The Empire Strikes Back: Out of the Ashes of Empire, A New World Order.

The British Empire once dominated most of the planet. The empire was so big that it was an Empire where the sun never set. The British Empire bought together a diverse array of hues, origins and backgrounds as one force, often through force, and is much of the reason that the British Isles is a multi-racial land today and why it was not conquered by fascism. If we look around us, many of the people of colour are descendants from different outposts of the empire. Their families were once citizens of the British Empire. Many of their families arrived in Britain, prior to 1962, as Commonwealth Citizens. They are not descendants of illegal immigrants but people that arrived in Britain as British subjects (just like white Britain), after the passing of the British Nationality Act in 1948. An act that is symbolised by the arrival of West-Indians on the Windrush, in the same year. That Britain is multi-coloured and diverse today, is a testimony to Britain's swaggering past greatness that gave it the name Great Britain.

We need to have a frank discussion about the British Empire, race and identity and where we go from here. Conversations about the British Empire are difficult conversations to have. For some the British Empire is something to be proud of, for others it brings feelings of shame and for some others feelings of defeat. But love it or loathe it, the British Empire transformed our world beyond recognition. As the biggest empire in human history, the British Empire had an impact on two-thirds of the planet and shaped who Britain's are today. For me, understanding modern British identity must begin with understanding and accepting the empire as the starting place in understanding who we are today. Moving forward into the future, means, tackling the issue of empire and creating a new inclusive political story, rooted in how the empire shaped Britain and the world and what we do with what we have inherited? Today, I am proposing a new global, post-racial understanding of Britain and the birth of a new Commonwealth Empire out of the ashes of the British Empire, that are the Commonwealth Realms. I am being open about the series of tragic and horrific events that led to the birth of the colonies but also accepting the possibilities that the events now offer us and the deep connections between the former colonial subjects that the British Empire fostered.

I am a descendant of slaves from Britain's slave plantations in the West-Indies. The West-Indies were set up as slave colony's where slaves produced sugar in the 1500's. At first the islands were occupied by indigenous native Indians but they were destroyed by war and the spread of European diseases. The islands were then populated by African slaves, who had been transported from Africa and African slave descendants who were now indigenous to the West-Indies. African slaves were anglicised; they were made culturally and linguistically English; given Christian names and their bloodlines were mixed. During this period they were not considered human beings but were bred like cattle to develop characteristics like strength. Over a period of 500 years they were totally transformed. Slavery ended in the 1800's and the slaves of the West-Indies became colonial subjects of the British Empire. By the 1960's when the West-Indies were made independent; they could not point to a place outside of the British Empire where they belonged. They could not return to the culture's, language's and lands that were part of the way of life of their African ancestors. It had been forgotten and though they shared skin colour with the people of Africa, they were unsure about their specific, linguistic and cultural heritages. Even in our independence, we were so connected to the idea of the British Empire that we chose to keep the British Crown as the Head of State. Over a 500 year period we had become deeply and irreversibly intertwined with "Britishness" and the "Anglosphere". But with the collapse of the British Empire there was no longer a powerful mother country that the islands were connected to. The economies of the Islands had been dependent on the relationships that the British Empire had participated in. Without the British Empire, the islands became sleepy towns with minimal scope for economic growth and without an economic centre to depend on. 

In 1788, British fleets arrived in Australia carrying thousands of convicts and claimed Australia as the property of the British Crown. The convicts were a mixture of men and women. Many of the convicts were Irish, the others were poor elements of British society, both were chaperoned by British soldiers. Australia would become a penal colony where the British Empire would send all its dissidents and criminals. Later, the continent would be further populated by British settlers looking for opportunity or missionaries seeking to convert the indigenous people. On arrival in Australia, confronted with hostility from Aboriginal tribes, the convicts, settlers and soldiers engaged in warfare with the Aboriginal peoples; sometimes carrying out massacres. Large swathes of the Aboriginal population were pushed off their indigenous homelands into reserves and missions and the mass part of the population were wiped out by European illnesses such as influenza, smallpox and measles. Many Aborigines were forcibly anglicised just like the African slaves of the West-Indies and made part of the British Empire. The convicts were given the task of building the colony and engaged in hard labour. As the penal colony grew and many convicts completed their sentences, that were mostly 7 or 14 year sentences, the ex-convicts now began to populate small towns and the colony began to develop as a nation. Like, the African slaves of the West-Indies, the convicts that had arrived in Australia in 1788 were totally transformed. They were no longer the Irish or Britons that they once were but had become something new. The Aboriginal people were also transformed and struggled to fit back into their traditional ways of life. Their bloodlines were also mixed and their way of life had become a relic of the past in the midst of Western modernity. In 1901, Australia gained independence, the Australian Commonwealth was born and Australia became a nation. But, in its transformation from colony to independent nation, Australia continued to hold the British Monarch as its Head of State. Despite the history of transportation.

