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SubscriptionsCategory: Empire
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‘We Need to Have New Conversations About the Colonial Realities of Our Rural Past’
‘Our Island Stories: Country Walks Through Colonial Britain’ reveals fascinating connections between colonial history and British rural life – but it isn’t expected to go down well with everyone
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‘To Restore Trust, Rip Up the Astroturf’
As fake grassroots organisations continue their culture war – we need to fight back, writes Otto English
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‘A Disunited Kingdom? For Younger Minorities, Britishness is an Identity We Can Work With – A Quest for Englishness Must Confront This’
Developing a stronger sense of Englishness cannot merely be looked at through a political lens – our identities are personal and multiple, conflicting and shifting, writes Hardeep Matharu
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‘A Disunited Kingdom? Britain is Built on Forgetting Our Imperial History’
Maintaining the illusory story of what Britain was is integral to the illusion of what Britain is – and the maintenance of political and economic hegemony, writes MP Clive Lewis
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A Message to White Environmentalists: Demanding a Fossil Fuel Phase Out is Not Enough
The poverty blindness of too many climate activists overlooks the huge complexities facing the world’s poorest
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‘Suella Braverman’s “Hate March” Rhetoric is Another Desperate Attempt to Hold onto State Power’
The crafting of ‘ceasefire’ marches as a transgression of Remembrance Sunday looks like a throwback to a top-down colonial mindset, argues Suriyah Bi
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‘Half Measures Will Not Decolonise International Development’
Genuine anti-racist internationalism calls for much greater radicalism, writes Sunit Bagree
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Irony: The Velvet Glove of Colonialism?
Did the Greeks invent irony? Rahila Gupta makes the case for Britain’s mastery and ownership of the device
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The Identity Trap: No One Narrative Can Encompass the Different Dimensions of Diversity
As Britain welcomes its first Asian Prime Minister, Hardeep Matharu explores how our pluralistic society is reflected in the multiplicity of its migrant experience – as demonstrated by the different reactions to Rishi Sunak’s rise
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1,600 Civilians Killed by British Forces Since 1945 is ‘Tip of the Iceberg’
New data on civilian killings by British forces in colonial wars of independence, plus more recent conflicts, exposes the gaps in our knowledge of recent military history
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Britannia Unchained Review: Imperial Nostalgia and the Unravelling of Social Progress
Sam Bright unpicks the Truss-Kwarteng manifesto, finding a worrying obsession with Britain’s distant economic past
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British Identity: The Empire’s Spectacle
The mourning of the Queen’s death has been, largely unconsciously, a nation in a state of ‘appearing’, writes Joe Haward
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‘Out of the Picture: After the Queen’s Death, Will Britain Finally Confront Itself?’
Britain has hidden a key part of our story from ourselves. With the Queen’s death marking a decisive shift, it’s time for us all to start building a better picture of our country and its past, writes Hardeep Matharu
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Seven Decades of Social Progress – But is the UK Heading Backwards?
The Byline Intelligence Team digs into the story of the past 70 years in data
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The Identity Trap: Race, Representation and the Rise of Conservative Diversity
Rishi Sunak is in the running to be Britain’s first prime minister of colour – but the debate around whether this will be a good thing for ethnic minorities has laid bare conflicting ideas about the ‘individual’ and the ‘collective’, writes Hardeep Matharu
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Male, Pale and Colonial: Russell Group Universities Dominated by Named Buildings Reflective of a Bygone Era
Max Colbert investigates the backgrounds of those commemorated on leading university campuses
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The Government’s Rwanda Plan is a Relic of a Colonial Age
Britain’s historic hostility towards migration – by politicians of all stripes – has laid the groundwork for Priti Patel’s controversial plan to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda, says Thomas Perrett
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Backwards Britain: Having Rejected a European Future, We Can Only Hark Back to an Imperial Past
Hardeep Matharu explores how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed the UK’s perilous retreat – at a time when collaboration and a new vision of itself is required to navigate the dangerous realities of a changing world
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Are the Royals Trapped in a Gilded Cage – Or Is Britain?
Is the Royal Family trapped by Britain’s past or is the problem our inability to conceive of a social order without monarchy?
