Why is No 10 tight-lipped about welcoming reparation campaigner?
It was back in February when the Telegraph, citing Caribbean sources, reported that the Foreign Office was to open talks on slavery reparations with Caribbean officials, who were demanding trillions of pounds from the UK in compensation for its role in the slave trade.
In his piece, my colleague Craig Simpson reported that members of the Reparations Commission of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), a political grouping of 15 states who have led on calls for compensation from former colonial powers, were planning a visit to London in April with a specific aim to restate demands for payments.
We were even told that the 'trip has been overseen by Mia Mottley, Barbados's prime minister,' who famously pushed for reparations to be on the agenda at the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Samoa last year.
To say the demands are ambitious would be an understatement. In no conceivable way could the nation's taxpayers and its finances afford the bill.
'Ms Mottley has stated that Britain owes her country £3.9 trillion,' this paper had reported, 'while a 2023 report put the figure owed to former Caribbean colonies overall at £18 trillion.'
A Foreign Office spokesman at that time had denied that there were any plans for a ministerial meeting, claiming no date had been set for a UK-Caricom meeting.
Imagine my surprise then to come across a press release on 4th April - issued not by the Foreign Office but by No 10 - that Sir Keir had welcomed Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados to Downing Street that morning.
When was this meeting scheduled, I asked the Downing Street Press Office. Were any payments to Barbados discussed at the meeting? My questions were refused, with the spokesman instead directing me back to the rather bare-boned press release, which would only provide the following information:'The leaders reflected on the strength of the relationship between the UK and Barbados, and the shared challenges faced by the two countries, including growth, climate change and global instability.'The Prime Minister also thanked Prime Minister Mottley for the action taken by Barbados against the Russian shadow fleet.'A standard news agency report on the meeting offered some interesting details.'We've known each other many, many years as good colleagues and now as leaders who work together, think alike', Sir Keir said of his guest, a fellow King's Counsel who was educated at the London School of Economics.In her response, Ms Mottley said, '[w]e've had the opportunity to meet a number of times since you've assumed office.' We know that at least one of those times - at the Commonwealth Head of Governments summit - the matter of reparations has certainly been discussed. How many other discussions have there been on the subject, given Ms Mottley's focused, high profile and long-running campaign for compensation?
There are other reasons to be wary of a ruinous bill being presented to Parliament as a fait accompli, much in the same way as the Mauritius payment, not the least because it is the same international judge from Jamaica who ruled against the UK on the Chagos Islands who has called for Britain to pay more than £18 trillion in reparations for slavery, declaring even that amount to be an 'underestimation' of the damage caused.
While calls for reparations are longstanding, in recent years they have been reportedly gaining momentum worldwide, 'particularly among Caricom [of which Ms Mottley is the current Chair] and the African Union', whose joint theme for 2025 is 'Justice for Africans and the People of African Descent through reparations.'
These organisations enjoy the support of both the European Union and the United Nations leadership - indeed, Ms Mottley is widely viewed as a potential candidate to succeed Antonio Guterres as the next UN secretary-general - who appear to be increasingly willing to entertain compensation claims.
Speakers at a session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on African Descent in New York declared only yesterday that 'the calls for reparatory justice can no longer be ignored'. These calls at the Forum are being led by Ms Mottley's Caricom colleague, Dr Hilary Brown.
International campaigners are also encouraged by what they view as a British government sympathetic to their cause after 14 years of Conservative-led refusal to discuss compensation claims. Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Attorney General Lord Hermer have both previously voiced their support for reparations, hitherto a political position only championed by edgier backbenchers such as Bell Ribeiro-Addy and Dawn Butler.
While the Government has steadfastly refused to allow the word reparations to enter its formal communiqué, it has been more comfortable using expressions such as addressing 'wrongs of the past' when discussing payments to former colonies, as we've seen in the case of the Mauritius deal.
In the case of Barbados and other Caribbean nations, if Ms Mottley is successful in her campaign, the bill presented to the taxpayer would likely be framed as payments towards the climate crisis, rather than reparations.
But of course, reparation by any other name is still reparation. As, of course, is bankruptcy.
Please share share examples of public spending in your personal and professional lives which you consider to be a waste of taxpayers' money. You can email us your stories – either in writing or as voice notes – at wastewatch@telegraph.co.uk
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