And there is Canada. The land that once belonged to Native Indians that Britain colonised after defeating the French army in 1763, pushing First Nation Aboriginal people's off their lands. First Nation peoples were forced to hunt beavers and to produce beaver hats for the European markets. The indigenous culture was replaced by the legal system of the British Isles and Christianity. Land was given to Aristocrats on which the indigenous people would become serfs, producing crops for the landlords in exchange for a share of the crops and somewhere to live. The indigenous culture was mocked and many were coerced to adopt Christianity and ideals of European femininity. Many indigenous people were also wiped out by the same diseases that wiped out large swathes of the Aboriginal people's in Australia and the West Indies. The colonisation of Canada was not as brutal as that of Australia or the slavery of the West-Indies. There were agreements between the people of the First Nation and the British Empire but the empire was no less domineering in its superiority. As new settlers arrived, British subjects that were adventurers and entrepreneurs soon began to outnumber the indigenous people. In 1867 when the Federation of Canada was born, the colonial subjects chose to remain as part of the British Empire. Today, like Australia and the West Indies, the former colony shares a Head of State with the United Kingdom. Up until 1965, it's flag consisted of a Union Jack on a red background. Canada, today with 150 years of parliamentary independence is still deeply connected with Britain and cannot escape its past as part of the British Empire. Although Canada is the size of half a continent its population, the descendants of largely British settlers, is still less than the population of the small British Isles.

In independence, and then later, the end of a thriving British Empire, the colonies that shared our Head of State struggled to fit into the world as economic and military powers. After WWII, where all the Commonwealth Realms fought as one, the British Empire was severely weakened and was replaced by the US as the protector and defender of the Commonwealth Realms. Those in Australia and Canada were small vulnerable populations much smaller than the population of the UK, on gigantic pieces of land much bigger than the British Isles. Those in the West-Indies were inhabitants of very small islands, some of the most beautiful islands in the world, with an economy that struggled to exist in a post-colonial world and an identity that disconnected them from anything but the British Empire. For all three regions; the British Isles were the cultural mother country and they were inexplicably connected to the notion of the British Empire, without whom they would not have existed. Their commitment to the ideal of the British Empire has been made apparent by their desire to keep Queen Elizabeth II as Head of State.

Up until the 1970's there was still public recognition of the historical relationship between the Crown and the former colonies that were now referred to as the Commonwealth Realms. But after Britain's entrance into the European community in 1973 relationships between the now independent colonies changed, as Britain sought European protectionism and ended freedom of movement for Commonwealth citizens. In the midst of our betrayal of those that were historically connected to us, the former colonies continued to have the British Crown as its Head of State signalling a tacit desire for political togetherness and recognition that perhaps Britain would come to its senses.

In an era of colonial expansion of the British Empire, the British civilisation was transported around the world. Whole people's were wiped out through horrific violence and the spread of viruses; new peoples were born and Britain became a global culture that occupied continents. Many of the left want to fight with the ghosts of the past, churning out literature on the evils of the British Empire and the lack of moral fortitude in the actions of Britain's ancestors. Pride in the British Empire has been considered an evil. To even recognise the connections that the British Empire formed and the opportunities that it created for a new world order now, is imagined as a great act of racism. Britain and the former colonies are wrestling with left-wing guilt ridden ideology and identity politics, whilst ignoring the fact that we cannot change the past and must begin to imagine what we can do with what we have inherited as part of our civilisation across the world. 

Most of this stuff happened before we were born. Off course, it can be discomforting but it cannot be a barrier to building on opportunities that have been bequeathed to us. I am one of the descendants of the West-Indian slave plantations. I am one of those whose lineage was anglicised through brute force and transported across the globe but it is not something that I could ever change. The people that now populate Australia were imprisoned and taken across the world from the British Isles for slave labour. Most female prisoners were forced into prostitution and rebellion was brutally put down. The people that occupied the continent were brutally slaughtered and anglicised just as those of my lineage. There is no apology that could change the facts about that or who I am today. Those that committed the crimes no longer exist and those that were victims of the crimes do not exist. It is not really our issue. It is not something that Britain can apologise for, it is not something that we can change. We can take the traditional left-wing stance and condemn the actions of our British forefathers but that does not change the situation now. The opportunity before us now is to repopulate continents and create a new expression of the British Empire. A new post-racial, global expression of the British civilisation, rooted in our shared modern values of a liberal society. Now we can create a New World Order without the blood of Britain's ancestors on our hand. We will not be responsible for mass massacre or genocide but for bringing life where there is emptiness. The bible teaches us to go forward and multiply. It is our destiny to give life to these new worlds. 

World history has been a story of the rise and fall of empires, but out of the ashes of empires come new people and new empires and new civilisations. Out of the ashes of the British Empire, how do we go forward together as a collective of former colonies and a former coloniser? How do we exploit the historical actions that have given us our world today, in a way that makes amends for the past and continues our quest for Utopia? Out of the legacy of the transportation of a civilisation across the globe, that brought mass genocide, slavery and forced anglicisation, how do we create a new liberal paradise? How do we create a political story of a new and renewed empire between us, in these continents and amongst the diverse people that are now part of our civilisation through the wider Commonwealth?

God Save the Queen! God Save Britannia!