As a person of colour, this is why I want to put an end to the outdated and offensive British honours system

Like many people, I’m deeply confused by the British honours system. Every year when the list comes out I have the same questions: What’s the difference between a CBE and an OBE? Can a woman be knighted? What do you have to do to receive an honour? And, most crucially, why do the titles still refer to the British empire?

Several celebrities have refused their honours; in some cases, because they find the whole system as confusing as I do. When David Bowie spoke about turning down his OBE back in 2000, he explained: “I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. I seriously don’t know what it’s for.”

Ken Loach, the filmmaker responsible for exploring social issues in seminal releases like I, Daniel Blake, had a more concrete reason for not wanting such recognition. He told the Radio Times in 2001: “I turned down the OBE because it’s not a club you want to join when you look at the villains who’ve got it.”

Loach makes a good point. After all, a system which once honoured the likes of Jimmy Savile and Philip Green is a system that should be treated with appropriate distrust. For some people, turning down an OBE is both personal and political. In 2003, Benjamin Zephaniah explained his reaction to being included in a new year honours list: “I get angry when I hear that word ‘empire’. It reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised.”

Howard Gayle, Liverpool FC’s first black footballer, voiced a similar concern when he declined an MBE in 2016. He said that his “ancestors would be turning in their graves after how empire and colonialism had enslaved them”.

BAME people in the UK have known for decades that the British honours system is problematic, outdated and, ultimately, a shameful relic of our country’s colonial history. While there has apparently been a conscious effort to improve BAME representation among the honoured (this year the proportion of non-white people on the list rose to 12 per cent), the imperial resonances of the titles ensure that BAME people cannot enjoy their recognition in a straightforward way.

Instead, recipients whose ancestors came from the colonies have to face the uncomfortable decision of either refusing an honour that they may be hankering after, and accepting an honour which obliquely validates their own and their family’s oppression.

We should find a way of recognising achievement on a national scale that doesn’t leave people of colour feeling conflicted, insulted, or troublingly complicit in a system built upon racial inequality.

In this country, BAME people are constantly being forced to choose between self-interest and political integrity, which can be an exhausting and debilitating process. The colonial ties and residual racism in Britain mean that so many institutions and practices feel tainted. But, understandably, the desire to assimilate and progress often remains strong.

We should not be celebrating the British empire; but the honours system does just that. Our government claims to want closer ties with the Commonwealth post-Brexit, but our continued reverence for Britain’s imperialistic “heyday” will surely sour these alliances. It is within Britain’s own interest to acknowledge, confront and atone for the atrocious, colonialist crimes of our past.

The word “empire” should be a dirty one; an uncomfortable reminder of Britain’s political history and continued racial inequality. We should feel shame, not pride, when we hear it uttered – a distinction which could be incorporated into a new, reformed honours system. Currently, empire is implicitly valourised with every MBE, OBE and CBE that is bestowed.