"There are certain territories in the Commonwealth which, owing to their particular circumstances, can never expect to be fully independent."
Henry Hopkinson, Minister of State for Colonial Affairs, House of Commons, 28 July 1954.
There's a way the state handled every territory it didn't want to lose, and every step of it is recognisable here.
The receipts
The source list for this chapter, as the publisher maintains it. Archive links are given wherever a cited page could move or die.
- Henry Hopkinson, Minister of State for Colonial Affairs, HC Deb 28 July 1954, cc. 507-8 ("can never expect to be fully independent") and cc. 531-2 ("Malta is one territory with almost the same population and which is not a territory which can be self-governing").
- Malta integration referendum, 11 and 12 February 1956: Yes 67,607, No 20,177 (roughly 77 per cent of votes cast); turnout about 59 per cent following the Nationalist Party boycott.
- Alan Lennox-Boyd, Colonial Secretary, HC Deb 26 March 1956, vol 550, col 1791: "that represents a little more than 44 per cent. of those entitled to vote."
- Malta independence, 21 September 1964; today an independent member of the EU and the eurozone.
- The 40 per cent threshold for the two devolution referendums of 1 March 1979, Scotland's and Wales's: enacted by amendment in January 1978, more than a year before the votes, and known to the electorate in advance (Chapter 7).
- Treaty concerning the Establishment of the Republic of Cyprus, done at Nicosia, 16 August 1960; UK retained full sovereignty over the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, still British territory.
- Cyril Radcliffe, chair of the India-Pakistan boundary commissions: arrived Delhi 8 July 1947, given about five weeks, had never seen the country; awards published 17 August 1947, two days after independence and partition took legal effect on 15 August 1947.
- William Hague, Foreign Secretary, HC Deb 6 June 2013, col 1692: "The British Government sincerely regret that these abuses took place and that they marred Kenya's progress towards independence." Settlement in respect of 5,228 Kenyan claimants, £19.9 million total including costs; no admission of ongoing legal liability; no precedent for other colonial claims.
- Anthony Cary, "The Migrated Archives: What Went Wrong and What Lessons Should We Draw?", 24 February 2011: the Colonial Office guidance telegram of 3 May 1961 (embarrassment to HMG, its police, military or informers; compromise of intelligence sources; unethical use, as criteria); "a great many documents were destroyed on this basis"; migrated archives around 8,800 files; Kenyan archive 294 boxes of some 1,500 files sent back in 1963; "apart from some highly classified files that were subsequently destroyed or lost".
- David Lidington, Written Ministerial Statement, 30 November 2012: "some evidence that the Singapore top secret colonial administration files were destroyed as part of a review of FCO post files in the 1990s"; FCO "still unable to confirm the existence or destruction of 170 boxes of top secret colonial administration files".
- The name "Operation Legacy": academic work by historians, including David Anderson and Tony Badger; the Cary report describes the conduct but does not use the name.
- Chagos: British Indian Ocean Territory Order, 8 November 1965; Lancaster House agreement, September 1965 (detachment accepted in exchange for independence and £3 million); removal of the entire population, between 1,500 and 2,000 people, 1968 to 1973, to clear Diego Garcia for a US base; ICJ 2019 finding that the decolonisation of Mauritius had not been lawfully completed; May 2025 UK-Mauritius agreement (sovereignty ceded, Diego Garcia retained on long lease) treated as an unresolved coda; House of Lords amendment to the implementing bill requiring a referendum of the Chagossians before ratification (see verification notes).
- Internal cross-references: the 40 per cent rule of 1979, set in advance in January 1978 (Chapter 7); the withheld Scottish election file, held under Freedom of Information exemptions for national security and international relations, appealable to the Information Commissioner (Chapter 1); the McCrone paper, marked SECRET and kept for thirty years, and North Sea oil revenues flowing south (the oil chapter); devolution offered as the alternative to independence (the chapter on the Vow and the Smith Commission).
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