Wind of Change (speech) - Consequences

Consequences

Besides restating the policy of decolonisation, the speech marked political shifts that were to occur within the next year or so, in the Union of South Africa and the United Kingdom. The formation of the Republic of South Africa in 1961 and the country's departure from the Commonwealth of Nations were the result of a number of factors, but the change in the UK's attitude to African self-government is usually considered to have been significant.

There was an extended backlash against the speech from the right of the Conservative Party, which wished Britain to retain its imperial possessions. The speech led directly to the formation of the Conservative Monday Club pressure group.

The speech is also popularly known as the "winds of change" speech. Macmillan himself, in titling the first volume of his memoirs Winds of Change (1966), misquoted the original text.

The Portuguese Colonial War started in 1961 in Angola, and extended to other Portuguese overseas territories at the time, namely Portuguese Guinea in 1963 and Mozambique in 1964. By refusing to grant independence to its overseas territories in Africa, the Portuguese ruling regime of Estado Novo was criticized by most of the international community, and its leaders Salazar and Caetano were accused of being blind to the so-called "Winds of change". After the Carnation revolution in 1974 and the fall of the incumbent Portuguese authoritarian regime, almost all the Portugal-ruled territories outside Europe became independent. Several historians have described the stubbornness of the regime as a lack of sensibility to the "Winds of change". For the regime those overseas possessions were a matter of national interest.