Analyzing the End of British Empire and its Impact on UK Politics

This essay examines the lasting impact of the British Empire's decline on contemporary British politics, decision-making processes, and democracy. It delves into the empire's historical context, highlighting its vast influence and the subsequent decolonization era following World War II. The analysis covers key factors such as the evolution of the welfare state, the rise of Euroscepticism culminating in Brexit, and the complex legacies of colonial boundaries and population movements. The essay concludes that the end of the British Empire has profoundly shaped modern British politics, leaving behind a complex web of political, social, and cultural influences that continue to resonate today.

Politics, decision making and democracy

How the end of the British Empire continues to shape British politics today?
Government, politics, decision making and democracy are fantastic to study as these
areas will help in comprehending the structures of authorities as well as power and the
manner in which the political system different from each other and allows individual to
analyse, interpret and comment on the government and politics’ nature. Political knowledge
is quite essential for developing competencies for citizenship. Talking in relation with the
British Empire, it was regarded as one of the greatest and biggest empire in the history. For
that time, the British Empire was also one of the foremost global power. This empire had an
enormous influence across the globe (Levine, 2017). Most of the former colonies that were
being developed during their time are still keeping their connections with Britain by the
Commonwealth. In the present day, Australia and North America are quite same as Europe in
different manners. Further, there are several countries across the globe in the current times
have multi-cultural populations. Even, Christian religion, parliamentary democracy and the
English Language can be found in several nations. These are just the some of the ways by
which the end of this British Empire had a lasting impact on the history of the world and even
the British politics today. Thus, it is quite essential to analyse the ways in which it is shaping
the current politics of Britain. Considering this, the main aim of the current essay is to
analyse the political history of British Empire and the manners in which their end is still
shaping their politics in the present time.
British Empire was greatest and biggest empire in the history and was an invention of
the European phase of unearthing which initiated with the investigations of the maritime of
the fifteenth century and glimmered the period of the European colonial empires. By 1921,
the British Empire detained influence over a populace of around four hundred and fifty eight
million individuals, roughly one-fourth of the total populace (Brock, 2011). It concealed
more than fourteen million square miles which is about a fourth of all out land region of
Earth. Subsequently, it can be attributed that its inheritance is boundless, in legitimate and
administrative frameworks, monetary practice, militarily, school systems, sports, and in the
worldwide spread of the English language. At the pinnacle of its power, it was generally
expected said that the sun never sets on the British Empire on the grounds that its range
across the sphere guaranteed that the sun was continuously beaming on something like one of
its various provinces or countries. For the duration of the fifty years following World War II,
the greater part of the domains of the Empire became free. Many proceeded to join the
Commonwealth of Nations which was a free relationship of autonomous federations
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(Commonwealth Nations Research Society, 2018). This astounding domain was not ever
scattered in the manner that the Roman Empire was, rather it disintegrated calmly, by shared
assent, and the British, aside from making the biggest realm of the globe, additionally had the
honour of being the main realm developers not to be annihilated in their distant itself.
Subsequent to the World War II, the breaking down of the realm of Britain has
changed the worldwide legislative issues. Prior to the conflict, Britain kept up with provinces
everywhere, which gave significant unrefined components, labour supply and vital
headquarters. By the year 1945, notwithstanding, settlements were a costly risk for recently
chosen Labour government of Clement Attlee. The rising worldwide impact of the United
States and its resistance to government made expansionism less politically suitable however
time of war achievements of Japan had annihilated supreme eminence of Britain. In the year
1947, India became autonomous after contributing colossally to conflict exertion of Britain.
Under a year after the fact, socialist paramilitaries sent off a fierce mission pointed toward
driving Britain from Malaya (Buswell, 2021). Thousands were killed yet a powerful political
as well as armed reaction forestalled a collectivist domination. By dint of 1967 a bigger
number of than twenty British domains were free. Decolonisation was a perplexing cycle.
Every exceptional social orders of province introduced different political tensions which
could once in a while prompt viciousness going from uproars to slaughters. Additional
intricacies was being added by the Cold War as Britain endeavoured to protect previous states
from the impact of the Soviet Union. In 1997 Hong Kong got back to Chinese organization.
However Britain actually keeps up with abroad regions, the handover denoted the last finish
of the realm of British.
Decades and in some cases centuries, the rule of the British and their emigration have
