The Churchill Factor, 1951–4

Abstract

Two months after the Nairobi Conference in August 1951, the Conservatives defeated Britain’s Labour government at the polls and Churchill, though aged seventy-seven and in declining health, returned to power. Despite his youthful experiences as a war correspondent in South Africa during the Boer war and his great personal friendship with Smuts,¹ Churchill had provided little public evidence of close interest in developments in the country after the National Party’s own famous election victory in 1948. As Leader of the Opposition, he spoke only twice on South Africa in the House of Commons, once on the Seretse Khama affair² and once in tribute to Smuts following the General’s death.³ On neither occasion did he attack the new South African government. Moreover, during his second premiership he spoke only once on a substantive South African question, and that was merely to reiterate, on 13 April 1954, the British view that the High Commission Territories would not be transferred to the Union without prior consultation of the inhabitants and parliamentary discussion (though this certainly caused ripples in South Africa).⁴