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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not wait
on the sidelines while the British administrators became satisfied that the
people were fully mature in their
appreciation of the task of independence.
Therefore, the British political elite found themselves again
revising political
plans for the colonies to speed up the process of decolonization. The
political
leaders in the United Kingdom skillfully used this growing sentiment of
nationalism in
creating new nations rather than getting frustrated by the situation.
Some of the Asian colonies, however,
had considerable political experience.
Therefore Britain was happy that they too could move speedily in the
direction
India had taken. Ceylon had already been undergoing a considerable political
preparation
throughout the twentieth century; by 1931 it had an almost wholly
elective house with an almost full
universal suffrage. It was granted nationhood
in 1948. Burma too became independent in the same year. In the
Malay peninsula
a federation was formed in 1948 in an attempt to strengthen the whole
political
structure there. This action took place together with an extension of the elective
principle,
at state and the federal level, and in 1957 full nationhood was given.
Malaya expanded into Malaysia in 1963
when it was joined by Singapore
(temporarily) and the Borneo states of Sarawak and North Borneo (which
became
Sabah).

The most
dramatic speeding up of political development, as we mentioned,
was in Africa. The Gold Coast led the way.
“In 1946 the Gold Coast became the
first legislative council in British Africa to have a majority of
African members.
Already the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and Southern Nigeria had been operating a
partly
elective system since the 1920s; and in 1947 the whole of Nigeria obtained
a partly elective council. Kwame
Nkrumah and his Convention People’s Party
generated a strong political appeal through the ballot
box.”6 Therefore the British
political elite were quick to realise
that they had to come to terms with him and
the excitement of nationalism could not be extinguished by
keeping this
charismatic leader in prison. Instead he was made Prime Minister in 1952; two

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