A Failed New Deal in Cyprus: From Constitution to Repression, 1946–1949

Abstract

In 1946, prompted by AKEL’s rising popularity and what was believed to be the increasingly aggressive neo-colonialism of the Soviet Union, British policy-makers reformed their colonial rule in Cyprus. As in Hong Kong, the British introduced a number of reforms to improve British colonialism’s ideological and moral image against rival and seemingly more progressive imperialisms in the Cold War. In Cyprus, this ‘new deal’ was intended to undermine AKEL’s domestic political platform and to reinforce the government’s assumed rural support. The new secretary of state for the colonies, Arthur Creech Jones, announced ‘a more liberal and progressive regime’ in Cyprus, including the invitation to form a consultative assembly to consider constitutional reform and the re-establishment of a central legislature.¹ The assembly, however, was a political disaster, as the Greek-Cypriot nationalists refused to join and the communist members drove the agenda into the non-starter of self-government. AKEL and the nationalists responded with increasing violence, while Akelists travelling behind the Iron Curtain and rumours, for example, of an imminent Cominform-supported uprising, greatly alarmed the governor and Whitehall.