POST-WAR BRITAIN
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Post-war Britain
The Loss of Empire
a. India
b. Egypt
The Search for Economic Well-Being
Conservative Rule
Industrial Decline
The Thatcher Revolution
Attempts at Peace in Ireland
Conservative Decline and the Rise of New Labour
Labour’s Return to Power
Labour’s Second Term
Labour’s Third Term
Post-War Reconstruction
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The immediate post-war period was one of severe privation. More than 4
million houses had been destroyed or badly damaged; the result was an acute
shortage of housing, especially after soldiers returned from the war.
Commodity shortages meant the continuation of wartime rationing.
Rationing also had to be extended to include items that had not been rationed
during the war.
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For the first time since the 18th century, Britain became a debtor nation. The
loans it had taken out from foreign nations to finance the war exceeded the
money it could raise in taxes and other revenues. Without U.S. and Canadian
aid, Britain would have defaulted on its considerable debts. Even so, the flood
of wealth out of the country was considerable. The winter of 1947 was
probably the lowest economic point of the century. Fuel shortages, gas
rationing, inadequate food and shelter, and one of the coldest seasons on
record all added to the nation’s problems. Unemployment reached 2.3 million,
and the monetary crisis worsened.
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On the political scene, to the surprise of the world, Churchill was swept out
of office when his Conservative Party lost to the Labour Party in the
elections of 1945. The Labour government relaxed restrictions on trade
unions and embarked upon a program of nationalization. This program
resulted in government ownership of the Bank of England and of the coal,
electricity, and gas industries. The government consolidated the railroads into
British Rail and the airlines into British Overseas Airways Company (BOAC).
The most controversial takeovers were the iron and steel industries, which
were profitable private enterprises. The government immediately encountered
the difficulties of effectively running complicated industries, many of which
were badly in need of modernization. Efforts to make these businesses
profitable and competitive in the international market were hampered by
outdated equipment and inadequate facilities.
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In 1948 the most far-reaching of Britain’s social welfare programs was
established. The National Insurance Act of 1946 consolidated benefits
involving maternity, unemployment, disability, old age, and death. The
National Health Service, set up in 1948, provided free medical service for
Britons. British socialists now boasted that citizens were cared for “from
cradle to grave.” However, the price tag for both programs was far greater
than anyone had anticipated, and the government immediately cut back on
some services.
The Loss of Empire
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After the war, Britain still played an important role in international affairs. In
1945 it became a permanent member of the Security Council of the United
Nations. (The United Nations, or UN, is an international organization of
countries that was founded in 1945 to promote world peace and cooperation.)
As a member of the UN, Britain served as one of the countries that
continued to occupy and rebuild Germany. The new Labour government
attempted to maintain Britain’s role as a world power by supporting a large
overseas military presence in both the British colonies and Europe and by
continuing a high level of military spending.
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Tensions grew between Communist nations under the leadership of the
USSR and capitalist countries led by the United States. Britain developed its
own nuclear weapons and cooperated closely with the United States in a
policy that relied on using the threat of nuclear attack to discourage
aggression by potential enemies. For many Britons, the USSR replaced
Germany as the national enemy.
India
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In India a movement for independence had been gathering momentum for
decades. Although the British concluded that they could no longer rule in
India, they did not feel that they could simply abandon their centuries-old ties.
India was religiously divided, and the two largest groups—Hindus and
Muslims—were increasingly antagonistic toward each other. The attempt to
create one dominion of India was undermined by the demand of the
Muslims for their own separate state.
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After the war, the Labour government abandoned efforts to mediate the
conflict and resolved to end the British presence in India as quickly as
possible. The government opposed colonialism and felt little political
attachment to India. The costs of continued peacekeeping were also keenly
felt at a time when there was rationing at home. A heroic effort by the last
governor-general of India, Louis Mountbatten, created what appeared to be a
workable division between largely Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, which
has since split into the nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh. The British
withdrawal in 1948 resulted in increased religious tensions and a terrible civil
war. The civil war resulted in the deaths of between 250,000 and 500,000
people, among them Gandhi, who was assassinated by a Hindu extremist
opposed to the division of India. The abandonment of India was a blow to
British prestige and the beginning of the total disintegration of the empire.
