Championing imperialism and ramping up antisemitism: the Tories at the turn of the century (1880–1914)

This chapter focuses on how the Long Depression of 1873–1893 provides a backdrop to the challenge to Britain’s industrial and imperial hegemony and was a contributory factor in the ‘scramble for Africa’. The second Boer War of 1899–1902 witnessed the inhuman treatment of racialized ‘White-skinned’ Boers, alongside similar but routine treatment of Black people during the days of the British Empire. The chapter considers how social imperialism was the way in which the ruling class provided a mass base for its imperialist ‘adventures’. With specific respect to party political use of the language of imperialism, it explores the consensus from historians that the Tories were the Imperial Party of the 1880s and 1890s and how political speeches revealed the connections between nation, racism and imperialism. While the championing of imperialism dominated the 1880–1910 period, so did anti-Semitism.