When Jameela Jamil criticised Britain’s colonial legacy during a recent podcast appearance, the reaction was swift and predictable. Her remarks touched two nerves at once: the political legacy of Brexit and the unresolved question of Britain’s responsibility for the devastation inflicted on colonised nations, particularly the Indian subcontinent.
Jamil argued that Brexit helped create the political atmosphere that empowered Donald Trump’s rise in the United States. She also condemned Britain’s imperial record, pointing to estimates by scholars who argue that Britain extracted enormous wealth from India over nearly two centuries of colonial rule. One widely cited figure places the value of that extraction at around £43 trillion.
For defenders of empire, this was unacceptable. Rather than seriously engage with the historical arguments, several right-wing commentators moved quickly to discredit Jamil herself.
One response focused less on colonialism and more on attacking Jamil personally. Instead of answering the core questions — What did Britain take? What did empire destroy? What is owed to the descendants of those who suffered? — the criticism leaned on ridicule and character judgment. This is a familiar tactic: when the facts of empire are too uncomfortable, attack the person raising them.
Another response attempted to dismiss the reparations argument by selectively citing voices that downplay Britain’s economic exploitation of India. But this ignores the broader historical record: colonial policies contributed to repeated famines, mass poverty, economic deindustrialisation, and deep social divisions. Britain did not simply “govern” India; it extracted from it, reshaped it, and left behind wounds that remain politically and economically visible today.
Defenders of empire often claim that Britain gave India railways, institutions, education, or democracy. Yet these arguments rarely mention that colonial infrastructure was designed primarily to serve imperial interests, not the liberation of the colonised. They also ignore the fact that, by the time Britain left India in 1947, literacy remained shockingly low and the subcontinent had been partitioned amid catastrophic violence.
A third line of attack framed Jamil as an out-of-touch celebrity promoting “elite guilt.” This argument tries to present anti-colonial critique as something imposed on ordinary British people by privileged liberals. But the reality is very different. Empire enriched Britain as a state and economic system, while colonised peoples paid the heaviest price. To discuss that history is not an attack on ordinary workers; it is an attempt to confront the structures that benefited from global exploitation.
Some commentators even invoked George Orwell to criticise anti-imperial sentiment. Yet Orwell himself described empire in deeply critical terms and recognised that Britain’s standard of living was connected to the suffering of colonised peoples. Selectively quoting Orwell while ignoring his condemnation of imperialism only exposes the weakness of the argument.
The uproar over Jamil’s comments reveals a larger problem: Britain still struggles to speak honestly about empire. Its colonial past is often softened into nostalgia, presented as a story of order, development, and civilisational mission. But for much of the world, the British Empire meant occupation, famine, theft, racial hierarchy, and political manipulation.
Whether one agrees with every word Jamil said is not the central issue. The real question is why even raising the subject of reparations and colonial plunder provokes such fury. If Britain’s imperial record were as benevolent as its defenders claim, they would not need to rely on mockery, deflection, or personal attacks.
Jamil’s comments forced a conversation that many would rather avoid. And the reaction to her proved her point: the empire may be gone, but its defenders remain determined to protect its mythology.
Reference: Al-Mayadeen