Mohandas Gandhi
Mohandas Gandhi
Indian nationalist leader Mohandas
Gandhi spent his life campaigning
for human rights in India. His
strategy was to use a combination
of passive resistance to and no
cooperation with the British, who
ruled India. Gandhi said his
techniques were inspired by the
Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, by
American writer Henry David
Thoreau, and by the teachings of
Jesus Christ. In 1947 Gandhi’s
pacifist efforts brought an end to
British rule in India.
Egypt
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The next crisis for the empire occurred in Egypt, where British domination
of the Suez Canal sustained Britain’s role as a world trader. Even before the
war, British troops had withdrawn to a zone around the canal, and Britain had
ceased its once active role in Egyptian government. Relations were
complicated by the creation in 1948 of a Jewish state, Israel, in Britishcontrolled Palestine. Both Arabs and Israelis accused the British of taking the
other’s side, and both wanted Britain out of the Middle East.
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In 1956 Egyptian leader Gamel Abdel Nasser seized the canal. Britain, with
military assistance from France and Israel, attempted to retake the canal and
almost succeeded in doing so. However, the United States and the USSR, who
were caught unaware by the Suez crisis, insisted that British, French, and
Israeli forces withdraw from the canal area. The Suez crisis saw Britain lose all
of its influence in the region and raised at home the idea that Britain was no
longer a great power.
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During the 1960s colonies throughout the world rapidly acquired their
independence. In 1961 South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth after
controversy developed within the Commonwealth concerning apartheid,
South Africa’s policy of racial segregation. Other African territories became
self-governing states and joined the Commonwealth of Nations. Ghana,
Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya—all large African states under British control—
developed into republics and adopted British forms of parliamentary
government, law, and finances.
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The Commonwealth provided an international sphere of influence for Britain
during world crises and remained an important economic union. Although
Britain was no longer a superpower, the country’s traditional role in Africa
and the Middle East made it an obvious mediator of conflict. London
remained the financial center of choice for petroleum-rich states as well as the
educational center for the sons of the ruling elite in the former colonies. The
Commonwealth tied together the member nations by automatically granting
British citizenship to citizens of Commonwealth countries, a policy that
ended in 1983. British emigration to the former colonies of Canada,
Australia, and New Zealand remained a significant dimension of its
population history as did the even higher immigration into Britain from its
former Asian and African possessions. This immigration created racial
tensions in Britain’s largest cities. While the Race Relations Act of 1968
prohibited discrimination, racial violence increased, especially among youths
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser led a nationalist
movement in 1952 that ousted the
Egyptian monarchy and transformed
Egypt into a republic. Nasser
became leader of Egypt in 1954 and
subsequently negotiated an end to
Britain’s 72-year occupation of
Egypt. He was president of Egypt
from 1956 until his death in 1970. His
accomplishments included the
construction of the Aswān High
Dam, the institution of land reforms,
a program of industrialization, and
the restoration of Egyptian selfgovernment. Nasser also pursued
policies of Arab unity and socialism.
The search for economic wellbeing
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Conservative rule
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In 1951 the Labour Party lost its majority in Parliament, and the Conservative
Party regained control. The Conservatives led the nation toward renewed
prosperity. They returned the iron and steel industries to private ownership,
but left intact the major components of the welfare state. Tight government
control on imports and on government spending, high rates of income tax
for the wealthy, and investment in new industries such as automobiles and
chemicals finally created a surplus in British trading accounts.
