Robert Jenrick has been accused of “an obnoxious distortion of history” after saying former British colonies should be grateful for the legacy of empire.
The Conservative Party leadership hopeful said Commonwealth nations owe Britain a “debt of gratitude” for the democratic institutions they inherited after gaining independence from the UK.
Writing in the Daily Mail, he said: “Many of our former colonies – amid the complex realities of empire – owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them.”
Mr Jenrick, a former Home Office minister, is battling against Kemi Badenoch this weekend to head up the Tory Party.
Speaking to The Independent, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MP and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Afrikan reparations, described Mr Jenrick’s remarks as deeply offensive.
“These comments are deeply offensive and an obnoxious distortion of history,” the MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill said.
“Enslavement and colonialism were not ‘gifts’ but imposed systems that brutally exploited people, extracted wealth, and dismantled societies, all for the benefit of Britain.
“To suggest that former colonies should be ‘grateful’ for such unimaginable harm disregards the legacy of these injustices and the long-term impact they still have on many nations today.”
The MP suggested that such comments from Mr Jenrick may serve to alienate Britain from the international community and harm economic prospects.
“Following Brexit, we need to establish ourselves as a nation that everyone can do business with; we cannot afford such vile baseless commentary,” she explained.
“Whilst it might send perfectly pitched dog whistles for a Tory leadership contest, these insulting sentiments are catastrophic for international relations.
“Any wannabe leader should have the sense to understand that."
Labour councillor Zainab Asunramu suggested Mr Jenrick’s comments show that he’s unfit to be the next Conservative Party leader.
“Raping, pillaging, murdering and enslaving Black people and subjecting them to sustained, abhorrent, inhumane and degrading treatment... that is a legacy he is proud of?” she said.
“Jenrick is not fit for office, let alone to be a leader of any political party in the UK.”
Writer Ian Birrell added: “Just when you thought Jenrick couldn’t look any more desperate and ridiculous….”
Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, lawyer and activist, described Mr Jenrick as a “political illiterate”, adding: “Britain would be nothing without colonised African and Asian nations.”
Esther Stanford-Xosei earlier, a leading reparations expert, told The Independent that the Tory politician’s comments are “a classic case of the hunter seeking to glorify the hunt against African heritage communities, peoples and other colonised peoples”.
She added: “However, those of us who have been hunted have a different story to tell about what has happened to us and the continuing impact of that, in terms of the destruction of human life that we have experienced.
“The British Empire was the largest ever known empire, colonising hundreds of millions of people, and the Union flag represents its depravity and its barbarity.
“This is what Jenrick wants to legitimise and say was something that he's proud of?”
Ms Stanford-Xosei said a government commission of inquiry on truth and reparatory justice should be established to examine Britain’s colonial past and its impact on present-day communities.
“When our story is not truly told then it means that we get this distortion of reality that is violent and legitimises Britain’s conquest,” she added.
“This isn’t just about what happened to our forebears and our ancestors: it is about what is happening right now that many of us are being forced to be complicit in. These are crimes, and they must be regarded as such”.
Speaking exclusively to The Independent, David Comissiong, Barbados’ Ambassador to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), slammed Mr Jenrick’s comments in a scathing assessment, calling it an “insult” and “fraudulent notion”.
“The predominantly African people of the 15 member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are not impressed with Mr Jenrick’s fraudulent notion that crimes of the British Empire can somehow be excused because “modern western values” were not “universal 400 years ago”,” he said.
“Those citizens of the UK, like Robert Jenrick, who seek to justify, rationalise and whitewash the Crimes Against Humanity that were committed by the British Empire against the native people of the Caribbean, the sons and daughters of Africa and the native populations of Asia are doing a severe disservice to their nation.
“What they are, in effect, doing is adding insult to the injury that has been inflicted on a major component of the people and nations of the world community – an injury that is deeply felt by literally billions of people and scores of nations.”
Mr Comissiong added that ”the issue of reparations is not going to go away”, though Mr Jenrick has addressed the topic of slavery reparations before, recently calling Britain to reject such calls.
This comes after dozens of Commonwealth nations, many of whom are former colonies and territories of Britain, lobbied Britain to discuss reparations at a recent summit.
Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer rejected the idea of reparations payments, which yielded criticism.
