If, as the joke goes, war is God’s way of teaching Americans geography, then sport is arguably His way of instructing the British in their own history. The World Cup provoked an outpouring of anti-England sentiment, much of it rooted in the colonial past. An Irish Times article posited that it is “totally fine to hate England during the World Cup”; Union Jack flags were burned in Buenos Aires; and Sinn Fein Senator Chris Andrews announced that he would “support anyone who’s playing England until England isn’t occupying Ireland”.
The national curriculum really doesn’t cover history with the colonies in mind
“Anyone against England” isn’t new for Andrews’ countrymen; Taoiseach Eamon de Valera sent condolences on the death of Hitler. (We can use history too, you know). But is this sentiment confined to footballing banter or does imperial history affect our diplomacy today? Empire has bequeathed various issues complicating Britain’s relationships, including compensation for historical injustices, demands for reparations, and calls for the repatriation of looted artefacts.
Yet diplomats stress that these are rarely raised by government counterparts. Jeffrey James, High Commissioner in Kenya between 1997 and 2001, tells me: “I cannot recall any occasion when Britain’s colonial past was raised as a means of exerting some kind of pressure. In Kenya, Britain’s standing was still generally very high, both with politicians and the public, with the great majority of people seeing Britain as a friendly source of advice and support. The issue of victims of torture, even castration, was just coming to the fore and, later, as the evidence emerged from hidden archives, compensation was paid by the British Government. But this campaign was championed by London-based lawyers and did not receive particularly strong support from the Kenyan Government”.
Ex-High Commissioner to Jamaica Asif Ahmad says the issue of reparations was “never raised with me by the Prime Minister of Jamaica or the bulk of his cabinet. One or two MPs, particularly from a long-standing campaign, mentioned it every now and then, but it was really in passing. You heard it more in the university and campaign groups”.
He adds: “A Foreign Office junior minister came and had an excellent trip but tripped at the final hurdle when a journalist asked him about colonialism and slavery. He said ‘let’s not peer too deeply into our history’. The editorial that followed was ‘Britain, a country that wants to immerse herself in her history, will not permit us ours’. It was quite an ouch moment”.
There is no set training for diplomats on how to handle such demands: “Any of that is not specifically subject-trained. It’s a question of the worldview that you form based on the political direction of the government”.
But that is not to say the government is schooled in history. Ahmad says that rapid ministerial turnover and political instability since 2010 means ministers’ “focus becomes managing the day-to-day in-tray and ‘performative diplomacy’ where you do the trips and say what it says on the piece of paper. With exceptions including William Hague and Jack Straw, very few had any kind of historical knowledge in their toolkit. The national curriculum really doesn’t cover history with the colonies in mind. The universities that the elite go to (and what they study are) rooted in a very different tradition; it’s barely talked about. It reduces politicians and ministers to making decisions based on the here and now, without understanding the historical context”.
He adds that “in the heat of the Afghanistan campaign, prime minister Tony Blair rolled his eyes and said ‘history, history, that’s all you talk about’. Yet, when we meet our counterparts – Russia, China – they understand the history. If you go to a Commonwealth country, schoolchildren to adults can narrate how they became independent”.
Ignorance of Britain’s imperial past leaves policymakers blind to the lens through which nations perceive Britain’s behaviour. As Special Representative for Iraq, Jeremy Greenstock found the invasion “brought memories back – in the eyes of relevant countries – that we had regressed, so to speak, to interfering in another country again”.
An ex-diplomat posted to Ireland tells me: “You can’t understand how Ireland views Britain today unless you have an understanding of what some people see as the British occupation of Ireland. Ancient history, 20th century history and the last few years, including Britain leaving the EU, were always there in the backdrop and sometimes in the foreground. I spent a lot of my time preparing for the job reading up on history, both Irish and British accounts, as they’re often very different. It’s understanding how two countries have a complex shared history that they see very differently”.
For diplomats, the past is often a daily presence in postings. Ex-Ambassador to Israel Andrew Burns tells me that “a lot of Israeli people felt resentful about the British unwillingness to allow more (Jewish) immigration (under the Mandate). I’d drive around Israel with the flag flying on the car. Sometimes people would cheer as you passed; at other times they’d boo, shout, honk the horns and (put up) ‘two fingers to you lot because we’re an independent country’”.
It alters how they engage. Of negotiating with his Indian UN counterpart, Greenstock recalls: “In Indian politics, there is great sensitivity over any sense that India will bend any part of their body towards the British in any negotiation. You don’t discuss it directly with them, you just have to behave with respect and equality. You had to steer around sensitivities in what you chose to say and do”.