Private enterprise led the growth of what was being called “the affluent
society.” The value of the goods that workers could buy with their wages rose
by 40 percent during the 1950s. Two symbols of affluence—cars and
televisions—soon became so common that the government undertook a
program of motorway expansion. In addition, private investors created the
first independent television network to compete with the government-owned
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
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The accession of young Queen
Elizabeth II in 1952 provided a
ray of light toward a brighter
future, as did the extraordinary
accomplishments of British
sportsmen around the world. In
1953 a British expedition scaled
the world’s highest mountain,
Mount Everest; another British
expedition crossed Antarctica;
and in 1954 British athlete Roger
Bannister became the first
person to run a mile in less than
four minutes. In the early 1960s,
British popular culture swept
the world. For a time the United
Kingdom replaced the United
States as the leader in fashion,
style, and especially music, with
popular music groups such as
the Beatles and the Rolling
Stones emerging as the
dominant rock groups of the
day.
Industrial decline
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Almost imperceptibly, Britons came to realize that their nation was in decline
during the 1960s and 1970s. Early recovery from the war led to an optimism
that could not be sustained as other European countries staged their own
revivals. Despite being severed in two, Germany emerged once again as an
industrial and trading power. Under the energetic leadership of Charles de
Gaulle, France charted a course of independence from the United States by
refusing to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a defensive
organization formed by the United States and a number of European
countries to counter the military strength of the USSR.
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For a time, de Gaulle managed to keep Britain out of the European
Economic Community (now the European Union), an organization designed
to promote economic integration among European nations. De Gaulle vetoed
Britain’s membership applications in 1961 and 1967, largely because of
Britain’s close ties with the United States. Britons themselves remained split
over closer ties with the continental powers. It was not until 1973 that Britain
finally became a member of the European Community.
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By the mid-1960s Britain was mired in an economic slowdown. Massive dock
strikes in both 1966 and 1967 severely affected British exports. In an effort to
prevent the flow of money out of the country, the government devalued the
currency. Devaluation lowered the value of British currency in relation to
foreign currency, making it less expensive for Britain to pay its foreign debts.
It gave a boost to British exports by making British goods less expensive on
the foreign market. However, it also made imported products more expensive
for British citizens and lowered international confidence in Britain’s currency.
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Industries in which Britain had been dominant for centuries were decaying
rapidly. Shipbuilding, textiles, coal, and steel, all of which had been bywords
of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, were no longer competitive. Each was beset
with low productivity, high labour costs, and outdated plants and machinery.
Industrial relations between workers and employers were at an all-time low, as
workers staged hundreds of strikes, work stoppages, and deliberate
slowdowns.
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Crisis came in 1973 when oil-exporting nations in the Middle East
dramatically cut shipments to pro-Israeli nations following the Arab-Israeli
War. Oil prices quadrupled, forcing British industries to use more coal. This
was the opportunity for which miners had waited. Miners were dissatisfied
because they opposed the government’s wage controls as well as the policy of
closing down unprofitable mines at the cost of miners’ jobs. Now the miners
introduced a ban on working overtime and finally began an all-out strike to
pressure the government to abandon its policy of legislating limits on wage
increases. In response, Prime Minister Edward Heath introduced emergency
legislation that limited the working week to three days and instituted national
electrical power cuts to minimize the amount of coal used in power plants.
The election of 1974 was fought on whether government would restrain the
unions. The Labour Party won a narrow majority by promising not to
interfere with the unions. With legal limits removed, the unions won wage
increases. Workers now had more money to spend, while the amount of
available goods on the market remained the same. As a result, prices for
products began to rise, and double-digit inflation ensued. Food prices rose 20
percent in 1973 alone.
Wages and prices spiralled out of control. Only a supply of oil drilled from
the North Sea off the coast of Scotland saved Britain from a crisis over the
payment of its foreign debts. Even with the new supply of oil, the
government raised taxes on income and on consumer goods to finance raises
in wages that had been negotiated with union members in nationalized
industries. The taxes left less and less for reinvestment. In 1979 an
arrangement between the Labour Party and the unions to keep wage demands
moderate broke down, and another round of strikes took place
The Thatcher revolution
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The Conservatives capitalized
on the situation to win the
election in 1979 under their
newly chosen leader, Margaret
Thatcher, Britain’s first female
prime minister. Thatcher was a
strident Conservative, and she
was determined not to give in to
the unions or change from the
course she had charted to revive
the British economy. Thatcher
based her policy on the theory
of monetarism. This theory
involved strictly controlling the
money supply to reduce
inflation, lowering tax rates to
encourage investment, and
minimizing government
intervention in industry to
remove restrictions on the
expansion of businesses.
