The British Empire, as well as being a site of conquest, exploitation, racism and atrocity, also harboured pockets of idealism, good intentions, and – just occasionally – good outcomes. The best of these (apart of course from cricket) was the establishment of the ‘British Commonwealth of Nations’ – subsequently simply ‘The Commonwealth’ – as a repository for most of Britain’s colonies and dominions after their ‘liberation’. The Commonwealth was imbued with a number of ‘standards’, which were supposed to reflect British ‘values’, especially political ones; and which included democracy, self-government, human rights and anti-racism. Not all these ideals were lived up to (which was why South Africa left in 1961); but they always stood as an aspiration, at the very least, for all its 56 members.

Of course the original thirteen North American British colonies were never among that number, chiefly because they broke away too early to join. Canada was, however; indeed, fighting successfully to preserve its position in the old British Empire and then the Commonwealth, and to retain a portion, at any rate, of its ‘Britishness’, and of British ‘values’, against pressure from the United States. Australia is another Commonwealth nation that remained ‘British’ in many respects (cricket is one) after its de facto independence, although many Aussies might not thank me for saying it.

Which makes it interesting that it is these two latter countries that have recently given the clearest single-finger gesture to Trump, in the form of national election results which are seen as direct repudiations of his whole political, cultural and economic philosophy. In the Canadians’ case, of course, it was partly a response to his stated ambition to annex them to the US as its ‘beloved fifty-first state’. But there may also be some significant differences between their societies, which arose originally from their divergent post-colonial histories; with the United States embracing a new set of values to replace the ones Britain had left with them. These included rugged individualism, the frontier spirit, its gun culture, an ignorant populism, showmanship, and – of course initially – slavery.

So post-independence America became dominated by capitalists, cowboys and conspiracy theorists. Not that these were entirely absent from Britain – frontierism, for example, Ned Kelly, and colonial slavery, albeit at a distance from home – but to a lesser extent; and combined with other inherited values which are today considered rather ‘woke’. Could this at least partly account for the difference between Britain, the Commonwealth and Europe on the one hand, and Trump’s America on the other? Does it all go back to 1776? Might it have been different if the thirteen colonies had remained under the protective wing of the mother hen?

Just an idea; from an old imperial historian trying to make his subject relevant.