Commonwealth

Debate between Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Parekh

Thursday 30th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parekh (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, and congratulate him on introducing this debate. We know his interest in the Commonwealth; he has spoken about this on several occasions in this House in the past. He will forgive me if I give a slightly different view and raise questions that have not been raised before about the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth is basically a legacy of the British Empire—of course, not entirely so, because it includes states that were not part of the British Empire, such as Rwanda and Mozambique, and it excludes states that were once part of the British Empire, such as Ireland and even the United States. Nevertheless, it remains the fact that it is primarily a legacy of the British Empire. Given this, we cannot understand it unless we understand the British Empire. What was the character of the British Empire? What was it about? What did it do to those 54 or 56 colonies out of which the Commonwealth came to be constituted?

The British Empire was very different from the other great European empires, such as the Portuguese, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch, the Belgian and many others. That is the first thing to note about the British Empire. However, the second and most important thing about the British Empire is that it was never a cosy affair. Empires involve brutality, genocide, a great deal of violence, and humiliation of the ex-colonies and subjects of the empire. The memories of this brutality and genocide may be forgotten and forgiven by the imperial power, but they are never forgotten by the victims, by those who suffered them; they continue to remember them, with the result that we are often surprised that they do not seem to show sufficient gratitude. For example, many ex-colonies—six in the West Indies—do not wish to be members of the Commonwealth and want to be republics, and we are surprised. They raise questions about slavery during the British Empire and we are surprised. We are constantly surprised by many of the awkward but realistic questions they raise. The question to ask, therefore, is whether our view of the Commonwealth is based on adequate recognition and acknowledgement of what actually went on in the name of the British Empire.

To think of ourselves as a kind and generous people who went thousands of miles to other countries to civilise the natives and came back having done our job, sometimes angry that they were not sufficiently grateful, is not really a proper understanding of what we actually did. So, before we talk about the Commonwealth as a viable force, we ought to understand what the British Empire was about. In the three minutes I have left, or even less than three minutes, I want to set out a very brief agenda in the hope that, in the future, we might be able to take it up.

The first thing I suggest is that there has to be a broadly agreed Commonwealth view of the British Empire. Britain has one view of the British Empire; India has a very different view—partly good, partly not so good; South Africa and other countries have a totally different view. I think the time has come for historians and others from different Commonwealth countries to get together, debate and form a just estimate of what the British Empire really did. That is very important: unless the truth is faced, we are in danger of allowing the Commonwealth to become an irrelevance or a pointless and ornamental appendage.

The second thing it is important to recognise is that, if it is going to be a Commonwealth and not the British Commonwealth, it should not be seen as a property or an extension of British foreign policy. We cannot expect Commonwealth countries to do what we would like to do, in Ukraine or anywhere else. We see the Commonwealth through our eyes; have we tried to look at ourselves through Commonwealth eyes and asked ourselves how we look from that perspective? I therefore suggest that the Queen or her successor should not automatically be the Head of the Commonwealth. As for the modus operandi we should operate, that is something that can be sorted out later.

The third important thing we need to do is to build up an institutional infrastructure, to which the noble Lord, Lord Howell, rightly referred, so we can have co-operative institutions and practices at the level of journalism, sport, education, and so on.

Fourthly and finally, the Commonwealth consists of transcontinental countries. It is the only association I know, other than the United Nations, whose members come from every continent, so it is very important that it should be a pressure group for important global issues such as climate change and others.

My simple conclusion is that, as Britain stretches out to explore its relations with other countries in the context of implementing the Brexit policy, it is very important that it should face the truth, recognise its past and come to terms with it; otherwise, we are in danger of talking about a wonderful picture of the Commonwealth which matches no reality.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I respectfully remind noble Lords that the Back-Bench speaking time is five minutes.