When Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1952, she became the head of an empire that stretched across the globe. For her son, Charles III, there is no empire, just a small kingdom that without it has become fractious, divided and disillusioned.
In the 50 years between India’s independence in 1947, and the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997, the UK watched its global power gradually but irreversibly diminish. Now, unmoored from its empire, the UK appears lost, at odds with itself at home, and unsure of itself abroad.
This has been particularly apparent since the vote to leave the European Union. Driven in part by misplaced imperial nostalgia it’s had the largely unpredicted consequence of exposing a country in the midst of an identity crisis to the cold light of day. The referendum exposed the four nations of the union as divided both between and within themselves. Those who identify primarily as English voted leave. Those who identify primarily as Scottish or Welsh voted remain. In Northern Ireland, voters largely split across historic sectarian lines. Meanwhile, “Britishness”, a supposedly unifying identity, fractured across the Brexit divide. Those in England who primarily identify as British voted remain. Those in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland voted leave. If Britishness no longer unites us, what does?
The old identities of the nations upon which the UK is built have always ebbed and flowed beneath the surface of the more modern concept of “Britishness”. They now seem set to overwhelm it. Yet the UK as I know it also stands upon foundations and identities that are found far beyond the British Isles.
A product of empire
I was born in Kenya but born British. My father left the UK after finishing university in the mid-1960s, and joined a UK government-funded teaching programme which took him to Tanzania and Uganda before he alighted in Kenya. He was sent to those countries because they were former British colonies. It was the British Empire that paved his way to Kenya, and ultimately to my mother. Like many others, I am a child of that empire. Without it, I surely would not exist.
Kenya secured its independence from the UK little more than a decade before my father arrived. Freedom was hard won and came after years of bloody violence. When my mother was a child, Kenya was at war with the UK. The Mau Mau rebellion began in 1952, the same year that the then Princess Elizabeth succeeded to the throne while holidaying at the Treetop hotel in the heart of the Kenya forest.
For seven years, colonial authorities with the backing of the UK government carried out a campaign of extraordinary violence against Kenyan nationals. Concentration camps were established in which systemised torture, sexual abuse, and forced castration were the norm. Members of my family were arrested during the Mau Mau uprising, and they almost certainly found themselves on the receiving end of a British boot or worse. The horrors of the final years of British rule in Kenya are enough to make even the most hardened soldier weep.
Carried within me are the stories of both sides, coloniser and colonised. Britain, Kenya and England are all in my blood. Those national identities run through me, the thread of a familial story and of shared national histories. I am far from unique in having a complex identity that was forged in the British Empire. Arguably, all of our identities were. We can’t keep ignoring this. We need to navigate the interrelationships between the many strands of belonging that flow within us, and look our imperial history squarely in the eye. Unfortunately, our political leaders have consistently shied away from this task.
If Charles wants to pass down a kingdom that’s even remotely “united”, reconciling the UK with its imperial past might just have to sit with him
An imperial state
If Charles III wants to pass down a kingdom that’s even remotely “united” to his heir, the task of reconciling the UK with its imperial past might just have to sit with him. The place to start is the origin story of the UK itself. When the first Acts of Union were ratified in England and Scotland in 1706 and 1707 respectively, this was not the consequence of a sudden outbreak of bonhomie between two historic enemies. Rather, creating the Union was a pragmatic response to imperial concerns, both north and south of the border.
For Scotland, union with England represented a pathway towards imperial success and wealth. Scotland had tried to do this on its own. In 1698, it sent five ships to modern-day Panama in the hope it could build an empire in the Americas that would compete with those of other European powers. The venture failed comprehensively and left the country broke. Unable to create an empire of its own, the next best thing was to take a stake in England’s.
For England, union with Scotland represented a golden opportunity to resolve an age-old security concern – defending the country from attack from the north. This had always been a matter of serious importance, but by the early eighteenth century resolving this issue had the added benefit of freeing resources that could be redirected to the further expansion of the empire. Right from its inception, empire was at the heart of the Union, and for centuries it defined the nation.
