Dislocated to Success

by Iain Bowen

  This left the thorny question of the colonies and their citizenship. The ones we owned were simple; we were at this point a ius sanguinis nation, and it was quite easy to decide that all those in our current colonies were UK citizens. This meant giving UK citizenship to the slaves held in many colonies, and to people who had not been born in those colonies or in the UK. The numbers of this latter group turned out to be very low, surprisingly enough - and as for the former, it seemed to be the least that we could do. This did leave questions over future colonies which would be decided on a case by case basis as said colonies were developed. This led to quite a debate - there were large elements of the Labour party who felt we should abjure any new colonies and tried to cause trouble at this stage. There were also a lot questions about Ireland, mainly from Gerry Fitt. We assured him that Ireland would remain a separate citizenship and that, within the bounds of quarantine etc, we would eventually assure free access to the UK. That caused another fairly lengthy row, especially as Gerry[39] wanted assurances that people in Northern Ireland could still take out Irish citizenship - which we couldn’t give at this stage. Nor could we consent to convert a Republic of Ireland passport to a Kingdom of Ireland one, and that idea has remained firmly blocked by the Irish House of Lords to this day. Ted Heath started asking about North American Indians and Australian Aborigines but got fairly short shrift, so that question remained for another day. However, after four very long sessions, we managed to send it off to the Lords, where they produced a veritable horde of amendments - it was in the end the second slowest piece of emergency legislation to be ratified, and it was also one of the first major pieces to be fully revisited in 1985. To be honest, it needed more debate and better drafting; but, like most of the emergency legislation, time was of the essence. The main purpose was to leave no one intentionally stateless - although even to this day there are a few thousand diehards who have not taken out UK citizenship.

  One of the small privileges of my job was a small entertainment allowance. I decided to use it invite one of Oxford’s foremost historians to dinner; I had enjoyed his book, although it more covered the half-century before the Dislocation proper. Luckily, some of the better places in London still had some un-rationed treats at that time, and if you stuck to fish, which seemed to have massively improved in quality since the Dislocation, you could still dine reasonably well. Professor Stoye was waspish, in command of his details, argumentative and very thought-provoking. He gave short pen - some would say poison pen - portraits of a number of European leaders, many of which turned out to be pretty accurate and some of which were a little off beam. He said that we wouldn’t be respected until we had fought a war, and that we were likely to get a frosty reception in a number of places. His main feeling was that ignorance and absolutism were marching hand in hand, and that, providing we could get through our food crisis - and he made some rather harsh suggestions on that matter - then within a decade we could either ignore Europe completely or just make it dance to our tune. His comments were that we should concentrate our diplomacy on the smaller and middle ranked powers; they were more likely to be receptive and in need of friends - and, as they were smaller, could be reformed more easily. He specifically warned against three figures as being false friends, and left with a Parthian Shot of “and god help you if Frederick the Great gets a British education”. We kept in contact throughout my period in office; he was quite useful at times, and always very interesting. In return, we arranged a few discrete meetings for him over the years with Prominent Persons; including, amusingly, the future Frederick the Great - who we did give a British education to.

  Whilst all this was going on, we were making the traditional UK mess of Anglo-Irish relations. I suppose it was inevitable, and to be honest I’m not sure quite how I would have handled it if I had been in charge. I think the approach was probably wrong, but I suspect the bilious response of the powers-that-be in the Kingdom of Ireland would have been just as awkward and obnoxious under any feasible approach. There were some sensible chaps around, but they needed a certain amount of time to accept the new reality and take in the consequences of the Dislocation. Speaking as a Catholic, it would have probably been best if we hadn’t tried to be so even-handed and modern about things, cut the talks to the very much bewildered trans-Irish RC hierarchy out and removed the cis-Irish who resided in Britain from the equation. With that, we could have moved onwards in a very similar way to what we did, but possibly gaining the trust of those in power first. As it was, we were on another sticky wicket; if it hadn’t have been for the cupidity of James Edward Stuart, heaven knows how long the Hibernian mess would have taken to sort out.

  As it was, we had had an Irish Accession council meet and proclaim the succession of Frederick Lewis as the rightful King of Ireland, which was somewhat awkward to say the least. However, the stories that the Queen gave the Prime Minister what we call “an interview without chair” are somewhat fanciful. Like the rest of us, the Queen fully understood that Frederick of Hannover was legally the heir to Ireland and that our ventures had been based on not getting an Accession council until after he had decided to stand down and the new Act of Succession also passed in Ireland.

