Conclusion

Abstract

A number of themes were shared between Sandys’ time in office and his backbench campaigns. Sandys felt that Britain needed to find a new post-colonial world role, seen in the interventionism of his time in office, and his later defence of Britain’s interests in Africa and Arabia. Racial difference was another major concern. Like many others at the time, Sandys found the prospect of racial violence particularly frightening and believed that it should be approached as a universal ‘problem’, whether in the Commonwealth, the USA, or Britain. The role of pledges in the management of decolonisation is another recurrent theme. Many pledges were made by Sandys and others to smooth the transition to independence throughout the empire, yet no constitutional mechanism existed to bind either successive governments at Westminster, or the leaders of newly independent Commonwealth states. A comparison with the backbench rebel activism of other former colonial ministers reveals that Sandys was the most successful of all the pro-empire rebels during the decolonisation period.