The immigration debate needs to be seen in its wider context. The Commonwealth consists of 56 countries yet Britain at the head has significant trade with only 5 of them, the ‘White’ Commonwealth – Australia, Canada, India, Singapore. and South Africa. These countries together accounted for 73% of recent UK exports to the Commonwealth and 70% of recent UK imports from the Commonwealth.
Trade is the primary advantage the commonwealth offered to its members. Britain does very little of it with the ‘Black’ Commonwealth because Britain does not regard the ‘Black’ Commonwealth country as its equal or its partner. To Britain, the ‘Black’ Commonwealth country is for ever a colony whose value is strictly what Britain could extract from it. If not for the negative optics, Britain would pull out of the Commonwealth today. This negative attitude to the ‘Black’ Commonwealth spills over into the immigration debate.
Britain’s dismissive attitude towards the ‘Black’ Commonwealth is totally undeserved. Britain owes the ‘Black’ Commonwealth bigly. Slaves from the ‘Black’ Commonwealth provided the fund for the development of Britain between 1600 and 1900 – Britain’s Royal family, aristocracy, and upper echelons benefited immensely from investment in slave companies and plantations, and from the 1833 abolition settlement. In 1917, Lord Lugard took £6 million from Yorubaland for the Imperial War Debt. In 1945, African soldiers in the British army fought and defeated the Japanese Imperial Army in Burma, and Caribbean men and women were in the Royal Air Force. One day, Britain might again need the ‘Black’ Commonwealth. What would be our response then?