Oxford Professor Nigel Biggar is the latest target of an attack from the identity politics-driven left, being set upon by campaign groups for failing to adhere to the notion of post-colonial guilt.

Prof. Biggar penned an article in the Times on November 30th entitled “Don’t feel guilty about our colonial history”, where he used historical facts to lay out the case against unrestrained guilt complexes often encouraged by social democrats and the political left.

Hardly uncritical of the mistakes of the British Empire, Prof. Biggar wrote:

Political order might seem like a very unexciting value, but without it nothing good can flourish. That’s why indigenous peoples sometimes chose to move into territories governed by colonial regimes, rather than away from them. Thus millions of Chinese took refuge in British Hong Kong during the early years of communist rule in Beijing, and especially the anarchy of the Cultural Revolution. What gave colonial rule popular legitimacy was not democratic elections but its provision of the goods of security and the rule of law.

Since the article’s publication a campaign group known as “Common Ground” — made up of around 100 students funded by other student bodies — have set upon Prof. Biggar, labelling him as a “bigot” and a “racist” for refusing to capitulate to the long-standing leftist idea that the British Empire should only be remembered for its negative aspects.