By Hanne Nabintu Herland

The British Empire was the largest empire in history, covering over one-quarter of the world’s land and population at its height and peak colonial power as late as in the early 1920s.

The handover of Hong Kong in 1997 is widely considered the end of the colonial empire, but the British City of London control over the financial market, banking, insurance market and international naval trade has remained a British strong until today.

Many have missed the brilliant streak by the British to let go as the administrator of physical colonial territories, even helping nationalist movements to gain ground in order to get rid of the burden of administering these vast landmasses and its millions of inhabitants, – yet retaining control over the highly profitable international trade and financial market.

Its former colony, the United States was also for long dominated by the globalist and free trade oriented British elites. Note that the Federal Reserve is privately owned at its top levels, and that several of its owning families are British and European to this day.

The City of London financial market has remained as the key financial trading hub for the world, making sure that billions of USD in surplus keep flowing through British banks. It is this very system, this globalist chokehold on international trade, that President Trump now seeks to dismantle. The U.S. now moves to replace British City of London’s speculative financial and globalist free trade dominance with a new global order anchored in tangible industrial power and national sovereignty.

A brief history of the British Empire

The British Empire lasted 300-400 years and was largely a private enterprise empire and the world’s largest financial trade hegemon. Spanning from the late 16th to the 20th century, it operated through colonies and trading posts across the world in Africa, Asia (India, Hong Kong), North America, Australia, New Zealand and more. Driven by commerce and naval power, it significantly spread English, industrial technology, and administrative systems globally.

The British Empire began in the late 1500s with overseas exploration, maturing into a mix of crown colonies directly managed and charter solely commercial colonies. The 19th-century Victorian era saw the fastest growth, fuelled by the industrial revolution, with India serving as the “jewel in the crown”.

The 18th-century empire prioritized trade monopolies, with colonies serving as suppliers of raw materials such as cotton, sugar, tea. The spread of the English language, British legal systems, and parliamentary systems of government strongly affected the colonies, bringing growth, development and wealth to the colonies as well as the British completely controlling trade.

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By the 1920s, it encompassed roughly a quarter of the world’s land surface, often called the empire “on which the sun never set”. Governed through a mix of military force, the Royal Navy’s control of trade routes, and local alliances. The empire was severely weakened by the high costs of both World Wars, leading to a wave of decolonization in the 1950s-1960s, largely concluding in the late 20th century.

In Africa, the British fuelled massive growth, implementing educational institutions, medical aid, built roads and railroads which lifted the continent out of poverty. By 1960, Sub-Saharan Africa was at its height with free schooling, excellent medical institutions, growing universities founded by the British, well-functioning roads and railroads all across the continent.

The British preferred decolonization, yet retained trade and financial control

The decolonization process was for long a British wish, as the cost of operating the emerging countries with all the expenses and organization required to fund and administer millions of Africans became too much. As early as 1943, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, Oliver Stanley, addressed the topic in the House of Commons, that his government was pledged to guide colonial people along the road to self-government within the framework of the British Empire.

Following the end of the war, the British government’s post-war agenda was characterised by a commitment to maintain the economic empire, while allowing the territories to govern themselves. This dual approach—supporting decolonization while preserving economic influence—is evident in historical records.

The British decided to let go of the heavy administration of the vast geographical lands, yet – and few have spoken about this – they chose to strongly retain control over the colonies through commerce. The British dominion over trade and finance never stopped.

When almost every country in Africa “suddenly” demanded independence around 1960, it was as from a designed MI5 plan put into action. During UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s tour of British Africa in 1960, he almost happily stated that ‘the wind of change is blowing through this continent and, whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact’.[1]

Many of the oppositional figures that demanded independence were also supported by British intelligence, reports state. By getting rid of the colonies, yet keeping control over trade, economic dependence and defence treaties, the money kept flowing into City of London, its banks, insurance companies and financial institutions.