left a significant mark on the independent countries as well as the British politics which have
been aroused from the British Empire. Speaking in relation with the political boundaries
being drawn by the British have not any time reflected the homogenous civilizations as well
as religion and has contributed towards issues in formerly colonized expanses. The British
Empire was answerable for huge movements of people groups. Millions remaining the British
Isles, with the establishing pilgrim populaces of the Australia, USA, Canada as well as New
Zealand coming principally from Britain and Ireland. Pressures stay between the white
pioneer populaces of these nations and their native minorities and between white pilgrim
minorities and native greater parts in South Africa plus Zimbabwe. Pioneers in Ireland from
Great Britain have made some meaningful difference as separated patriot and unionist
networks in Northern Ireland (Greenblatt and Abrams, 2016). A great many individuals
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moved to and from British provinces, with enormous quantities of Indians moving to
different pieces of the domain like Malaysia and Chinese individuals to Singapore. The
Westminster arrangement of parliamentary majority rule government has filled in as the
format for the states for some previous settlements and English custom-based regulation for
general sets of laws. Global business contracts are frequently founded on English custom-
based regulation. The British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council actually fills in as the
most elevated court of interest for twelve previous states.
Underpinning the discussion further, the current political system of Britain is being
impacted by the key impacts that took place with the end of the British Empire after the
Second World War. The very first is the evolution of the modern welfare state comprising
National Health Service following the year 1945. Because of this, the government got a
higher role in the field of education, social security as well as health. Secondly, with the
decolonization and end of the British Empire. United Kingdom has varied colonial rules in
overseas nations and with the passage of time, these nations have achieved independence.
Lastly, the joining of the European communities along with the voting for leaving the same in
the year 2016 by Brexit Referendum vote. In the recent years, it is only the single issue which
has dominated the politics of Britain and that is BREXIT (Pocock, 2015). There has forever
been a Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party that couldn't help contradicting the first
choice of the government of Britain related to joining Europe in the year 1973. This raised in
ongoing a very long time with the arrangement of ideological groups, for example, the
Referendum Party and the United Kingdom Independence Party whose fundamental goal was
to remove the UK from the EU.
Thus, to conclude it can be said that at its height in the world history, the British
Empire was the greatest. A small nation like Britain has ruled so much territory is considered
as the arguing questions for most of the historians. It quite evident from the history that
Britain was quite strong and they have utilized their armies, wealth and even navy for
defeating competing European nations. They also conquered the local people for setting their
empire. Nonetheless, the empire didn’t just depend on force rather it was dependent majorly
on the local people to make it function effectively. Some section of the empire turned into
territories in the 19th century. Furthermore, the World War first and second has weakened this
great power and most of the section of the empire donated crowds as well as possessions to
the war effort and considered a progressively self-governing interpretation (Camilla, 2016).
All this has resulted into the weakening of the empire. It was explored from the analysis that
this empire had an enormous influence across the globe. Most of the former colonies that
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were being developed during their time are still keeping their connections with Britain by the
Commonwealth. In the present day, Australia and North America are quite same as Europe in
different manners. Further, there are several countries across the globe in the current times
have multi-cultural populations. Even, Christian religion, parliamentary democracy and the
English Language can be found in several nations. These are just the some of the ways by
which the end of this British Empire had a lasting impact on the history of the world and even
the British politics today.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Brock, W.R., 2011. Britain and the Dominions. Cambridge University Press.
Camilla, S., 2016. Enoch Powell and the Making of Postcolonial Britain. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Greenblatt, S. and Abrams, M.H., 2016. The Twentieth Century and After.” The Norton
Anthology of English Literature. New York: W.W. Norton.
Levine, P., 2017. The British Empire: Sunrise to Sunset. Pearson Education Limited.
Pocock, G.A., 2015. British History: A Plea for a New Subject. Journal of Modern History,
47(4), pp.601–21.
Online references
Buswell, G., 2021. Government and politics in the UK. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.expatica.com/uk/living/gov-law-admin/british-government-103179/
#history>. [Accessed on 5thMarch 2022].
Commonwealth Nations Research Society. 2018. A History of the British Empire and
Commonwealth of Nations. [Online]. Available through:
<https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/files//2018/06/Empire_and_Commonwealth_History.p
df>. [Accessed on 5thMarch 2022].
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