A CAMPAIGN group within the Labour Party is calling on Keir Starmer to ensure King Charles pays reparations for the monarchy’s role in slavery.
On Monday, Labour for a Republic will host a fringe event at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool.
Professor Hakim Adi, a historian of Africa and the African diaspora, will be joined by the Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy to discuss the monarchy’s role in the slave trade and urge Starmer to take action if elected prime minister.
It comes after a researcher digitising the records of the South Sea Company – a British company which supplied slaves to South America during the 18th century – found an illustration in the British Library showing slaves being branded with royal insignia.
The Washington Post published the documents, which according to the researcher who discovered them, Nicholas Radburn, highlight the close connection between the monarchy and the South Sea Company’s role in slavery.
Tricia Duncan, the vice-chair of Labour for a Republic, said: “The links between the monarchy and the slave trade are deep and undeniable. They are the source of much of the Monarch’s vast wealth and they should also be the source of deep shame.
“It is distressing for many people that this history has been swept under the carpet and we welcome the work that our speakers, Bell and Hakim, have done to bring this important issue into the public’s consciousness."
In July, the Dutch King apologised for the Netherlands’ involvement in slavery and the impacts it continues to have today.
While King Charles has not followed in his footsteps with an official apology, he has signalled his support for more research into the connections between the slave trade and the British monarchy and said the issue brings him great “personal sorrow”.
A spokesperson for Our Republic - the campaign calling for Scotland to get rid of the monarchy in favour of an elected head of state - said it was right that discussions about reparations were taking place.
"A large part of the monarchy's wealth derives from riches looted during Britain's colonial expansion," they said.
"Just as the colonised people of the former British Empire bore the most of the cost of the monarchy's lavish lifestyle, so should the monarchy bear the cost of reparations to bring justice to the descendants of those colonised people.
"Our Republic welcomes vigorous debate over what forms this justice would take, and remain steadfast in our belief that the riches of this billionaire family should be returned to those it was unjustly taken from."
Ben Clinton, campaign coordinator for Labour for a Republic, said the money for reparations should come from the royal family’s personal wealth and not the public purse.
He said: “Illustrations of the hot-iron branding of slaves with the royal insignia, uncovered by researchers at the British Library and reported in the Washington Post, are a striking and terrible reminder of the monarchy’s central role in the slave trade and remind us that no reparations for these horrific acts have yet been made.
“That’s why we’re calling on Labour in government to take the lead and ensure that the monarch not only properly recognises his family’s legacy but makes reparations, not from the public purse, but from his own pocket.”
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: "This is an issue that His Majesty takes profoundly seriously.
"As His Majesty told the Commonwealth Heads of Government Reception in Rwanda last year: 'I cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of so many, as I continue to deepen my own understanding of slavery’s enduring impact.'
"That learning process has continued with vigour and determination since His Majesty’s Accession.
"As one part of it, the Royal Household is supporting Historic Royal Palaces' independent research project that is exploring, among other issues, the links between the British Monarchy and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade during the late seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries, by giving the researcher access to the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives."
