Conclusion

THE CHANGE IN British policy after the devaluation of 1967 was much more profound than after Suez. By withdrawing from the Persian Gulf and Singapore, cutting back on aircraft carriers and abandoning the F-111 fighter-bomber, Britain was abandoning all pretensions to being a world power. The Six Day War demonstrates what a sudden transformation this was as Professor Kennedy points out. During that crisis, Wilson and George Brown ‘were still keen to have British aircraft carriers alongside their American counterparts in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, as if nothing had changed since the days of Disraeli’.1 For that reason 1967 marks the end of an era in Anglo-Egyptian relations. A long-term strategy of opposing Nasser came to an end with this shift in policy. Reviewing British policy from 1955 to 1967, there was a remarkable degree of continuity in policy and considerable delusions of grandeur shared by all British governments, Conservative or Labour. However, throughout the story there is a remarkable feeling that British policy-makers knew they were pursuing the wrong policy. Senior ministers from Bevin to George Brown and many senior civil servants all were aware that, by aligning Britain with the conservative forces in the Middle East, they were following an unsustainable even distasteful policy. For instance supporting the repulsive royalists in Yemen involved a considerable amount of holding of noses in Whitehall. However, coming to terms with Arab nationalism, which meant coming to terms with Nasser, proved to be beyond British diplomats and statesmen. In the end the protection of British interests in the Middle East revolved around opposing Nasser. Just as the lessons of the past were of great importance to Nasser, in the case of British statesmen the idea that Nasser was the Arab Hitler seems to have clouded judgements far too much.