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

i

Summary

The book starts by
outlining the theory of elites, that social hierarchy is a fact in
any society with a minority which rules
the majority. The nature of the elite (the
Establishment) and its power and interests in Britain is defined
and then of the
British political elite, as envisaged in the book, and its link with
the
“Establishment”. A brief inquiry of the theory of state expansionism is given,
leading to
a short history of the British imperial expansion and its origins. The
work portrays the series of events
which led to the start of the decolonisation
process, both leading up to the Second World War and during the
1939-45 War.
Developments such as economic expansion of the empire nations as early as the
end of the
nineteenth century, especially in the white settlement areas of the
empire are examined, in that they led
those territories to seek more political
control over, first, their internal affairs, and then over their
external affairs. The
white colonies, having received Dominion status, following their role in the
1914-
18 War, India also began asking for equal treatment, namely political self-rule.
Other factors are
identified such as economic and political challenges posed by
the European powers, Japan and the USA, during
the period leading up to the
1939-45 War. Having examined the pressures weakening the imperial order,
both
from inside the empire, which were mainly nationalism, and the exacerbating
external pressures such
as the effect of the World Wars which resulted in massive
economic crises for Britain, it focusses on the
political elite’s approach to
safeguarding British interests in 1945-63. It is explained how the British
political
elite’s strategy to do this was through granting and organising political
independence for
the colonies and persuading them to retain their old ties
together, in a multi-racial institution which came
to be called the Modern
Commonwealth. This was made possible by a harmonisation of
Labour’s
socialist, anti-colonial doctrine with its underlying British nationalism and sense
of
Empire exemplified in Bevin. This in effect resulted in a bi-partisan policy

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