UK should re-colonize the colonies.

I have been thinking this for a while. Uk colonized such a large part of the world. These countries had their infrastructure built by the British and their system of goverment modelled on the UK. For a while they thrived under British colonial rule. However post WW2 when many of the old colonies were given independence, these same countries have gradually let their infrastructure collapse due to lack of finance and returning to their old ways. Take India for example. In the era of the Raj, extensive improvements were made to bring the country kicking and screaming into the real world. In Mumbai city wide drainage was built. Adequate at the time, no further improvements have been made. Every Monsoon the city literally floods. Under colonial rule this would never happen. And its not just India, the list goes on and on. Take a look at this list of commonwealth countries:-

•Antigua and Barbuda
•Australia
•The Bahamas
•Bangladesh
•Barbados
•Belize
•Botswana
•Brunei Darussalam
•Cameroon
•Canada
•Cyprus
•Dominica
•Fiji Islands
•The Gambia
•Ghana
•Grenada
•Guyana
•India
•Jamaica
•Kenya
•Kiribati
•Lesotho *
•Malawi
•Malaysia
•Maldives
•Malta
•Mauritius
•Mozambique
•Namibia
•Nauru
•New Zealand
•Nigeria
•Pakistan
•Papua New Guinea
•Samoa
•Seychelles
•Sierra Leone
•Singapore
•Solomon Islands
•South Africa
•Sri Lanka
•St Kitts and Nevis
•St Lucia
•St Vincent and the Grenadines
•Swaziland
•Tonga
•Trinidad and Tobago
•Tuvalu
•Uganda
•United Republic of Tanzania
•Vanuatu
•Zambia
•Zimbabwe

The UK really needs to get back in controll of these countries and establish a proper rule, since it has become obvious that they cant do it by themselves. Maybe we would get a bit more stability in the world.
And before anyone makes some claim about commonwealth countries not wanting to be repatriated to UK, you better realise most of the population loved British rule, and were actually gratefull for British colonisation and what it brought. They never wanted British rule to end.
Long live the Queen!. Britannia rule the waves!

I think we stole, raped and pillaged enough the first time around, dont you?

Do you work for the queen? you sound like you should, i can see right up your nose from here!.

reply to post by HologramDenier


no you are wrong we caused the problems in the first place and left corrupt and immoral people in charge so that we could still rape there countries of wealth, so we could deny any involvement., and now that the people have woken up and wish to rid themselves of this corruption, for the benefit of there people. you suggest we steam in and retake controll

clueless does not begin to express my feeling towards your post and suggest you hang your head in shame do you really understand what you are saying and what it would involve, yes and may god rid us of the queen

Your ignorance of history is astounding.For every piece of infrastructure they built they looted 10 times as much in resources. As an irishman looking at my own history i see first hand what the british Empire did here. Just one example is the great famine of the 1840s when the potato crop failed and the British government refused to allocate any of the bumper harvests of grain that were grown here to the staving population. 1.5 million people died of starvation and 2 million people had to emigrate.

And in 1798 when we rebelled against british rule, 30,000 young Irish rebels who surrendered under a flag of truce were hung drawn and quartered, Hung by the neck until nearly dead, drawn by a horses until all the bones in your body were dislocated, then disembowled and dismembered while still alive, this was in the 18th century, by people who called themselves "civilized"?

Originally posted by HologramDenier

And before anyone makes some claim about commonwealth countries not wanting to be repatriated to UK

I agree with OP, but not on this bit. If we choose to colonise again, those being colonised better want it or learn to want it, because there should be absolutely no choices in regards to this matter

Trying to ignore the supremacist remarks just taking a glance at your list what have we got. Well first off let's put all the Caribean countries under one heading and call it......I know slavery. I suppose we could at a stretch extend that to Africa too however we should really put that under the heading 'forced borders cutting accross ancient tribal and ethnic divisions leading to ethnic strife even today'. How about Australia, ethnic cleansing and forced conversions to Christianity up until the 1970's. These will do for a start.
Now how about India the focus of your argument and the jewel in every Imperialist Britishers delusion of superiority. I think we should use the example of destruction of their Industrial base in that they had to sell cotton, in the instance we shall use, to G.B at a price set by G.B and buy the finished goods cotton sheets etc; at a price set by G.B. plus as an added bonus we threw in partition which gave us millions of deaths. The true scale of which is still obfuscated today.
A statement paraphrased from another thread a while back seems to fit in nicely. "Hitler can't have been all bad he built the autobahns"

Another thing we maybe should consider was the the main purpose of building the infrastructure was for themselves so they could mine/harvest resources faster.

Plus this allowed for the recent population boom in those exact nations listed that has caused vast poverty, famine, political turmoil, etc.

TPTB always complain about 'overpopulation' yet they fail to realize their own policies facilitated it?

I don't think we should listen to them to solve the world's problems, because I have suspicions they helped get us in this very boat to begin with.

I respect patriotism, but Monsoon Flood Contention is probably the most eccentric reason I've ever heard to trigger a World War.

And this XXI century probably the less convenient time.

ha ha maybe you should add united states as well, oh no that's right we're still in charge there anyway! don't forget the middle east and all OUR oil, the tombs in India with all OUR treasure that they just revealed, the queen probably thinks it's hers anyway! Get a grip!

We couldn't even colonize Puffin Island these days, we don't have the money or military manpower.

You know the OP has a point the more I think about it.

I suppose since the US is twice as successful in one fifth the time span as the UK, that makes their ways even better, so the US should invade the UK and depose the monarchy and institute a Constitutional Republic.

That would be hilarious.

