Butskell and the Empire: The House of Commons Prepares for the Scramble from Africa, 1946–56

Abstract

When Labour won power in 1945, it had no plans for dismantling the remaining colonial empire following Indian independence. Nevertheless, within a quarter of a century, the British and other European empires had been virtually wiped off the map. This paper examines parliamentary attitudes towards the colonial empire, and specifically Africa, in the decade during which the decolonisation policy was formulated. Covering the decade from the first post-war debate on the colonial empire in 1946 to the Ghana Independence debate of 1956, the paper analyses House of Commons records as a means of exploring how the forces driving decolonisation were articulated in Westminster.