A Changing of the Guard

Ben Wildsmith

Representing the UK on the global stage has become a far less congenial task than it was in the past. Instead of being conveyed by handcart to wave at adoring crowds in a white suit and feathered headgear, the job now entails absorbing centuries of indignation.

The insistence by the Establishment of clinging vainly on to every last totem of empire has left the UK in an indefensible spot.

Slavery reparations

This week alone we have seen First Australians expressing their feelings to King Charles, whilst Sir Keir Starmer has been at the Commonwealth, batting away claims for slavery reparations with the pitch perfect feel for the moment we’ve come to expect from him.

‘I’d rather look to the future,’ he said, echoing the sentiments of anyone who is being held to account for past actions. Try it for yourself at work.

The current scrutiny of colonisation, both as a historical fact and an ongoing process, puts several European nations in a shameful light. France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Italy, and Belgium all have horrors in their recent histories. The UK, though, is the poster child.

The reason for this is not just the size of the empire but the dreadful hash the nation has made of relinquishing it. Every trapping, from interference in the laws of colonies, to territorial claims, diplomatic titles, and constitutional arrangements have been wrenched away from the UK against its will.

Even after Chris Patten stood in the rain in his imperial costume, watching the union flag go down over Hong Kong, the MBEs, OBEs, Rule Britannias and demands for curtsies carried on as if nothing had happened.

Benign

The persistent willingness by a portion of the population to insist that the empire was a largely benign institution that should be celebrated to this day has harmed the UK itself. The pageantry of empire has squatted over our cultures, still occupying the top tier of national life like an institutional Mrs Brown’s Boys, refusing to vacate the stage long after the act wore thin.

The crowns, cloaks, and carriages are wheeled out to a public that consumes them like the weather: an immovable feature of life that happens whether you like it or not.

All of this looks yet more undignified now that the UK is, as JK Galbraith might have put it, on the bones of its arse.

Abuse

Coronations and the like have taken on the disreputable air of credit card abuse. It is one thing using your immense wealth to build museums for the world’s looted treasures, quite another hanging on to them when it looks like you might hold a tabletop sale to pay your leccy bill.

The nation is internationally regarded as a spent force from the past. Insisting on reminding everyone that it used to be a contender is toe-curlingly undignified.

In Russia, meanwhile, the BRICS summit is alerting us that the UK’s imperial hangover is set to outlast the existence of its successor. The American model of empire has relied on coerced agreement as much as brute strength, enforced via the world’s financial systems.

The BRICS nations’ move to establish a de-dollarised commodities exchange is a direct challenge to the Bretton-Woods certainties of the post-war world. If politics seems a touch fraught in America, that is one of the reasons for it. The world appears to be tilting eastwards, and the erosion of expected privileges is gathering pace with it.

In Wales, we have a good vantage point in matters like this. Both colonisers and colonised, the mechanics of power are on show in the Clive collection at Powis Castle, just as they are in the ruins of our neglected industrial communities.

As the world realigns and old assumptions become taboos, Wales is well-placed to carve out a position on empire that is distinct.

Knowing its consequences, we can decolonise our institutions with honesty and relish. ‘Looking to the future’ requires a reckoning with the past if we are ever to escape it.