Questionable Allies: British Collaboration with Apartheid South Africa, 1960–90

Abstract

From 1960, as the horrors of the apartheid system in South Africa were steadily revealed to the world, the international community turned against a country once seen as a bastion of peace and prosperity on the African continent. The United Nations debated the imposition of comprehensive sanctions against South Africa, yet the USA, France, and Britain stood against such a drastic measure. Though the levers of government would change hands between Labour and Conservative Prime Ministers, Britain’s policy in opposing sanctions against South Africa from 1960 to the final fall of apartheid in 1994 would steadfastly remain. This article deploys archival material to examine the motivations behind this British policy, and highlights three key factors: anxiety about the potential impact of sanctions on Britain itself; the context of the global Cold War; and British aversion to what were perceived as the ANC’s ‘terrorist’ actions. These were the motivations behind Britain’s continued trade and collaboration with South Africa throughout the period of apartheid. The archival sources dealing with the background to this policy starkly reveal the darker legacies of colonialism that continued to shape British policies and the attitudes of those at the highest levels of British government over these years.