When I first entered the Foreign Office as a Labour special adviser after the 2024 general election, I remember a particular moment with retrospective embarrassment. I had seen the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled for that autumn and imagined it would be a wonderful moment for Labour on the world stage.
In fact, I was suffering from one of the commonest ailments in British foreign policy circles. I was projecting onto the Commonwealth a vision of world affairs rather than looking at the actual summit and organisation itself. And this is common across the political spectrum.
If the pro-Brexit right project a dream of Britain working beyond the EU, regaining something like post-imperial influence through the Commonwealth, I was dreaming of a forum without the United States, where the UK could pursue climate and investment goals unhindered.
The reality I found at the CHOGM 2024 summit in Samoa dashed any remaining illusions I may have had about the Commonwealth as an institution. It is time to admit that the association actively undermines post-imperial comity – its founding purpose.