Nigel Biggar

At Scruton Veres Pálné, Budapest, Hungary

In 2017, Biggar initiated a five-year project at Oxford University, entitled "Ethics and Empire". Its stated aim was to scrutinise critiques against the historical facts of empire.[11][12] Historians and academics widely criticised the project, claiming that it was "attempting to balance out the violence committed in the name of empire with its supposed benefits".[13][14][15] The project also received criticism for failing to engage with the wider scholarship on empire and not submitting itself to peer scrutiny and rigorous academic debate.[15] Biggar addressed the ethics of colonialism in an op-ed for The Times, arguing that the history of the British Empire was morally mixed and that guilt around Britain's colonial legacy may have gone too far. He also defended an article by Bruce Gilley, titled "The Case for Colonialism", asserting that Gilley's appeal for a balanced reappraisal of the colonial past was both courageous and a call for Britain to moderate its post-imperial guilt.[16]

Colonialism. A Moral Reckoning

Biggar's 2023 book, Colonialism. A Moral Reckoning, which examines the morality of colonialism, was initially accepted by Bloomsbury, but it chose not to publish it, with the suggestion that "public feeling on the subject does not currently support the publication of the book".[17] It was eventually published by HarperCollins, in 2023.[18]

The book has received both praise and criticism. Kenan Malik of The Guardian said that while Colonialism "claims to be a 'moral reckoning', moral questions are rarely taken seriously", and "in seeking to challenge what he regards as cartoonish views of imperial history, Biggar has produced something equally cartoonish, a politicised history that ill-serves his aim of defending 'western values'."[19] Rudrangshu Mukherjee wrote in The Wire that Colonialism is an "immoral book" that ignores "the structural logic of empire" linking "the development of capitalism and prosperity in Britain with the political control, the economic exploitation and the impoverishment of the colonies," and that it fails "the most elementary test of scholarship".[20] In contrast, Trevor Phillips in The Sunday Times said that it "carries the intellectual force of a Javelin antitank missile", stating that he "find[s] it hard to disagree" with Biggar's thesis.[21] Jonathan Sumption in the Literary Review described it as "an important book as well as a courageous one", and that "in general, [Biggar's] approach is objective and he fairly addresses the contrary arguments".[22] In The Daily Telegraph, Tim Stanley considered the book "thoughtful" and "compelling", one that introduced facts, some of which he was unaware of, indicating that "much that is benign about our civilisation has been forgotten", but concluded that Biggar "is spoiling for a fight, and I fear he's going to get one".[18]

In a review for The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, historian Alan Lester criticised Biggar for misrepresentations of sources that tend towards a favourable image of colonialism, describing Biggar's argument that anti-slavery dominated British policy during the second half of the empire's existence as "absurd", and sees a "persistent double standard" in how Biggar judges British versus non-British actions that "are hard to justify morally".[23] Biggar replied in the same journal, accusing Lester of "political bias, smearing by association, the erection of strawmen, careless reading, misrepresentation, misunderstanding, unsupported assertions, a disappointing absence of open thoughtfulness, and a striking lack of critical self-awareness".[24]