How popular was the policy of Imperialism in England in the period from 1880 to 1902?

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How popular was the policy of Imperialism in England in the period from 1880 to 1902?

From the period from 1880 to 1902, Britain was beginning its transition into its ‘New formal Imperialism’, in which Britain left behind its old imperialism policy, in this form of imperialism Britain attained small amounts of territory, and its foreign policies were based mostly on economic interests as Britain tried to maintain an economic based empire in which Britain aimed to have minimal land, as these were seen as financial burdens. The new aggressive  policy incorporated into the British political system was unlike Britain and in which Britain tried to gain territorial control due to great power rivalry which was very unlike British policy . This new policy caused great fluctuation in the support of the British policy of imperialism amongst the British public. British popularity towards the policy of imperialism was very fickle and fluctuated greatly as at time the Britons greatly supported the empire but some events caused great turning points in opinion of Britons and in turn the policy of imperialism.

From the same years during the scramble for Africa the popularity of the policy of imperialism too varied, at first when General Gordon was killed by the Mahdi’s Islamist uprising, the popularity was very low however, Gordon’s death caused a great increase in jingoism and patriotism when Lord Kitchener defeated the Mahdi at the battle of Omdurman on the 2nd September 1989 and British opinion was in favour of avenging the death and taking control over the Sudan, when this was done it created great upsurge in popularity towards imperialism. This great popularity did not last long and the British public’s fickle opinion varied when in 1899 the second war unveiled the ruthless British policy in the Boer republics, when Emily Hobhouse showed the British public the truth behind the concentration camps in the Boer republics. The politicians of the time indeed had different views on imperialism and some politicians like Gladstone supported the old imperialism more and therefore did not support the imperialism of 1880-1902 as he thought it was unlike Britain to be aggressors, Joseph chamberlain on the other hand supported the new imperialism and saw it as the only answer for Britain to beat of competitions from other nations threatening Britain’s economic world dominance. The popularity of the empire in the view of the public’s was at great variance as most of the time it varied in opinion in dependence of events at a given time.

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Popularity for the empire varied between politicians and government, some political parties such as the liberal party were divided among the question of empire and some politicians tolerated empire as a commercial and strategic empire, but viewed the new empire as ruthless, for example the Gladstonian wing saw the war on the Zulus as callous. Liberals such as Gladstone also disliked the new imperialism, and his political rallies showed this when the liberals won the Midlothian Campaign in 1880, the fact that the liberals won this election shows that popularity for the new imperialism at 1880 was low. When Gladstone was ...

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