PAPrime Minister Andy Burnham says he is “open” to the possibility of the UK formally apologising for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, but has ruled out financial reparations.
He said he wanted a “dialogue with those affected” and was open to “calls for an apology”, but said reparations were “not the right answer”.
The statement was welcomed by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Afrikan Reparations, with its chair Bell Ribeiro-Adday telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the issue was not just about money.
It comes ahead of next week’s Commonwealth leaders summit in the Caribbean. As King Charles III tours the region, there have been renewed calls for an apology.
On Saturday, Burnham described the transatlantic slave trade, when Africans were trafficked to the Americas, as a “brutal and barbaric violation” and said Britain must “face up to the past”.
The British government has never formally apologised for slavery or offered to pay reparations. Burnham has stuck with the policy of his predecessors, and has stopped short of offering any consideration of reparation payments.
“I do not think that British people today can be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, that happened in a different age under different laws and in which they played no personal part,” Burnham wrote in a piece for the Guardian.
He said Commonwealth countries had for years been asking for an “honest conversation”.
He said he wanted to offer a “structured dialogue”, adding: “Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process. I am open to them.”
A government source told the BBC this was “morally the right thing to do”.
But APPG for Afrikan Reparations Ribeiro-Addy said while the government’s acceptance of the role it played was welcomed, it had “still fallen short of a formal state apology and that actually costs nothing”.
“Acknowledgment is not the same as understanding,” she told Today, adding: “Until we apologise, we are never going to be on equal footing… it’s meant to be a family of nations – a Commonwealth – and it’s simply not the case.”
The MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill said that, to her knowledge, an invoice for financial reparations has not been given to the UK, and so discussing “reparative justice” on those ends, was missing the point.
“My worry is the focus on financial reparations, and I think that is deeply problematic and has not quite listened to what people have said,” Ribeiro-Addy said.
Downing Street believes it is in the UK’s interest to strengthen the Commonwealth, in a world where China and Russia are seeking to exert influence.
Only this week, President Vladimir Putin hosted a Russia-Africa summit in Moscow.
Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley, who has sought reparations, welcomed Burnham’s statement, saying she would engage in good faith while still seeking reparatory justice.
Denis O’Brien, founder of The Repair Campaign, said Burnham’s statement was disappointing and did not go far enough.
“The British Government must stop obfuscating and give a full and formal apology now,” he said.
“This would be a significant and symbolic first step towards reparatory justice.”
From the 16th Century, English authorities and the monarchy were prominent participants in the centuries-long slave trade.
Britain had a key role in ending the trade, through Parliament’s passage of a law to abolish slavery in 1833.
As part of that law, British plantation owners were paid for the loss of people they had enslaved.
The UK only finished paying off the debt it incurred to cover the payments in 2015.
