Why Jameela Jamil is Wrong to Say the British are “The Most Evil People in History”

The actress Jameela Jamil recently declared on a podcast that the British were “the most evil people in history”. It’s the kind of sweeping moral condemnation that has become fashionable in an era increasingly inclined to judge the past through the moral sensibilities of the present. Such statements generate applause on social media, but they contribute little to historical understanding. They reduce centuries of complex political, economic and social developments into a simplistic morality play in which Britain occupies the role of permanent villain. History deserves a higher standard than slogans. If the British Empire is to be judged, it should be judged in its entirety rather than through an inventory of its failures alone.

Empire was never a uniquely British phenomenon. Long before Britain emerged as a global power, empires had been built on every inhabited continent. The Romans conquered much of Europe through military force. The Mongols established the largest contiguous empire in history through devastating campaigns of conquest, and between them Genghis Khan and Tamerlane killed approximately 15% of the world’s population. This figure does not represent the entire death toll of the Mongol conquests, as it excludes the casualties from other Mongol campaigns. By comparison, approximately 2.5% of the world’s population died during World War II

Likewise, the Ottoman Empire ruled diverse populations for centuries through military expansion. Arab empires spread across North Africa, the Middle East and parts of Europe through warfare and political domination. Across Africa, powerful kingdoms such as Oyo, Dahomey, Asante, Benin and Nupe expanded through conquest, extracted tribute, enslaved conquered peoples and fought prolonged wars against neighbouring states. The Aztec Empire demanded tribute from subject peoples while institutionalising large-scale human sacrifice. Yet contemporary public discourse rarely demands that these civilisations bear perpetual collective guilt for their imperial histories. Britain alone is routinely portrayed as uniquely evil, despite the fact that it also became one of history’s foremost opponents of one of humanity’s greatest crimes.

One of the greatest omissions in many discussions of the British Empire is the extraordinary campaign Britain undertook to suppress the Atlantic slave trade. Parliament abolished Britain’s participation in the trade in 1807, but abolition was only the beginning. The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron to patrol thousands of miles of coastline in an effort to intercept slave vessels operating under numerous national flags. British diplomats simultaneously negotiated treaties with foreign governments that prohibited the slave trade while granting Britain the right to search suspected slave ships to enforce those agreements. Between 1808 and 1860 the squadron captured approximately 1,600 slave ships and liberated around 150,000 Africans, making it one of the largest sustained humanitarian maritime operations of the 19th century.

The campaign against the slave trade was not simply a European enterprise imposed upon Africa. African sailors themselves became an essential part of Britain’s suppression efforts. The Royal Navy employed Kroomen, Liberated Africans, Africans and black sailors from across the Atlantic world. These men carried out dangerous duties, served aboard anti-slavery vessels and helped sustain naval operations in one of the world’s deadliest disease environments. In the ships examined by historians, African and diasporan personnel accounted for approximately one fifth of naval crews. Britain’s anti-slavery campaign therefore represented cooperation between British institutions and thousands of Africans who actively participated in suppressing the slave trade rather than remaining passive recipients of European action.

Britain’s anti-slavery efforts also extended onto African soil. In Old Calabar, British officials concluded treaties with local rulers that prohibited participation in the slave trade while seeking to eliminate practices that even contemporary African reformers regarded as deeply inhumane. The agreements abolished human sacrifice, prohibited the killing of twins and their mothers and authorised British intervention should slave trading resume. These were not merely symbolic declarations. They established legal obligations backed by the possibility of British enforcement, demonstrating that suppression involved both diplomacy and coercive action when necessary.

The history of colonial rule in Africa is likewise more nuanced than the familiar narrative of unilateral European conquest. Some African societies resisted British expansion with extraordinary determination. Sultan Abdu of the Sokoto Caliphate categorically rejected British authority, informing Frederick Lugard that his people neither desired British administration nor required British assistance. He resisted British encroachment until his death, showing that British expansion often encountered determined military and political opposition.

Yet other African rulers reached very different conclusions. The kings and chiefs of Old Calabar repeatedly petitioned Britain for protection over several decades. They feared French expansion, hoped to strengthen commerce, sought assistance in resolving political instability and believed that closer relations with Britain would safeguard their autonomy against rival powers. Britain initially rejected several of these requests, demonstrating that annexation was not always London’s preferred course of action. It was only after repeated appeals, changing strategic circumstances and increasing competition with France and Germany that Britain eventually established a protectorate. This history complicates the simplistic image of Europeans imposing colonial rule upon wholly unwilling populations. African leaders exercised political agency, pursuing strategies that they believed would best protect their own societies in an increasingly competitive international environment.

Similar complexities existed elsewhere in West Africa. The defeat of Nupe power by the Royal Niger Company in 1897 brought an end to decades of slave-raiding expeditions and tributary domination imposed upon surrounding communities. For many subordinate peoples who had endured repeated raids and exploitation, the destruction of Nupe power represented liberation from an existing African imperial order.

Nor should Britain’s record in Asia be reduced solely to economic exploitation. Colonial India’s railway network became one of the largest transportation systems ever constructed. Modern economic research demonstrates that these railways fundamentally transformed India’s vulnerability to famine. By integrating regional markets, reducing transportation costs and allowing food to move rapidly from surplus regions to areas suffering crop failure, railways substantially reduced the impact of rainfall shocks upon local populations. Prices became less volatile, local economies became more resilient and mortality rates became dramatically less responsive to drought conditions. The evidence suggests that transportation infrastructure significantly reduced the likelihood that crop failures escalated into devastating famines

Those who describe Britain as uniquely evil rarely ask a more difficult question. How many lives were preserved because Britain suppressed the Atlantic slave trade? How many Africans escaped enslavement because Royal Navy patrols intercepted slave ships? How many communities benefited from the ending of human sacrifice and the suppression of slave-raiding states? How many Indians survived drought because railways integrated food markets and reduced the severity of famine? These questions cannot honestly be excluded from any balanced assessment.

The British Empire was neither a force of pure benevolence nor one of unrelenting evil. Like every great empire, it exercised power, sometimes harshly and sometimes constructively. It conquered territories, but it also abolished the slave trade, invested enormous resources in its suppression, built institutions and infrastructure, and occasionally intervened against systems of oppression that predated European rule. A mature understanding of history demands that these contradictory realities be held together rather than separated for ideological convenience.

History is rarely flattering to great powers because great powers possess the capacity both to inflict suffering and to accomplish extraordinary achievements. Britain’s imperial history is no exception. To portray it as uniquely evil is not merely an exaggeration; it is a distortion that ignores evidence, agency and historical context. The past deserves better than moral absolutism. It deserves proportion, complexity and intellectual honesty.

Lipton Matthews is a researcher and podcaster. He has worked in the heritage, cultural and sales sectors. His work has been featured in CapX, the Critic, the Federalist, Epoch Times and other publications. He is the author of the book Busting African Delusions.