
simply the Commonwealth. In the words of P.O.
Gordon-Walker, the Minister for Commonwealth Relations in the
post-1945
Labour Government for two years, and the future Foreign Secretary 1964-65, as
representative
of many similar comments:

“One
possibility is that the nationalism of Asia may range itself against the
nations of the West. That, I think,
would be the greatest calamity that befell
the world. It would carry in its train very grave problems and
difficulties
for the next century or two, and I think the Commonwealth, which includes

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