  Of course, with the Dislocated Persons Act being passed, something could now be done with Adrian’s flat. I had expected not to be involved, but Rachel contacted me over the last weekend of March to ask if I could help. She came up to town, and we discussed what to do and how to arrange the trust. Luckily I did know a few competent lawyers and suggested one to her; we went to see him on the Tuesday, and he dealt with everything very well. Of course, it was all quite complex and determined by various matters such as the will. I wasn’t even sure if Adrian had a will; I knew I hadn’t made one - something I rectified a couple of years later. It turned out he had - and, quite surprisingly, he had made certain provisions for me. However, as none of the beneficiaries were considered to be either destitute or dependant, and as the estate was valued at over £40,000[40], the will did not directly come into force; nor could it for seven years. Essentially, a trust was set up where the assets would be preserved, but property could be let and investments could be made; reasonable expenses could be charged against the trust. There was a lot of rules about how much could be charged and what investments could be made, which created a few badly needed jobs for financial people and more work for lawyers. Considering the rush of drafting, it was sound law and pretty much stood up to various judicial tests - of which there were plenty. As my share was the flat and contents, it allowed me to let the flat, which I did through an agency, pay the lease and ground rent and the expenses of letting, and sell some of the contents, whilst the rest of the income from it went into an account. I let the place fairly quickly, partly from a fear of squatters and partly because otherwise I was paying for everything involved with it; but I took a much longer time dealing with the contents, some of which remained in store for a very long time.

  One of the things I was asked to do was to be a member of yet another committee, which looked at our current colonies and considered their status and how we should go forward with them. This also included various holdings by trade companies - such as the East India Company - of which there were several. Most of the companies had been dissolved in the UK many years before, which involved some creative use of legislation - especially as they had been founded by Royal Warrant. The really awkward case was the Hudson Bay Company, which not only still existed but had substantial UK assets and what looked like rights to vast tracts of Canada - that was nearly four years before it reached some sort of conclusion, and nearly ten years before it was finally resolved. It had been decided to allow members from the Labour and Liberal parties onto the committee; after all, we were making long term decisions for the future of these places and what we did not need was a quick volte-face by other parties taking office at some point. Luckily, I was not to be on this committee for too long - it was tedious in the extreme.

  The main problem with the committee w
as that the members and the civil servants were children of the era of Imperial Retreat; the legacy of decolonisation lingered over all of us like a shroud. It was assumed by many that each of these colonies would swiftly want to separate itself from the UK and become masters of their own destiny. We did not appreciate the lack of non-British identity in these places, nor did we understand the extremely limited context in which many of them existed. I think it still amazes people that, fifteen years on, we have not yet given independence to a single colony that we chose to retain, nor that there has been anything but the most piffling objection to British rule in a single colony from the former colonials.

  Instead we lingered in a sort of miasmic world where we assumed that places would want their own independence as quickly as possible, with perhaps just some simple trade and security guarantees from the UK. Obviously, we appreciated that some places would probably be effectively Crown Dependencies as they were before the Dislocation, but that was about the limit of it. We certainly did not appreciate that places would look to be fully integrated in the UK. Our first report was very much in the wishful thinking mode, and in the end only a handful of places were evacuated and abandoned. I don’t think we made any incorrect decisions over Bencoolen and the African slave factories - and similarly, although people have disputed it, the state of our claims on the Mosquito Coast and St Lucia were barely tenable. The latter did upset a lot of people in the UK of St Lucian decent, but the facts on the ground were that the island was effectively French; there were just a largish number of people of British descent there. It had a disputed history and our records were not perfect.

  Some criticism has been made that part of this “get out quick” idea came from the Labour party; it is certainly true that, even to this day, Labour struggles with the idea of our colonies both old and new. Whilst many people have come to accept that, firstly, we need the resources desperately and, secondly, that many of these people regard themselves as British or feel in need of close association with us, there are those - mainly on the left - who cannot accept that. However, both Labour’s members on the committee were generally in line with the thrust of the debate, and Terry Davis[41] in particular grasped the issues firmly in that we had certain responsibilities. On the other hand, the Liberals had not at this point made British North America their cause - probably because they had not yet met Mr Franklin - and they were initially quite awkward about Native Rights, which later became more Sir Edward Heath’s cause.

  During this time, the UK continued to make more and more contact with the nearer European states; our reception was varied, to say the least. There were very few cases where we were welcomed with open arms, especially as wild and fanciful stories started to spread. Not that there was much need for them; the very foundations of our liberal democracy are still looked on with apprehension in most of Europe. However some reacted worse than others. Spain was a particular problem; the UK could afford to ignore the likes of Parma, but Spain was one of the five big European powers and the possessor of a world wide colonial empire.

  To this day, we still don’t know what mitigated their series of poor decisions that lead to their utter humiliation and the Treaty of Bordeaux. It has been suggested that the leadership of the country was exceptionally poor, and that several members of it may well have not have been in the clearest frame of mind. Certainly the King of Spain, who had been placed back on the throne because of the death of his son, may not have been in the best frame of mind to resist the initial entreaties of his fanatical wife and the ultras who supported her. Opinions of medical professionals were taken on this matter, as there was a feeling that we were not dealing with a rational actor. The rejection of our new ambassador and the expulsion of our old ambassador certainly raised a few eyebrows at the time, although it was generally thought not to presage any of the later events. We had forgotten about the Jacobites - which was easy to do; in the UK they were a tiny and dormant crackpot fringe.

