In the UK this year, there are several big anniversaries coming up of events that have been central to the nation's identity.
Next week is the 75th anniversary of the Empire Windrush ship from the Caribbean, which signalled a major shift in immigration to the UK. People from the colonies were invited to help rebuild post-war Britain. When they arrived, the "streets paved with gold" vision turned out to be a brutal experience of racism and often poverty.
The Windrush scandal in recent years was further soured by the denying of citizenship to many of those who have lived in the UK all their lives, and even deporting them to countries to which they were now strangers. In the UK, we now have both the Windrush generation scandal, as well as the cracking down on immigration.
In July, the beloved NHS also celebrates its 75th anniversary. It is no coincidence that the two are linked as even in its early days, the NHS was staffed by immigrants from the colonies. It is dependent on them even today. Every Thursday evening, during the Covid-19 lockdowns, we stood outside and clapped for the NHS staff battling on the front lines of the pandemic. The NHS is one of the few uniting points for a nation divided by Brexit, politics, class – and perhaps most divided over which idea best represents the nation we want the UK to be.
In a year of big anniversaries, the UK needs to know what it wants to be in the future. The time of merely harking back to the "good old days" has passed.
Nowhere is this more starkly illustrated than in the case of the monarchy. If the late Queen Elizabeth I had been alive we would have been marking the 70th anniversary of her coronation in 1953. As it is, last month saw the coronation of King Charles III. The worlds of these two milestones are markedly different. In 1953, Queen Elizabeth became head of state of a global empire – in decline, but a global empire nonetheless. What remains for the new King is to be head of state for an ever-shrinking group of countries, and ever-diminishing number of dominions. And that too in a country where support for the monarchy is in decline among younger age groups.
In the intervening period between the two coronations, the world has moved on. Even if many would prefer to live in denial, and pretend we still live in the past. The supposed glory days of the Empire were not that great for the colonies, but neither were they great for many in Britain, particularly from the poor and working classes, even though they did benefit in a general rising tide from the influx of wealth.
More notably, Britain has also moved on in the last century. Which means our vision of the nation we want to be must also be re-imagined for a 21st century, which is quite different to the days of Pax Britannica where "Britain ruled the waves".
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson infamously talked while in office of an "Empire 2.0". It is perhaps the starkest expression of yearning to be what has already passed rather than creating something new for the future. Rather than those Victorian days of global hegemony, it might be better to cast our minds back to the days of Elizabeth I.
It was then that England (which later became Britain) set out on its trajectory to be the world’s biggest Empire. At that time it was a relatively poor, weak little nation on a global stage while the great Empires were those of the Mughals, the Ottomans and the Safavids. England saw itself in competition with already burgeoning European powers such as Spain and Portugal. Today’s global stage doesn’t feel that different.
But there are differences that Britain can harness. The country is still comparatively wealthy. It has one of the world’s largest economies. It has strength in technology and the creative industries. And it has two powerful forces inherited from the British Empire. The first is its soft power and the second is its incredible diversity of people. These are too quickly and readily being undermined in the rush to revive Empire 2.0. The anniversaries of Windrush and the NHS tell us that these are not to be seen as remnants of a time past but rather as powerful forces for Britain’s brand in the future. It could be a future with great potential, but only if instead of looking back, we look ahead.
