22 April 2024. By Nigel Biggar for The Daily Sceptic.

In her speech at the London conference of TheCityUK last Thursday, Kemi Badenoch denied that Britain’s economic prosperity is mainly attributable to colonial exploitation. She made this historical claim because of its present political significance. If post-colonial governments really believe in the narrative of simple victimhood at the hands of oppressive imperial capitalism, they will draw the wrong conclusions about the route to economic success. But even if they don’t believe it, they are cynically using it to undermine Britain’s diplomatic position at the World Trade Organisation. (Badenoch could have added that, if a British government comes to believe it – as a Labour administration under Keir Starmer is likely to – British taxpayers will be exposed to claims of over £18 trillion in reparations for slavery.)

Very shortly after the speech, the historian William Dalrymple tweeted that Badenoch “needs to learn some history and not let ideological wishful thinking overcome historical facts”. But the truth is that the economic effects of British colonialism are highly contested among historians. So, someone who pretends that there are straightforward ‘facts’, which anyone who isn’t stupid or wicked (or Tory) acknowledges, can only be one of three things. Either he’s ignorant, unaware of the historical debate. Or he’s careless, referring to ‘facts’ simply, rather than what he ‘believes’ to be facts. Or he’s lying, knowing full well that the facts are contested, but deliberately pretending otherwise. Which of those Dalrymple is I cannot possibly say, though charity obliges me not to presume the last option ….