  Chapter 9

  Obviously, we started seeing some important people wanting to visit the UK at this time. One of the most important in the early days was Cardinal Fleury; unlike some of the others, there were no real problems with our procedures with him. We had grabbed hold of a holiday camp near Clacton for guests - temporarily, whilst proper quarantine facilities were being organised - but I suggested that we would be better having a small VIP facility. There was a bit of discussion about this, but we couldn’t have very prominent people rubbing noses with merchants, returned trans UK travellers etc. It was only used sparingly and had the same level of quarantine as the other facilities, the PM was insistent on that.

  Once the 48 hours was up, I was instructed to give the Cardinal a nice day tour before taking him to the Savoy; given his age, I constructed it to be able to be cut short, but he was very interested and full of questions. We showed him a fair bit of rural Essex, a glimpse at Chelmsford, a brief look at various agricultural facilities and then a reasonably fast journey into London. He was fascinated by cars and by roads, and completely stunned by the size of London; he did remark that when we said there were seven million people in the Capital he didn’t believe us, but now he did. He also remarked on the number of black and Asian people as we got deeper into the East End, and was very curious about high rise buildings.

  We put up the most prominent people in the River Suites at the Savoy, where we made arrangements that they should get the best available British food and without any rationing problems. We had become aware that, whilst for us, rationing meant tight belts and a hope that we could sort things out quickly, it seemed to indicate a much more desperate situation to most of Europe. Both sides were guilty of mis-signalling, but this one was one of our more troublesome errors. My personal amusement was to make sure the Cardinal had a bottle of modern French wine; he was deeply impressed by it, as were many others.

  I wasn’t privy to the meetings he had with the various people, but I do remember having to administer a couple of restorative drinks to him after his meeting with some of the French embassy staff. Apart from his horror at a secular republic, they had given him a brief summary of British military and industrial power; such briefings tended to be rather blunt, especially when the cis-staff were out of sympathy with the trans-power. As some American once put it, once you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds shall surely follow. What surprised me was how well he got on with the PM; of course, in some ways, they were quite similar despite the march of the ages. Both declared themselves capable of doing business with each other in public; in private, both respected but had reservations about each other.

  The Cardinal returned to France with a good deal more information than he had previously, and from then on proved to be a good friend to Britain, but always kept the interest of France to the fore. It was to prove a lengthy relationship, although there were times when his power was somewhat diminished by the actions of some of the magnates. I don’t believe he ever liked us, nor got fully used to modern thinking - despite his founding of the Auto Club de France - but there was a strong feeling of mutual trust between himself and Mrs Thatcher.

  No sooner had one VIP departed than another arrived; the Elector of Hannover. I was not involved in this originally, but was dragged in as the Irish situation made David’s position untenable. The position of Frederick Lewis of Hannover was a rather difficult one; whilst we all know him as a modernising Prince who happens to be a bit of a playboy, and whilst he has become quite popular with the British public, he was deeply affected by the Dislocation. Effectively, he lost his entire family - except for a few cousins in Prussia and cadet lines in some of the smaller Braunschweig statelets. He was in an electorate which he was not that familiar with and with a ruling coterie who had been used to exercising power on their own. He was in an unfamiliar situation, off balance and - as one Nottinghamshire MP put it - “A bit mardy”.

  We were helped in that he accepted that he could not - nor did he want to - be King of the United Kingdom, and he was real
ly not very keen on being King of Ireland; it seemed he had visited once and had not been impressed. I was told his language was rather salty about the place; this was actually in one way quite helpful to us as it was becoming apparent that we needed Ireland - or at least its agricultural potential - quite badly, but there was certainly a group around Willie who felt that a trans-sovereign in close association was what it needed. The interesting thing is that now, fifteen years later, he is the fourth most popular member of the Royal family; and if - by some mischance - he did inherit, it would probably be initially accepted by the people - though the politicians would hate it, due to his tendency to be rather more hands-on than other members of The Firm.

  So there had to be a settlement - and a fairly generous one at that - and this needed to be sorted out before the new Act of Succession came into place. Luckily, Frederick was broke, as was his electorate, and therefore he was very willing to listen to the idea of a settlement. This took some time to negotiate, but once the principle was there everyone breathed a lot easier. The majority of the settlement in terms of the annual payment came from the Royal Family, but there was a substantial one-off payment made mainly by the Government in return for the nationalisation of most Crown-held Irish land, which was eventually redistributed to its tenants under a form of Right to Buy. As Quintin said, if some of the sharper lawyers had got hold of him it could have cost both the UK and the Royal Family billions. As it was, he had a sound financial future with a solid annual income - which proved to be much needed, because he did like spending.