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The Thatcher government began privatizing industry, relaxing
government regulation, and removing government subsidies.
This was strong medicine and initially led to an even more rapid
decline. By 1981 both interest rates and unemployment reached
post-war highs, and a growing number of British firms faced
bankruptcy. Pressure mounted to reverse government policy, and
even members of Thatcher’s own party threatened to revolt.
Thatcher refused to abandon her policies.
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A political crisis was averted only after war broke out when
Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a British dependency in
the South Atlantic that is also claimed by Argentina. The
Falkland War released a mood of defiance in Britain in the wake
of decades of international setbacks. Following Britain’s victory
in the war, the Conservatives won a resounding electoral victory
in 1983. However, their 150-seat majority came almost entirely
from the southeast, where the benefits of monetarism were felt
most.
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The successes of Thatcherism were tempered by the new social
divisions it created. Scotland, Wales, and northern England all
became economic backwaters; their industrial bases were in
ruins, and an entire generation of workers was unemployed.
Moreover, the new wealth that monetarism created—in the
financial industry, real estate, and technology—led to many
displays of luxury among the newly rich. The new wealth
contrasted sharply with the loss of income experienced by many
inner-city residents and unemployed middle-aged males.
Conservative support slipped in the polls, and members of the
party revolted against Thatcher, who resigned in 1990.
Attempts at Peace in Ireland
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In Ireland, the uneasy settlement that had kept Northern Ireland
part of Britain exploded in the late 1960s. In 1968 Northern
Ireland’s Catholic minority launched a series of protests against
discrimination in employment and housing. The protests led to
increasing violence between Catholic and Protestant groups.
British troops were sent to keep the peace in cities such as
Belfast, which had large concentrations of Catholics among the
majority Protestant population. These troops became the target
of violence, and guerrilla warfare followed. Beginning in 1973
the Irish Republican Army (IRA) targeted prominent sites in
England, bombing subway stations, department stores, and
tourist locations.
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For the next 25 years Catholic and Protestant paramilitary groups waged a
deadly battle. Catholics fought to create a single Ireland; Protestants fought to
maintain union with Britain. Almost every effort toward peace was sabotaged
by acts of violence by one side or the other. By the early 1980s, hunger strikes
conducted by IRA prisoners in Northern Ireland heightened political tensions
and fuelled fears that the province’s moderate Catholics would become
radicalized. These concerns led the British government to pursue a policy of
close cooperation with the Irish government to achieve peace in Northern
Ireland. In 1985 Thatcher and Irish prime minister Garret FitzGerald signed
the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which gave Ireland a consultative role in the
administration of Northern Ireland.
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Anglo-Irish cooperation provided fresh momentum to the peace process, and
in 1993 the British and Irish governments issued a joint peace proposal called
the Downing Street Declaration—a document intended to form the basis for
peace negotiations. In an important breakthrough, the IRA announced in
1994 that it would suspend its paramilitary operations in favour of peace
talks. However, British demands that all-party peace talks could not proceed
until the IRA began disarming were rejected by the IRA, and in 1996 the IRA
broke its cease-fire with a renewed campaign of violence.
IRA Cease-Fire
The Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary organization dedicated to
fighting British rule in Ireland, laid down its arms on August 31, 1994, to
promote a peaceful settlement with Britain. Gerry Adams, head of the IRA’s
political arm, Sinn Fein, said the struggle to end British rule in Ireland had
entered a “new phase.”
