Field Marshall Francis Grenfell served in the British Army for almost fifty years. In that time, his service took him across Africa, where he led troops to fight native populations in the countries Britain had colonised. Grenfell led British soldiers armed with machine guns against Zulu forces armed with spears and a few muskets in South Africa in the 1870s, and helped Britain invade and conquer Egypt in 1882, eventually becoming commander of the Egyptian army after they were defeated.

He died in 1925, aged 83, and—considered a war hero—his memory was preserved by the naming of several streets around the UK in his honour. These included Tooting, Leicester, Maidenhead, and a small back road in North Kensington, West London. In the second half of the twentieth century, this street would become part of a new housing estate, and one of the towers built on the estate would take its name: Grenfell Tower.

As the tower which took Field Marshall Grenfell’s name was being completed in 1974, the empire he had helped build was in the final stages of its collapse. The countries where he had served, fought, and killed to enforce British control were finally freeing themselves of their colonisers and becoming independent nations.

Many did not merely want political independence from Britain, but economic independence from the institutions and corporations which extracted their resources and sold them at a profit. They began to pass laws and attempt to nationalise their economies to ensure the companies which had robbed their nations for centuries would no longer do so now they were free.

This led to a global clash of economic interests: between those from the newly independent states who wanted great state control of businesses, and those from the former colonial masters who wanted to ensure these new governments could not disrupt the flow of goods and profits along the old imperial lines.

In the 1980s, with Margaret Thatcher taking power in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US, this clash was decisively won by the old guard. The new global economy was deregulated, and a new philosophy took control: states should not interfere in the market; they must remove regulation and allow business to thrive.

This philosophy was imposed on any reluctant leaders of newly independent states through the lever of debt. Huge loans were handed out badged as a means to help build new nations, but they came with terms attached which demanded a small state, privatised industry, and a deregulated economy.

Such was the belief in this new economic model that Thatcher and her allies also ensured it was imposed in the UK. Sweeping acts of privatisation and deregulation transformed this country’s economy, and buried in the long list of changes was a small footnote: when the construction sector was deregulated in 1984, a longstanding restriction was lifted preventing the use of combustible materials on the walls of tall buildings.

Three decades later, the deregulated construction sector had become so unrestrained that it was routinely using cladding products made of a plastic which burned with the same ferocity as petrol for the walls of tall buildings. One of more than 450 around the UK to be fitted with such panels was Grenfell Tower.

The tower provided social housing to the community in West London that could not afford the soaring property prices in the area. It became known locally, and pejoratively, as ‘The Morrocan Tower’, due to the large number of North African families who were housed there. According to the area’s former Labour MP, local councillors referred to it as ‘little Africa’ and said it was ‘full of people from the tropics’.

But why had so many people from around the world arrived in the UK and found themselves consigned to lower paid jobs which required reliance on social housing? Part of the answer is, of course, the British Empire.

People born in Morocco, India, Egypt, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, and dozens of other places around the world were subjects of the British crown for centuries. Many were actively encouraged to travel to the UK after World War II to help rebuild a country torn apart by the cost of the conflict. Many more chose to make the trip even after the British government’s attitude to immigration from what it called ‘the Commonwealth’ hardened.

Doing so was the result of nothing more than basic economic incentives: wealth, resources, and opportunity were funneled from the countries Britain had invaded back to the shores of the UK. It should not have been a surprise that humans would follow.

And so, on 14 June 2017, Grenfell Tower—a building named after a former colonial leader—was covered in combustible plastic and filled with a community who traced their family or personal history back to countries conquered by Britain in the two centuries before. Race has repeatedly been described by lawyers acting for bereaved families at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry as ‘the elephant in the room’. This is true—but it is also empire.

In an emotive speech on racism in July 2021, Professor Leslie Thomas KC outlined the disproportionate number of Black and minority ethnic people killed in the blaze. He explained that of the 68 Grenfell residents killed (four of the victims were visitors), only 11 were white (a mix of British, Irish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian victims).

The remaining 57 were either born in or descendants of people born in countries from the Global South. Of these, the vast majority were former British colonies. In fact, six of the victims were either Egyptian or of Egyptian descent, meaning they died in a tower bearing the name of the British army commander who had led a force which had invaded and then controlled and plundered their ancestors’ home.

I outline these facts to illustrate the point that if you turn over the stones of many stories about Britain today it is not long before you find the legacy of our imperial history. Any understanding which ignores, downplays, or is simply ignorant of these forces will never be complete.

This matters, because we are currently in the thick of a national conversation about the death of a monarch whose life and reign encompassed many key periods of this history. At a time when people, for a range of reasons, feel a genuine sense of loss at her death, there is pressure to adopt a rose-tinted view of her life and her role. But to acknowledge imperial history and its ongoing legacy is not to be disrespectful—it is merely to tell the truth.

Failing to do so would leave us with an incomplete picture of not just our past, but our present: from deadly tower block fires in London to the demise of industrial towns in the North, the empire continues to throw its long shadow at home and abroad. Perhaps more importantly, it would also leave us ill-equipped to build a future free of these kinds of catastrophes—one in which dignified, safe, and secure housing for all can and must play a crucial part.