Al Jazeera: Britain Should Apologise and Pay Reparations for Slavery

According to an article in Al Jazeera, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham is said to be ready to listen to calls for an official apology for Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade and slavery. The author calls this an encouraging first signal but stresses that only a full and formal apology can begin the process of healing the wounds inflicted by colonialism and slavery.

The article notes that the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) has long sought dialogue on apology and reparations without success. Previous requests have drawn only expressions of deep regret, rather than an apology or a commitment to make one.

The author recalls 2015, when then-prime minister David Cameron rejected calls for slavery reparations and instead announced a £25 million UK-funded project to build a new prison in Jamaica, intended to facilitate the deportation of Jamaican nationals serving long sentences in British prisons. The proposal proved highly controversial.

According to the article, the prime minister's signal on an apology may come ahead of King Charles III's address to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Antigua, amid civil society protests and growing demands for apology and reparations.

The author explains why a formal apology matters to the reparations process. Under CARICOM's Ten-Point Plan for Reparatory Justice, an apology is an official gesture of goodwill that helps improve relations between European and Caribbean nations, acknowledges a shared history and connection, and points toward justice and mutual respect.

The article states that an apology must be accompanied by acceptance of responsibility for the crimes, a commitment to non-repetition and compensation for victims and their descendants. It is also a moral and legal acknowledgement that present-day inequalities and racial injustices are rooted in that history.

However, the author stresses that an apology must be followed by meaningful reparative action and cannot be reduced to a proposal to improve debt repayment terms, as Burnham has previously suggested. The article cites Sir Arthur Lewis, regarded as the godfather of the modern Caribbean reparations movement, who wrote in a 1939 book that Britain bore responsibility for the presence of most of the islands' inhabitants, and that more than 200 years of unpaid labour was "a debt that must be paid — one the British have not yet paid".

According to the author, Britain has neither acknowledged nor tried to repay this "black debt", even denying responsibility for reparations despite quantitative and qualitative evidence of the benefits it drew from slavery. The article also mentions the Ten-Point Plan, a Ghanaian resolution at the United Nations expected in March 2026 and UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination General Recommendation No. 40, which holds that the transatlantic slave trade and slavery created an unprecedented system of racial violence and governance that laid the foundation for modern global structures of power, economics and racial and gender hierarchy.

The author calls for a dialogue on substantive reparations, including debt cancellation grounded in the reality of lingering colonial legacies, and argues for proper recognition of the role of enslaved people and Black revolutionaries in the struggle to abolish slavery, rather than crediting Britain alone. The article asserts that former colonies and Africans believe the crimes have not faded and must be addressed until justice is achieved.

In closing, the author rejects the view that a country that profited from slavery bears no responsibility, and calls for both debt cancellation and monetary reparations. The article concludes that the time has come for Britain to apologise and pay its debt.

The views in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.