Conservative Decline and the
Rise of New Labour
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Thatcher’s Conservative successor as
prime minister, John Major, inherited a
badly divided party, a country that had
grown tired of Conservative rule, and a
major dispute over the European
Community, which was moving toward
greater integration. In 1991 the major
European powers agreed on the
Maastricht Treaty, which created the
European Union (EU) and took the
next steps toward the establishment of
a single economic union. The treaty
tied the exchange rates of European
currencies together and proposed to
create a single, unified currency, the
euro, in 1999. It was proposed that
monetary policy follow the lines that
had already been adopted by Britain.
However, other aspects of the EU’s
social and economic policy were
bitterly opposed by Thatcherite
Conservatives as being too favourable
toward labour and too expensive for
the government.
John Major
John Major was elected
prime minister of the
United Kingdom in 1990 as
leader of the Conservative
Party. He served until 1997,
when he was defeated by the
Labour Party headed by
Tony Blair.
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Major worked hard to keep his own party together and to maintain the loyalty of key
ministers. There was widespread expectation that Labour would return to power in
1992, but Major surprised the pollsters and many in his own party when the
Conservatives won re-election. However, voters soon lost confidence in the
Conservatives. In the following year the government’s approval rating sank to just 18
percent despite strong economic growth and a new peace initiative in Northern
Ireland.
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The loss of the 1992 elections had a profound impact on the Labour Party. For nearly
a decade, Labour had been attempting to moderate its policies and distance itself from
ties to the unions. It developed a new platform that would build upon Britain’s
economic recovery, but that would also allow a more equitable distribution of the new
wealth that was being created.
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In 1994 the Labour Party elected Tony Blair, a young lawyer, as its leader. Under the
title New Labour, Blair insisted that his party abandon its nearly century-old
commitment to creating a socialist state. Blair benefited immediately from a series of
scandals involving Conservative ministers and Members of Parliament. The public
spectacle surrounding Prince Charles and Princess Diana, whose marital infidelities
were openly discussed on national television and who were finally divorced in 1996,
also hurt the Conservatives, who were strong supporters of the monarchy. Despite the
continued economic boom—by 1996 inflation had nearly disappeared, unemployment
was the lowest in Europe, and growth the highest—Labour led the Conservatives in
polls by a significant margin.
Labour’s Return to Power
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The general elections of 1997
gave the Labour Party the
greatest landslide victory of the
century and its largest-ever
majority of 179 seats in the
Parliament. The Conservative
Party suffered its worst electoral
defeat of the century, and John
Major resigned as party leader.
As the United Kingdom’s
youngest prime minister since
the 19th century, Blair seemed to
speak for a new generation and
a new Britain.
In 1994 British lawyer Tony Blair became
the leader of the British Labour Party. He
worked extensively to reorganize the party
and to increase its popularity. In 1997 the
Labour Party won a landslide victory in
British national elections, and Blair became
prime minister
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Blair attempted to maintain his centrist approach to government against the
demands of the traditional Labour constituencies for social justice and the
redistribution of wealth. In a bold beginning, he made the Bank of England
independent of government. This move was designed to prevent monetary
policy from being affected by political issues. In addition, he supported
Parliament’s decision to reconstitute the ancient parliaments of Scotland and
Wales, giving them more regional control and political independence.
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Blair also worked closely with Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern to revive the
stalled peace negotiations in Northern Ireland. In April 1998 a new peace
accord was signed that had strong backing from the British and Irish
governments. Known as the Good Friday (or Belfast) Agreement, the accord
authorized the creation of a semiautonomous assembly for Northern Ireland
to replace direct rule of the province by the United Kingdom. The accord
won overwhelming endorsement from voters in Ireland and Northern
Ireland, and in December 1999 the United Kingdom formally transferred
power to the new provincial assembly. However, an impasse between Catholic
and Protestant groups over the pace of the Irish Republican Army’s
disarmament forced the United Kingdom to suspend the assembly in
February 2000. Provincial rule was restored in May, but the disarmament issue
remained unresolved and a source of persistent political tension.
