Labour and Colonialism

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

Labour and Colonialism

(Part 3)

(Part 1 appeared in WDIE, Year 2003 No. 81, July 22, 2003 [http://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wdie-03/d03-81.htm] and Part 2 in WDIE, Year 2003 No. 102, October 17, 2003 [http://www.rcpbml.org.uk/wdie-03/d03-102.htm])

After 13 years of Conservative government, the first Labour government of Harold Wilson came to power in 1964. Wilson’s government was presented as one better able to manage the "consumer society", to modernise capitalism and produce a "scientific and technological revolution" in Britain. But the "white heat of technological change" was not harnessed in the interests of working class and people. Rather than taking a modern and enlightened approach to Britain’s economic and political problems, which required a government that broke entirely from the past and was truly internationalist, the Labour government’s approach aimed to enable Britain to re-establish its role as a major world power following the exposure of Britain’s relative economic backwardness, the Suez debacle and Britain’s exclusion from the European Economic Community.

The Labour governments of Harold Wilson, which were in office from 1964-70, continued to adopt the orientation of their immediate predecessors, and remained the junior ally of the US, acting as its police force throughout the world, in an attempt to realise Britain’s great power ambitions. This orientation, which put the interests of the big monopolies and the financial oligarchy, rather than those of the masses of the people, in first place created a severe economic crisis and made Britain even more dependent on the US.

Prime Minister Harold Wilson declared that Britain must be a world influence and a world power or nothing, and his government viewed the continued alliance with the US as the means to make Britain great again. This alliance guaranteed Britain’s support for the criminal aggression of the US in Vietnam and the Labour government’s commitment to continue to ensure peace and security "East of Suez", while the US pledged to continue to provide Britain with economic support. It was an alliance that created only further problems for the working class and people at home and abroad. In the Indian Ocean in 1965, for example, a "colony" termed the British Indian Ocean Territory was formed and the inhabitants of the island of Diego Garcia were simply removed in order to make way for US military bases.

Throughout its two periods of office, Wilson’s government remained a leading member of NATO, SEATO (South-East Asia Treaty Organisation) and CENTO (the Central Treaty Organisation) and a willing participant in the anti-communist "Cold War", in which Britain acted to support reactionary regimes throughout the world, especially in the Middle East, and openly intervened by military means, especially in Malaysia. In Vietnam, the Labour government often tried to present itself as the peacemaker and "honest broker", but it remained the staunch ally of the US. Wilson argued that any US withdrawal from its criminal war of aggression in Vietnam would have "incalculable results" and that it "might carry the danger that friend and potential foe throughout the world would begin to wonder whether the US might be induced also to abandon other allies when the going got rough".

In 1966 in a speech Wilson declared: " Africa? Is it really argued that we have no role there? If we abdicate responsibility who will exercise that role? America cannot. Nor can other European powers, except in a few localised areas. China? Russia? South Africa? A new and perhaps dangerous inward-looking African nationalism? What about India? Does anyone think India wants us to leave her to become a cockpit, forced to choose between Russia and America to protect her against China?"

The Labour government therefore maintained an openly colonialist approach to foreign policy throughout the world. It conspired with the US to prevent Cheddi Jagan from coming to power in British Guiana, for example, intervened militarily in Anguilla, Aden and Yemen and threatened military action in Cyprus. In Africa too the government pursued a reactionary course and despite much rhetoric while in opposition that it would cancel armaments contracts with the apartheid regime in South Africa, the Labour government once in office reneged on that commitment and permitted the regime to be supplied with 20 British-made Buccaneer fighter aircraft.

While openly advocating the use of force in the interests of the monopolies, or for other reactionary aims, the Labour government was always adamant that because of "kith and kin considerations", force would not be used against the illegal regime of Ian Smith in the British colony of Rhodesia. In 1965, Smith’s openly racist government made its "Unilateral Declaration of Independence", pledging to maintain the rule of the minority of settlers of largely British origin, while denying the African population the right to govern and determine their own affairs. Wilson’s government was content to impose economic sanctions, which were openly flouted with impunity by the big monopolies. Wilson initially pledged that the racist regime would be dealt with "in weeks rather than months", but it was the national liberation struggle of the people of Rhodesia that finally brought an end to the regime and not the Labour government.

However, the Labour government’s commitment to its "East of Suez" role and intervention elsewhere placed severe strains on a British economy, which was already in crisis. Increasingly the Labour government was forced to scale down its intervention and military presence, particularly in the Middle East and Asia and to seek instead to strengthen its role in Europe.

Wilson’s government held office during the 1960s, at a time when there was an increasing opposition to all forms of colonialism, whether in Africa or in Ireland, and a rising tide of revolutionary struggle both in Britain and abroad. But Wilson’s Labour government’s stood firmly in opposition to this trend, preferring to identify, as the "natural party of government", with all that stood in opposition to the new spirit of the times which was emerging.