Ignorance of Britain’s imperial past leaves policymakers blind
Appearance and manners can be another area in which the British unintentionally evoke memories of forebears. Greenstock notes that “some Brits, in some positions, can sometimes be a bit toffee-nosed in the eyes of others. Our voice, our style and our remembrance of our own history can sometimes colour the tone of what we say in undiplomatic ways. I, and most of my colleagues, were very careful to avoid that”.
The colonial legacy can also make it harder to engage at all. Our voice in America has long been muffled due to the high number of Irish-Americans, some of whom actually are. Stationed in Washington during the Clinton presidency, Greenstock found that “Jean Kennedy was Ambassador in Dublin; Edward Kennedy was constantly lobbying the White House for Irish things. Gerry Adams was trying to set up a visit to the US and be received at the highest possible level. The Kennedys were feeding all sorts of stuff into the Clinton White House on behalf of that stronger Irish line. We had to manage those things extremely carefully, it was a very awkward subject for us”. Lest this seem confined to the past, in 2021, president Biden ordered US officials to formally rebuke Britain for “inflaming” tensions in Ireland.
But our history still offers advantages, not least the dominance of English and the mutual understanding that fosters relations. Burns found that “people at the top of 1960s India were legally trained and educated in the UK, enjoyed British life, understood the British well and felt, in many ways, Brits. You met all sorts of people – some very opposed, some very nostalgic, some very friendly”.
Given the extent of Britain’s imperial reach and the nostalgia that can develop with historical distance, memories vary. Greenstock found “equivocal relationships where they remembered some of those colonial things but also appreciated what they gained from the colonial period”.
“Virtually every single colony we had, on independence, decided to be part of the Commonwealth. If the idea of empire had been entirely repugnant to them, they would have had no desire to continue in any kind of Commonwealth and certainly not one which had the late Queen as the head”, ex-Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind tells me.
“There was unanimous agreement that the new head should be our King, even though nearly 40 were republics. In no other European former empire did that evolve. The French have Francophonie, but it is a very poor imitation. The Commonwealth continues to be a very vibrant organisation and example of soft power”.
What else can diplomats do to overcome the past?
“We’re careful as a Foreign Office not to pretend or claim that the UK is the most important country in the Commonwealth or that this is a hub and spoke relationship; that turns people off very quickly in the rest of the Commonwealth”, adds Greenstock.
What else can diplomats do to overcome the past? “I personally took great care to present myself as working not just for UK interests but for solutions to shared problems”, says Greenstock. “I made it clear that I was not just there to sit on the Security Council, I turned up at other meetings of the UN, including ECOSOC (the UN’s Economic and Social Council). I made clear in my rhetoric that I believed the Security Council was there primarily to produce peace and security for development and that the UN’s role in the development of the less wealthy economies was an extremely important one, to which the UK was dedicated. It was meant. Image, tone, rhetoric, courtesy and a sense of equality among nations are very important. The way in which you presented yourself as looking for collective solutions to conflict and competition was very important against the historical background”.
He recommends how US diplomat Richard Holbrooke “called on every single other Permanent Representative personally (to) pay his respects. He realised that every Permanent Representative could colour his capital’s instructions if he did not like the American Permanent Representative”.
The ex-diplomat formerly based in Ireland advises: “The best way to take forward the British national interest was sometimes to admit that things were done which we would rather not have done or done differently. But, for a lot of the time (during the Troubles), these were young people in a very complex, unprecedented situation doing their best to do a very difficult job and what they were doing stands in stark contrast to the appalling crimes committed by terrorists on both sides. There were times when you needed to be robust and clear; there were times when you needed to show a degree of historical understanding and sensitivity”.
As the Foreign Office becomes more diverse, old divisions fade
He adds: “Some Sinn Fein politicians would performatively complain. I would have to say ‘look at the Good Friday Agreement, it’s very clear that the future of Northern Ireland depends on the views of people in Northern Ireland as well as in Ireland itself and that’s how it should be. It’s something that could be changed at any time if there were a clear majority in favour of change’. Sometimes you got people delivering a political script. Sometimes you need to remind people of a more objective view of history”.
The legacy may decline naturally. As the Foreign Office becomes more diverse, old preconceptions and divisions fade. Ahmad recalls telling media during the Windrush scandal: “‘This story could easily have been the story of my mother who first came to Britain in 1954’. That is an answer very few British diplomats can give. That immediately says ‘yes, this guy has an understanding’”. Greenstock adds that “these things are fading a little with time and with the relative decline of British power at the global level, which has been more marked in the last few years because of Brexit and the relatively poor performance of our economy. But echoes still persist”.
Indeed they do. In 1997, Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern visited the newly appointed Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, only to offer a “forthright reply” regarding a painting in the office. His British counterpart was “taken aback”. New Labour had, after all, selected the painting for portraying a parliamentarian. The figure in question? Oliver Cromwell. The English never remember and the Irish never forget. As Greenstock notes, “history seeps into the present for much longer than we sometimes think”.
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