The Home Office has been accused of promoting “anti-British” history in mandatory courses for civil servants on the British Empire, GB News can reveal.
Home Office resources on the history of the British Empire feature sections on how Britain benefited from the slave trade, however, they do not discuss Britain’s role in ending the slave trade.
A Home Office course, which is mandatory for some officials, is aimed to help civil servants “enhance [their] knowledge about Britain’s migration and colonial history”.
The course claims that “Britain benefited in many different ways from the colonisation and the slave trade” while “the colonised countries were deprived of the benefit that their own resources could bring”.
“This is Home Office propaganda, not history,” Rafe Heydel-Mankoo, a historian and commentator, told GB News.
“It is riddled with inaccuracies, misconceptions, and promotes Left-wing, anti-British views.”
An image from the Home Office course on the British Empire for civil servants
“It’s endless description of the slave trade does not include one line on the fact the British ended the slave trade.”
“Despite preaching “critical thinking”, no opposing views are presented to concepts such as decolonisation and even the idea that immigration was a good thing in the first place.”
The history lesson also discusses the controversial concept of “decolonising” history, a movement that promotes narratives that are critical of the British Empire.
It cites moves by some museums and universities, including the British Museum, to address “colonial legacies”, for example by giving money to former colonies such as Barbados.
The resource states: “The Rhodes statue at Oriel College at Oxford University has been the subject of much debate on the legacies of historical figures connected to the British Empire and the slave trade and the way in which they connect the past with the present.”
“Also at Oxford University All Souls College has a library that was funded by the slave owner Christopher Codrington, in recognition of this legacy the university has launched an annual scholarship scheme for Caribbean students and paid a grant to a college in Barbados.”
“Finally the University of Glasgow is the first university in the UK to launch a programme that addresses colonial legacies including scholarship and research funding for Caribbean institutions and for research on racism and slavery.”
Home Office Permanent Secretary Matthew Rycroft Home OfficeHowever, the resource has drawn criticism for not recognising opposing views on decolonisation.
Robert Bates, founder and Research Director of the Centre for Migration Control, said: “This is nothing short of a state-sanctioned rewriting of history through a pro-migration, Leftist lens.”
“The Home Office is clearly desperate to push the fallacy that HMT Windrush was invited to Britain, and was central to our nation’s rebuild after the war.”
“This is poppycock and the sort of dirge you would expect from an ideologically possessed blue-haired undergraduate, not those that are in charge of our country’s borders.”
The document claims that Britain required labour from abroad to fill shortages after the Second World War.
It is claimed that the government hoped “that this would not only remedy the post-war labour shortages but stabilise the Commonwealth and convey an image of a liberal, progressive Betain to the world”.
A section on post-war attitudes to migration states: “Even though the majority of the population at the time had said they were relaxed about the immigration of non-white people to Britain, Black people were increasingly treated badly.”
Mr Bates continued: “To suggest the British public were overwhelmingly in favour of the post-war migration flows is to disregard the evidence in pursuit of sheer dogma.”
“Opinion polls at the time, and indeed now, show that the British public were vehemently against migration.”
“It is bad enough that the Home Office has spent the last twenty years denigrating our borders, but the fact it is now perpetuating falsehoods about Britain’s history shows us exactly the kind of people that we are dealing with.”
“Matthew Rycroft’s Home Office is clearly run by people who hate Britain.”
“I would urge all those currently employed in the Home Office to actually pick up a history book, rather than engage with the fiction being pushed internally by their department.”
The Home Office lesson defines racism as “a system of unfair treatment based on the belief that some racial or ethnic groups are better than others”.
The definition differs from the Oxford dictionary which defines racism as: “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior”.
Connor Tomlinson, a commentator from the Lotus Eaters website, said: “Yet again, the Home Office wastes time and taxpayer funds on gaslighting the British public.”
“The purpose of both rewriting retroactive diversity into British history, and burdening Brits with unique historical guilt for racism, slavery, and imperialism, is to deprive the population of a say in how their homeland is governed.”
“This gives the government and civil service a moral justification for unprecedented levels of demographic and cultural change caused by mass immigration.”
He continued: “If this ideological fiction is all the Home Office is capable of producing, it’s no wonder our country is in such a bad state.”
The Home Office declined to comment.