Many had also realized that while facing the spread of communism, Britain would retain ‘the continuance of the British Empire in some reasonable strength is in the strategic interests of the United States.’[2]

Britain carefully retained its economic supremacy on the African continent and saw it as a path to raising the living standards in the UK post World War II.[3] London’s desire to utilise its colonial possessions would aid economic recovery at home. A.V. Alexander, the Minister of Defence in 1949[4], said that it was important to maintain [5]‘the most rapid development practicable of our overseas possessions, since without such Colonial development there can be no major improvement in the standard of living of our own people at home’.[6]

Thus, in the tropical African colonies, ‘Britain’s interests were as vital as ever, or more so’, and ‘this more intensive exploitation of her colonies by Britain tightened her grip on them’. Ernest Bevin, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1945-51, also articulated the need to intensify exports from Britain’s African colonies as a way for Britain to reduce its financial dependence on the United States.[7]

Even if the collapse of the British dominion in South East Asia was established after the war, the City of London’s elite retained and furthermore strengthened the steadfast commitment to control over colonial trade within the region. Malaysia was of particular importance to the British due to its potential for economic gain, while Singapore was of strategic importance due to its location as a naval base.

In 1945, Baron Altrincham declared that ‘as a funnel of communication between the Western, Eastern and Southern peoples of the British Commonwealth…we cannot allow any other Power to dominate and must preserve for ourselves the maximum friendship and goodwill’. He further stated that the Middle East was ‘no less vital to Britain than Central and South America to the United States’.[1]

It is clear that the policy was to control the Middle East, as Ernest Bevin stated in 1949: ‘The Middle East is an area of cardinal importance to the UK…Strategically the Middle East is a focal point of communications, a source of oil, a shield to Africa and the Indian Ocean, and an irreplaceable offensive base.’[2]

Britain was totally determined to retain its role as imperial power in the Middle East in the post-war era. For example, in the 1950s, London tried to use the Baghdad Pact defence organisation to preserve its own regional influence.[3]

Regarding the Suez Crisis of 1956, Simon Smith asserts that ‘Britain was prepared neither to relinquish its residual interests in the region, nor become subservient to the United States. For its part, America continued to perceive a significant role for the British in the Middle East’.[4] The United States further pursued the role as the helper, facilitator and military enforcer of British will in the Middle East in the following years.

Minister of Defence Harold Watkinson told the Commons in 1962 that the military base in Aden would be one of three global locations where British forces would be concentrated.[5] What becomes clear is that Britain’s trade and finance empire was strongly retained and further developed after World War II.[6]

This policy has dominated British policy to this day, as viewed in the Iraq war, the aggressively destructive Libya war, the Syria war and more.

[1] HC Deb 13 July 1943, vol 391, col 48

[1] CO 732/88, no 5a, ‘British policy and organisation in the Middle East’: memorandum by Lord Altrincham, 02 September 1945, featured in Kent, J. British Documents on the end of Empire, Series B Volume 4: Egypt and the Defence of the Middle East – Part 1: 1945-1949 (London, The Stationary Office, 1998), p. 39.

[2] CAB (49) 188, 25 August 1949 cited in Bullock, A. Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary 1945-1951 (London, Heinemann, 1983), p. 113.

[3] Smith, S. ‘An Empire Built on Sand’, in Britain and the Middle East: From Imperial Power to Junior Partner, edited by Zach Levey and Elie Podeh (Eastbourne, Sussex Academic Press, 2008), p. 57.

[4] Smith, S. Ending Empire in the Middle East: Britain, the United States and post-war decolonization, 1945-1973 (Abingdon, Routledge, 2012), p. 67.

[5] Darwin, J. Britain and Decolonisation: The retreat from empire in the post-war world (London, Macmillan, 1988), pp. 286-288; HC Deb 05 March 1962, vol 655, col 47

[6] Smith. S. ‘The Making of a Neo-Colony? Anglo-Kuwaiti Relations in the Era of Decolonization’, Middle Eastern Studies, 37 (2001) p. 161; Jones, C. Britain and the Yemen Civil War, 1962-1965 (Eastbourne, Sussex University Press, 2006).