Decolonization

Ireland was the last predominantly "white" part of the Empire to become self-governing, with the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, and it was one of the first parts of the Empire to break with Britain completely, with the creation of the Republic of Ireland in 1949.

In 1947 India was partitioned into a Hindu-majority state (India) and a Muslim-majority state (Pakistan), both of which became independent. Pakistan, initially made up of two parts on either side of India, was later to separate into Pakistan and Bangladesh (previously East Pakistan). Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Burma became independent in 1948. There were no more significant moves towards independence for almost a decade, when Malaya and Ghana became independent in 1957 and Singapore in 1959. In the intervening years, the Suez Crisis of 1956 had demonstrated that Britain could no longer function as an independent imperial power.

In the 1960s there was a total withdrawal from Empire in Africa, a policy exemplified by Harold Macmillan's "Winds of Change" speech. At much the same time, the most viable territories of the West Indies were also granted independence: Jamaica (1962), Trinidad and Tobago (1962), Barbados (1966), Guiana (1966), the Bahamas (1973).

British withdrawal from Kenya (1963) and from Yemen (1967) were particularly bloody and traumatic (although nothing like as bad as the French withdrawal from Algeria or the Belgian withdrawal from Congo). Also problematic was the continued maintenance of minority White rule in Southern Africa after the end of British control (see here).

The most recent major withdrawal, and presumably the last for some time, is the handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China in 1997.

There are still a number of British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the South Atlantic (most significantly the Falkland Islands), the Indian Ocean, and the Mediterranean (Gibraltar, and an exterritorial military base on Cyprus).