The clip, posted on Monday, has so far been viewed more than 270,000 times on Twitter.

Morrow said: “If you are frank about the historical record guys, decolonization was a bigger disaster [than British imperialism] for so many countries around the world.

“It led to so much more bloodshed, violence, all sorts of chaos that the empire itself didn’t cause.”

Dean then interjected that he was frustrated that people focus too much on the negative side of colonialism and the British Empire.

“It drives me nuts that we educate people that the empire was bad,” Dean said. “I am all for it, let’s start a new movement. Bring back the British Empire, bring it back.

“If you look at countries like Zimbabwe, if you look at countries in Africa like Uganda where they decolonized as James says, disastrous results.

“If you look at countries like India and Pakistan which have struggled since the colonial era.”

He continued: “It is fine to say that there were bad things that happened, of course there were bad things that happened.

“But look at the rule of law, the establishment of infrastructure and look at the opposite that has happened since the British Empire withdrew.”

Morrow then began to compare the British Empire to the empires of other European powers and said Britain’s was better.

“The British Empire was a great engine of civilization,” he said.

“If you look at other empires, the French, the Belgian, my God, the Spanish, no other European power created so many successful successor states to the empire.”

The footage was posted by the Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission Twitter page, an organization dedicated to ending media empire owner Rupert Murdoch’s, monopoly in the media, according to the page’s Twitter bio. Murdoch owns Sky News.

“This is vile: Murdoch’s commentators are calling for a return to British colonialism,” the caption read.

“They’re pushing to ‘bring back the British Empire’ saying countries like India would be better off under European rule.”

Both Morrow and Dean faced criticism for their comments on social media.

Some accused the pair of “mis-remembering” the history of colonialism, while others argued the pair were contributing to the idea of superiority through a European lens.

Newsweek has contacted Sky News Australia for comment.