This one is just for you, OP. I took your idea and made it better. Way better.

reply to post by HologramDenier


Like the UK is doing any better than the countries you listed??

reply to post by auraelium


While I disagree with the idea of forcibly claiming back the Empire, I must just point out to you and other Irishmen (I have Irish ancestry myself as it happens before you think of me as an evil Englishman) that the whole Ireland thing started back in the Norman times, right after England was colonised herself by those Frenchy buggers.

It's the Normans (with the blessing of the Catholic Church I might add - Ironic really) and their progeny that led to the centuries of conflict in the UK and Ireland, which hadn't really existed before they arrived.

Us English suffered as much under the Norman conquest, and subsequent era's which were directly related, as any other, but this gets forgotten and the English get the bad name.

It's a shame that a movement which gained traction in the early 20th century never really took hold. This was the Empire Free Trade movement. This was an idea amongst more progressive Parliamentarians and the like where each and every country in the Empire would be granted free trade rights, autonomous rule and be bonded together in Unity under the Commonwealth. Much like a Global "EU". Imagine how different the world could have been had that idea taken root. Sadly, this was dropped with the run up too WW2 and the aftermath of the War (and our subsquent promises to the US) which caused the break up of the Empire and the strife we see today which can be linked to it.

But, lets not forget that while bad things happened under the Empire, so did good too.

Slavery was abolished and the Royal Navy worked worldwide to stop the trade, even attacking US ships.

Infrastructure, education and Parliamentary rule were brought to places that had none and were ruled by despots before hand. Say what you like about taking natural resources, but at the end of the Empire we left every country with a constitution and a democractic Government. Alot of the problems seen in the former African colonies, for example, were not really the UK's fault, but rather as a result of power plays between the USSR and the USA.

We're not to blame for everything, you know...

reply to post by Mister_Bit


Actually, the Empire was built with an Army much smaller than the one today. It was the Navy that made it possible and we still have the 2nd largest Navy in NATO.

The trick we British did, especially in India, was to employ those we were invading to fight for us. Indians conquered India on our behalf.

Too late, the Americans are beating us to it by exporting their form of democracy, consumerism, and so on.

As for the Empire making a comeback? No thank-you, we're well shut of it. In fact we should be trying to downsize our involvement elsewhere and concentrate on our own problems.

Originally posted by stumason
reply to post by auraelium

 

While I disagree with the idea of forcibly claiming back the Empire, I must just point out to you and other Irishmen (I have Irish ancestry myself as it happens before you think of me as an evil Englishman) that the whole Ireland thing started back in the Norman times, right after England was colonised herself by those Frenchy buggers.

It's the Normans (with the blessing of the Catholic Church I might add - Ironic really) and their progeny that led to the centuries of conflict in the UK and Ireland, which hadn't really existed before they arrived.

Us English suffered as much under the Norman conquest, and subsequent era's which were directly related, as any other, but this gets forgotten and the English get the bad name.

It's a shame that a movement which gained traction in the early 20th century never really took hold. This was the Empire Free Trade movement. This was an idea amongst more progressive Parliamentarians and the like where each and every country in the Empire would be granted free trade rights, autonomous rule and be bonded together in Unity under the Commonwealth. Much like a Global "EU". Imagine how different the world could have been had that idea taken root. Sadly, this was dropped with the run up too WW2 and the aftermath of the War (and our subsquent promises to the US) which caused the break up of the Empire and the strife we see today which can be linked to it.

But, lets not forget that while bad things happened under the Empire, so did good too.

Slavery was abolished and the Royal Navy worked worldwide to stop the trade, even attacking US ships.

Infrastructure, education and Parliamentary rule were brought to places that had none and were ruled by despots before hand. Say what you like about taking natural resources, but at the end of the Empire we left every country with a constitution and a democractic Government. Alot of the problems seen in the former African colonies, for example, were not really the UK's fault, but rather as a result of power plays between the USSR and the USA.

We're not to blame for everything, you know...

The Normans invaded Ireland in 1169, this pre-medievil invasion has little to do with atrocitys that were comitted against the Irish people up until the 1920's by the Crown.

The penal laws were passed in Ireland in the 18th century, where it was an offence punishable by death for catholics to own land, speak their native language, practice their religion or even have your children educated.

To suggest that in other colonies the british empire left democratic governments and stability is nonsense. It left tyranical dictators loyal to the crown that ensured the the free flow of cheap resources.

Originally posted by HologramDenier

In Mumbai city wide drainage was built. Adequate at the time, no further improvements have been made. Every Monsoon the city literally floods. Under colonial rule this would never happen.

In Victorian times city wide sewers were built in London. No further improvements have been made. Every time there's a big thunderstorm, the city literally floods. Same applies to many other British towns.

So whose going to re-colonise us and bring us into the 21st century? The Romans? (what did they ever do for us, eh?)

reply to post by Essan


The roads?

reply to post by auraelium


You seem to be totally missing the point.. The whole England-Ireland thing dates back to then, has it's root causes then and is directly linked to those events. I wasn't saying that the Normans should get the all the blame, but had it not been for the Norman colonisation, the whole of the British Isles would have a different history altogether. Looking at isolated events in History without appreciating the root causes going back centuries is naive.

It was Norman Kings that led England to war with the Scots, Welsh and Irish who, by and large, the English had lived peacefully side by side for centuries before hand. This laid the groundwork for everything that was to come

I do find it ironic, however, that you would willingly dismiss historical events as irrelevant, but then proceed to bang on about historical events that perceive to be important. You cannot pick and choose what history you like and don't like.

Do point out the "tyranical dictators loyal to the crown" we left behind though in the other colonies. Should be worth a laugh.

When I opend this thread I thought it was going to be about the USA. With the budget cuts and all, a lot of our infrastructure is crumbling. If anyone from the UK wants to come over and rebuild blighted areas of the USA, I am sure they would receive a favorable response from numerous local areas.

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