Easier to forget
When, in 1962, former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson reflected on the UK’s loss of empire he argued that “Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role.” Acheson was delivering a speech at the West Point Military Academy and given his audience and career experience it is not surprising that he viewed the loss of empire through the prism of foreign policy. However, in doing so, Acheson underestimated the true impact of this seismic change.
The Empire was more than just a “role” the UK carried out abroad, and which, once lost, had to be replaced with a new way for the country to occupy itself nine-to-five. Empire was central to everything the UK was. It became rich because of the Empire. It was a protagonist in three global conflicts because of the Empire. It created a new national identity, Britishness, because of the Empire. There had been no Kingdom of Great Britain, no United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland without the Empire. That is, until now.
The real impact of the loss of empire was not to leave the UK seeking a new role, but to put it on the pathway towards an existential crisis. It did not have to be this way. Effective political leadership could have steered the UK away from a post-imperial identity crunch. However, that would have required an honest conversation about the Empire and the actions the UK had taken to build it, exploit it, and try to retain it.
This is not a conversation any political leader in the UK wants to have. At the time of Acheson’s speech, Britain’s government was far more interested in instigating state-sanctioned cover-ups, including in Kenya where hundreds of thousands of files were burnt to hide what had been done in the final days of British rule. Since then, the consensus has been that it’s better to hide the truth and forget than to face up to our history. Better to focus on the Second World War, or the creation of the NHS, as if they were the foundation stories of our country. Better to talk in terms of the UK seeking a new international role, like “Global Britain”, than grapple with what it means for an imperial country with a national identity forged in empire, to be without that empire.
This conspiracy of silence has benefitted those directly involved in all that was done in the name of the Crown, but it has left the UK fragile. By failing to address our past, we’re unable to forge a different kind of future. We are left unsure of who we are, how we got here, what our purpose is, and what it means to be British. So it comes as no surprise that those older identities, which pre-date the Empire, have only grown stronger and are now breaking the UK apart.
A challenge fit for a king
If we believe there’s still value in the UK – as I do – we must reconcile with our imperial legacy. But in this age of culture wars, it is hard to imagine a political leader brave enough to lead us in addressing such a history head on. On the right, too many see electoral benefits in division rather than union – the fracturing of the UK serves them just fine. On the left, the risk of being labelled “woke” is enough for politicians to steer clear of questions about the Empire.
There is, however, one leader who is immune to these electoral concerns. The king is uniquely positioned to rise above the squabbles, ambitions, and short-termism of politicians. As monarch he is able to speak on behalf of the UK, past, present, and future, and like his mother, could use that authority to help heal the wounds of empire.
When Queen Elizabeth II made a state visit to Ireland in 2011, she made a number of symbolic gestures, including delivering remarks in Gaelic and laying a wreath in Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance – a park dedicated to the Irish who fought against British rule. In doing so, she did more than any politician to address the pain and suffering that have marked relations between the UK and its nearest neighbour. While Brexiters have done their best in recent years to undo much of her good work, the powerful impact of that visit continues to resonate, and it provides a template for her son.
Similar acts by Charles III would not only help heal wounds and build bridges across the world but also prompt a conversation about empire at home by challenging the political establishment’s silence. Many will oppose this, but to shout down those from former colonies who have long been demanding such a conversation is one thing – shouting down the king is quite another.
As a republican, it feels peculiar to be looking to the king to lead the effort to save the nation. But he might just be the one citizen in a real position to do so. And should he choose to do this, such a reckoning with our past won’t be easy. It will prompt disbelief and denial, guilt, anger and pain. But it’s what we need to do if we are to rediscover a sense of ourselves, renew our Union, and save it for the
generations to come.
Sydney Nash is a former civil servant and UK/EU negotiator, and a former advisor to the automotive sector on Brexit and international trade. He writes in a personal capacity and can be found @NashSGC