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Under Blair, the United Kingdom continued to play an active
role in the European Union (EU). However, Britain’s strong
economy and monetary policy provided little incentive to accept
the unified European currency, the euro. Blair’s government
backed away from its commitment to a complete economic
union with the other EU countries because of the cost. In
addition, the economic union had always been unpopular with
many Britons. In early 1998 Blair announced a wait-and-see
attitude toward monetary integration, an attitude that he
maintained even as 11 EU countries officially adopted the euro
in 1999.
In another move to modernize and streamline the government,
in November 1999 Blair made good on a campaign promise to
strip many of the hereditary peers in the House of Lords of
their right to sit and vote in Parliament. The House of Lords Act
eliminated all but 92 of the more than 750 seats held by
hereditary members of Parliament’s upper house.
Labour’s Second Term
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The Labour Party won its second consecutive landslide victory in the June
2001 general elections, gaining the largest majority ever held by a British party
in its second term. The elections were an enormous victory for the Labour
Party and the centrist policies of Blair, who won a second term as prime
minister.
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Soon after the elections the impasse over the pace of IRA disarmament again
threatened to derail the peace process in Northern Ireland. The British
government briefly suspended the provincial assembly on two more occasions
in mid-2001 to prevent the government’s collapse. Blair welcomed an
announcement by the IRA in October that it had begun to disarm, as did key
Protestant leaders, and the assembly resumed operations the following month.
However, continued conflict among Northern Ireland’s political parties led
the British government to reimpose direct rule of the province in 2002.
Following the suspension, Blair and Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern
renewed negotiations in an effort to restore operations of the provincial
assembly.
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In the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, Blair
proclaimed that the United Kingdom would stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the
United States in the effort to root out global terrorism. More than 100 British citizens
were among the thousands of people who died in the attacks. Blair began an intensive
round of diplomatic negotiations that took him to many European capitals and to a
host of Muslim countries—including Egypt, Oman, and Pakistan—to build
international support for action against the terrorists. In October the United Kingdom
sent British forces to participate in the U.S.-led assault on Afghanistan’s Taliban
regime, which was accused of harboring terrorists. Additional British troops were
deployed to Afghanistan in December 2001 and March 2002.
As the conflict in Afghanistan subsided, the Labour government maintained its strong
support for U.S foreign policy, including a possible U.S.-led war against the
government of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Blair—following the lead of U.S.
president George W. Bush—accused Hussein of stockpiling weapons of mass
destruction and of posing a serious threat to regional and global security, and he
offered to contribute British military forces to a preemptive U.S.-led attack on Iraq.
Blair’s position put him at odds with the leaders of many European countries,
including France and Germany, who preferred to work through the United Nations
(UN) to ensure Iraq’s disarmament. Blair alsｯÿÿaced intense oｰÿosition from many
Britons, including members of the Labour Party, who opposed military action against
Iraq. In March 2003 British forces joined the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, despite a failure
to secure a UN resolution explicitly sanctioning the action. The subsequent failure to
find weapons of mass destruction The Labour Party won its second consecutive
landslide victory in the June 2001 general elections, gaining the largest majority ever
held by a British party in its second term. The elections were an enormous victory for
the Labour Party and the centrist policies of Blair, who won a second term as prime
minister.
Labour’s Third Term
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Labour’s Third Term
Blair called a general election in May 2005. The Labour Party
won its first-ever third consecutive victory, giving Blair a third
term as prime minister. Labour won 356 seats, giving it a solid
but much reduced majority in the 646-seat House of Commons.
Analysts said Labour’s slimmer majority reflected voter
discontent with Blair’s decision to support the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq. The Liberal Democrats, who opposed Britain’s
involvement in the war, increased their representation in the
House of Commons, winning 62 seats. The Conservatives, who
waged an aggressive campaign, picked up 33 seats, bringing their
total to 197.
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Post-war Britain
The Loss of Empire
a. India
b. Egypt
The Search for Economic Well-Being
Conservative Rule
Industrial Decline
The Thatcher Revolution
Attempts at Peace in Ireland
Conservative Decline and the Rise of New Labour
Labour’s Return to Power
Labour’s Second Term
Labour’s Third Term