Rishi Sunak has refused to apologise for the UK’s role in the slave trade or to commit to paying reparations.
The prime minister was challenged in the Commons by the Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who said former prime ministers and heads of state had “only ever expressed sorrow or deep regret”, since the late MP Bernie Grant first asked the government for an apology 23 years ago.
Earlier this week, descendants of some of Britain’s wealthiest enslavers called on the government both to apologise for slavery and begin a programme of reparative justice in recognition of the “ongoing consequences of this crime against humanity”.
Ribeiro-Addy said at prime minister’s questions: “This month marks 23 years since the passing of the late, great Bernie Grant, a former member of this house, and the founder of the UK reparations movement in the UK.
“In his last prime minister’s questions before his death he asked for an apology to the people of African descent, living and dead, for our country’s role in slavery and colonialism.
“But since then, prime ministers and heads of state have only ever expressed sorrow or deep regret. These are not sentiments that are befitting one of the greatest atrocities in human history.
“There has been no acknowledgement of the wealth that has been amassed or the fact that our country took out the largest loan it ever has, to pay off the slave owners, and not the enslaved.
“Will he do what Bernie Grant asked all those years ago, what I have asked, and what countless others have asked since, and offer a full and meaningful apology for our country’s role in slavery and colonialism, and commit to reparatory justice?”
Sunak responded: “No. What I think our focus should now be on doing is, of course, understanding our history and all its parts, not running away from it, but right now making sure that we have a society which is inclusive and tolerant of people from all backgrounds.
“That’s something that we on this side of the house are committed to doing and will continue to deliver, but trying to unpick our history is not the right way forward, and it’s not something that we will focus our energies on.”
When Tony Blair was prime minister, he was challenged over whether he was prepared to say sorry for the slave trade.
He was noted as expressing “deep sorrow”, but responded to the calls saying, “I have said we are sorry and I say it again.”
Blair was speaking in 2007 as the government prepared to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire.
A Labour spokesperson said Ribeiro-Addy’s call for reparations was not party policy.
He said: “She is right to highlight the appalling history of the slave trade,” but added that “on the specific point of reparations, the point that she was making is not Labour party policy”.
The Heirs of Slavery campaigning body – including the second cousin of King Charles, a direct descendant of the Victorian prime minister William Gladstone, journalists, a publisher, a schoolteacher and a retired social worker – will lobby the UK government to acknowledge and atone for its role in the transportation of 3.1 million enslaved African people across the Atlantic.
“British slavery was legal, industrialised and based entirely on race,” Alex Renton, one of the group’s founders, said. “Britain has never apologised for it, and its after-effects still harm people’s lives in Britain as well as in the Caribbean countries where our ancestors made money.”
Last month the Labour MPs Clive Lewis and Dawn Butler called for Sunak’s government to enter “meaningful negotiations” with the UK’s former Caribbean colonies and pay them reparations to mitigate the impact of slavery.
Ribeiro-Addy later said the only way Britain could move forwards was to go over its history.
She said: “The racism and inequality that exists in Britain and across the world today is rooted in our country’s history of slavery and colonialism. Rather than running away from it, the government should be confronting the difficult truth head-on and acknowledging the growing calls from people of African descent in Britain and around the world for reparatory justice.”
As part of its 2019 manifesto, Labour planned to teach children about injustice and the role of the British empire as part of the national curriculum.
