In 1959, the BBC Caribbean Service produced a guide for prospective migrants to the United Kingdom. It included advice to be polite and forbearing with “white British people”, explaining much of the prejudice they experience will be due to ignorance: “I knew a Barbadian who was asked, in all seriousness, if the people in his country lived in houses or if they lived in the jungles and, also, if he had ever worn clothes before he came to England.”
Imperial%20Island%3A%20A%20History%20of%20Empire%20in%20Modern%20Britain
%3Cp%3EAuthor%3A%20Charlotte%20Lydia%20Riley%3Cbr%3EPublisher%3A%20Bodley%20Head%3Cbr%3EPages%3A%20384%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Recounting the disturbing advice in her new book, author and historian Charlotte Lydia Riley writes these “sorts of questions are presented as deriving not from ingrained colonial racism, but from an imbalance of information: their knowledge of your country is much less than your knowledge of theirs”.
Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain takes a deep-dive into the legacy of colonialism in Britain today, whether in the form of far-right groups like the National Front, or a bus company in Bristol in the sixties which faced a boycott after refusing to employ Asian or African drivers and conductors (the general manager even defended the policy, stating “the labour supply gets worse if the labour force is mixed”).
As various British colonies gained independence from the 1940s onwards, the UK’s foreign policy aspirations still appeared stuck in the country’s imperial past.
The media played an important role in perpetuating such myths, with the 1956 Suez invasion facilitated by papers such as the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror slandering then Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser by making misleading comparisons with Adolf Hitler:
“One way that the Suez Crisis was embraced and amplified in Britain was through the use of analogies comparing Nasser to fascist figures, and discounting any peace talk as ‘appeasement’.," writes Riley. Nevertheless, there were mass anti-war protests in Britain against the invasion of Egypt.
Riley writes the Suez Crises was perhaps the beginning of the end for the empire: “a moment when even those who had once been proud of British imperial power were forced to concede that the nation was no longer the dominant international force; the United States and the USSR between them had put paid to that idea once and for all when they came together, despite their Cold War, to condemn British actions at the UN, thus forcing its humiliating withdrawal”.
But while the empire was on the wane, migration from the colonies to Britain was growing. Following the bloody aftermath of the partition in India and Pakistan in 1947, one migrant from the Subcontinent recalled “people were so unused to seeing Indian families that they would stop on Oxford Street to stare and point”.
In 1949, the British Nationality Act was passed, and in “one fell swoop, almost every inhabitant of the British Empire (or the former British Empire, in the case of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) was formally granted the right to live and work in the United Kingdom with no further paperwork required”.
In later decades, as migration from the Commonwealth countries swelled, entry into the erstwhile metropole became harder. When in 1968 Kenya began a policy of “Africanisation”, curtailing non-citizen’s right to trade and do business, thousands of Kenyan Asians began migrating to Britain. An estimated 190,000 Kenyan Asians were entitled to a British passport.
Riley writes how the Labour government “rushed through an updated Commonwealth Immigration Act”, extending controls on immigration to anybody whose parent or grandparent had not been born in, or was not a citizen of the UK: “Those travelling to Britain found themselves stripped of citizenship, sometimes in mid-air”.
The empire was not merely a physical entity with borders stretching across distant lands, but rather a state of mind, both for the colonialists and those they ruled over. This colonised mindset persisted long after the empire crumbled, its tentacles spreading into every nook and crevice of the British Isles, whether it be xenophobic attitudes towards migrants, racism within the police or interventionist foreign policy.
To investigate such a multilayered legacy is no walk in the park, but Riley’s prose flows smoothly, connecting the dots to give the reader the wider picture. For anyone curious about Britain’s colonial legacy in the modern era, Imperial Island will certainly be an eye-opener.
Defending champions
World Series: South Africa
Women’s World Series: Australia
Gulf Men’s League: Dubai Exiles
Gulf Men’s Social: Mediclinic Barrelhouse Warriors
Gulf Vets: Jebel Ali Dragons Veterans
Gulf Women: Dubai Sports City Eagles
Gulf Under 19: British School Al Khubairat
Gulf Under 19 Girls: Dubai Exiles
UAE National Schools: Al Safa School
International Invitational: Speranza 22
International Vets: Joining Jack
Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs
B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
More on animal trafficking
Zayed Sustainability Prize
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
More on Quran memorisation:
The years Ramadan fell in May
More about Middle East geopolitics
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
More on Quran memorisation:
More on Quran memorisation:
DUBAI%20BLING%3A%20EPISODE%201
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECreator%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENetflix%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EKris%20Fade%2C%20Ebraheem%20Al%20Samadi%2C%20Zeina%20Khoury%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The years Ramadan fell in May
More on animal trafficking
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
Read part one: how cars came to the UAE
Monster
Directed by: Anthony Mandler
Starring: Kelvin Harrison Jr., John David Washington
3/5
Name: Brendalle Belaza
From: Crossing Rubber, Philippines
Arrived in the UAE: 2007
Favourite place in Abu Dhabi: NYUAD campus
Favourite photography style: Street photography
Favourite book: Harry Potter
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Landfill in numbers
• Landfill gas is composed of 50 per cent methane
• Methane is 28 times more harmful than Co2 in terms of global warming
• 11 million total tonnes of waste are being generated annually in Abu Dhabi
• 18,000 tonnes per year of hazardous and medical waste is produced in Abu Dhabi emirate per year
• 20,000 litres of cooking oil produced in Abu Dhabi’s cafeterias and restaurants every day is thrown away
• 50 per cent of Abu Dhabi’s waste is from construction and demolition
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
Stuck in a job without a pay rise? Here's what to do
Chris Greaves, the managing director of Hays Gulf Region, says those without a pay rise for an extended period must start asking questions – both of themselves and their employer.
“First, are they happy with that or do they want more?” he says. “Job-seeking is a time-consuming, frustrating and long-winded affair so are they prepared to put themselves through that rigmarole? Before they consider that, they must ask their employer what is happening.”
Most employees bring up pay rise queries at their annual performance appraisal and find out what the company has in store for them from a career perspective.
Those with no formal appraisal system, Mr Greaves says, should ask HR or their line manager for an assessment.
“You want to find out how they value your contribution and where your job could go,” he says. “You’ve got to be brave enough to ask some questions and if you don’t like the answers then you have to develop a strategy or change jobs if you are prepared to go through the job-seeking process.”
For those that do reach the salary negotiation with their current employer, Mr Greaves says there is no point in asking for less than 5 per cent.
“However, this can only really have any chance of success if you can identify where you add value to the business (preferably you can put a monetary value on it), or you can point to a sustained contribution above the call of duty or to other achievements you think your employer will value.”
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Imperial%20Island%3A%20A%20History%20of%20Empire%20in%20Modern%20Britain
%3Cp%3EAuthor%3A%20Charlotte%20Lydia%20Riley%3Cbr%3EPublisher%3A%20Bodley%20Head%3Cbr%3EPages%3A%20384%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