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Opening Our Eyes to the Cost of Empire: Why We Must Demand the Return of Nigeria’s Benin Bronzes
Paddy Docherty explains how research for his book on the 1897 invasion of the Kingdom of Benin left him ashamed – an emotion he believes must be converted into action
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The Colston Four: It is the Attorney General Who Seeks to Set a ‘Dangerous Precedent’
The four defendants were found not guilty of criminal damage for removing the statue of the slave trader in Bristol – the rule of law in Britain will be significantly eroded, says Gareth Roberts
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‘A Deeply Dangerous Power Grab by the Home Secretary’: Conservative Peer Calls for Plans to Strip Citizenship Without Warning to be Scrapped
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi told peers that immigrants’ fears that future generations would be treated like outsiders and second-class citizens are not unfounded
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From Conrad’s Kurtz to Enoch Powell: Conservatism Takes a Dark Turn to the Past
Under Boris Johnson’s leadership, the Conservative Party has reversed half a century of attempts at post-imperial reform and is now embarked on a campaign of ‘othering’ – targeting enemies within and without
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The Nationality and Borders Bill is a Legacy of Empire
We need to start calling British immigration policy and law for what it is: a form of post-colonial, racialised nation-building, says Dr Maria Norris
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Colonial Amnesia: The Forgotten Victims of Transportation
Katharine Quarmby explores why Britain’s story of transportation – the biggest forced migration in its history – has largely been buried
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The Today Programme and the War on the National Trust: An Episode in Shameful Journalism
A discussion about wokeness, colonialism and the National Trust on the BBC’s flagship radio show came across like a public school reunion dinner, says Brian Cathcart
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Empire Men: ‘The Sweet, Just, Boyish Masters’
Jake Arnott reveals the repressions that drove British Empire Men such as General Gordon, Lord Kitchener, Cecil Rhodes, Robert Baden-Powell and T. E. Lawrence
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From George Orwell to Priti Patel: How Britain Brought its Colonial Policing Home
As the Metropolitan Police is judged to be institutionally corrupt, Hardeep Matharu and Peter Jukes explore how some of the biggest problems still plaguing British policing are embedded in the soil of British colonialism
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Selective Free Speech: Academics Discussing Race Face the Real Cancel Culture
Black, Asian and ethnic minority academics and university staff increasingly encounter a ‘cancel culture’ when discussing race – as the usual free speech advocates stay silent, Sian Norris reports
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Colston Reconfigured: A Fulcrum for Future Understanding
Hannah Charlton explores what the journey of the statue of a Bristol slavetrader is revealing about the wider historical moment the country finds itself in
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‘Most British Institutions Pander to the Mail’s Blackmailing and Racism’
As attacks by right-wing tabloids on female academics intensify, Sian Norris explores why they appear to be able to publish such material with impunity
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The End of the Union: Identity Meets Provocation
Jonathan Lis explains how English exceptionalism has forced the rest of the United Kingdom to decide between its identities
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Anti-Woke Crusade Igniting Threats to Safety and Careers: ‘There’s So Much Hatred Projected at Women in Public Life’, Warns Historian
Hardeep Matharu reports on how the history of the English countryside has turned into a dangerous battleground as various forces try to provoke an uncivil culture war
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The Despicable History of Imperial Food and Drink Still Casts A Shadow Today
Stephen Colegrave delves into the dark colonial past and historic human cost of the products Brits can’t seem to live without
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The Racist History of South African Cricket Must Be Written Into the Record
Richard Heller and Peter Oborne set out how the past injustice of non-white players being excluded from the country’s Test cricket matches should be re-evaluated in the light of powerful new discussions about the legacy of white supremacy
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Beyond the Lure of Empire: The Door of No Return
Bonnie Greer, a former British Museum trustee, observes the role of African Empires in her own roots and looks beyond possession and subjugation for true post-imperial thinking
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‘You See What People Can Do to Other People, People they Lived Side-By-Side With’: Ending the Silence on Partition and Empire
As discussions of Empire and Britain’s imperial history have come to the forefront in 2020, Hardeep Matharu speaks to BBC journalist and author Kavita Puri to explore what she learnt from those who lived through the end of the colonial project in India about divisions tearing societies apart for her book ‘Partition Voices’
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The Government’s Hollow Promises Leave the Chagos Islanders Abandoned Once More
Four years after the Government promised a major aid package to the British citizens it forced from their homes it has spent just half a million pounds, reports Steve Shaw
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The Journey to Confront My Whiteness
Hannah Charlton reflects on her personal exploration of understanding racism today and the individual and collective legacy of our Empire past
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Britain’s Rump Trumpocracy: An Imperial State – Without An Empire
As the US moves away and Brexit crumbles, former Prime Minister John Major has exposed the isolation and colonial nostalgia of Britain, argues Hardeep Matharu
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Chagos Islanders Seek Arrest of British Officials for ‘Apartheid’
Islanders forcibly expelled from a British colony in the Indian Ocean have filed charges with the International Criminal Court, reports Steve Shaw
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‘Unnecessary Secrecy’: Government Dodges Scrutiny on Hong Kong Over Fears of Harming Relations with China
How serious is the UK about upholding its historic responsibility towards its former colony, where a crisis of democracy is unfolding before the world’s eyes?
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Imperial Amnesia Strikes Back: ‘Racism in America Nothing to do with Us’
In a debate on the UK’s Black History Month, Kemi Badenoch highlighted the Government’s colonial arrogance by deflecting attention and throwing its ‘special’ ally under the bus
