Britain's Retreat from Empire: Politics, Power & Identity in the 1960s

About

The Wilson government's 1967 announcement to withdraw its military commitments 'East of Suez' caused the Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition Ted Heath to vent with the utmost force. His complaint that Labour's policy was one of 'shameful scuttle' echoed the vehemence that Churchill had once aimed at Attlee. Clearly, then, swords were crossed. In this talk, we consider some of the crises that marked British politics at the end of empire. We consider how Labour and the Conservatives clashed over this monumental change in the UK's international role, and what this reveals about modern British politics and identity.

Professor Christopher Prior is Professor in Colonial and Postcolonial History at the University of Southampton. He focuses on the history of Africa and of the British Empire in the modern period.
His publications include Exporting Empire: Africa, Colonial Officials and the Construction of the British Imperial State, c.1900–39 (2013), Edwardian England and the Idea of Racial Decline: An Empire's Future (2013), and The Ndebele, Frank Oates, and Knowledge Production in the 1870s: Encounters at the Edge of Empire (with Joe Higgins, 2025), and he is currently working on a book about British government policy in Africa in the 1960s, after the end of empire.