Labour to open talks on slavery reparations
The Foreign Office is to open talks on slavery reparations with Caribbean officials demanding trillions of pounds from the UK.
David Lammy's department is understood to be looking at April to meet members of the Reparations Commission of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), a political grouping of 15 states that has long demanded compensation from former colonial powers.
According to Caribbean sources, the meeting has been planned as part of a Caricom delegation of officials and political leaders who will restate demands that Britain pay for its role in the slave trade.
It will be the first delegation of its kind, with Caricom never attempting to hold such a meeting in 14 years of Tory government because calls for reparations were repeatedly rebuffed by successive prime ministers.
The trip has been organised by Mia Mottley, Barbados's prime minister, who previously put Sir Keir Starmer under pressure by pushing for reparations to be on the agenda at the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Samoa last year.
Ms Mottley has stated that Britain owes her country £3.9 trillion, while a 2023 report put the figure owed to former Caribbean colonies overall at £18 trillion.
This report was overseen by Patrick Robinson, an International Court of Justice judge, who has argued that reparations should be enshrined in international law and that Britain is 'obliged to pay'.
Caribbean sources suggested that the details of the trip would be formally confirmed in the coming weeks. A Foreign Office source insisted it was normal for diplomats to meet regularly.
Mr Lammy has voiced support for reparations before, saying in 2020 that there was a need for a 'reckoning' with Britain's colonial past, and a process of 'repairing'.
In an interview with a Boston radio station, he added that the process was 'to some extent... obviously financial, and involves endowments'.
In 2018, he said it was vital that the UK government 'hears and listens' to Caribbean demands for reparations.
At an event at the Guyana High Commission that year, he said 'no reparations were ever given to any slaves' and spoke of a 'different dialogue that is about our economic improvement and really starts to recognise some of the legacies that we were left with'.
Mr Lammy was in attendance at the Commonwealth summit in Samoa, where the 56 member states signed an agreement stating that the time had come to seriously discuss reparations.
Following this summit, he said that reparation need not be a 'cash transfer', but could include 'other forms of non-financial reparatory justice too'.
Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, has also voiced his support for reparations. In a 2020 podcast for Matrix Chambers, where he served as head of chambers, he said that 'there was a moral and legal' case for reparations, and a 'certainly moral' argument for it.
Caribbean sources said they were keen for Lord Hermer to be involved in the meetings after his previous comments and work winning compensation for Kenyans involved in the Mau Mau uprising. The Attorney General's office said he was scheduled to attend the meeting.
The UK signed off on the Commonwealth summit statement in October last year that set out the need for 'inclusive conversations' about reparations for slavery, and the need to address 'chattel enslavement… dispossession of indigenous people, indentureship, colonialism' in order to move to a 'future based on equity'.
At the summit, Sir Keir resisted pressure from member states to prioritise putting reparations on the agenda. Downing Street said that the UK would reject calls for reparations, and would not be issuing an apology for Britain's role in the slave trade.
Many campaigners believed that the final statement was watered down, and were disappointed that the Commonwealth statement of intent did not go further.
Some Labour MPs, including Clive Lewis and Diane Abbott, voiced support for reparations. Mr Lewis said that ignoring the issue showed a 'colonial mindset'.
They were among nine Labour MPs to sit on the all-party parliamentary group on African reparations, which seeks to 'redress the legacies of African enslavement and colonialism'.
Among Caribbean campaigners, there is hope that the Labour will be more amenable to the cause of reparations, which had been repeatedly ignored by the Tories.
Caricom delegates are likely to present an updated set of 10 demands for reparations justice.
The original 10 point plan was launched in 2013, setting out the need for a full formal apology as well as support for development and education.
The Reparations Commission has been working on an updated version of the plan, which will contain more detail not only on the need to atone for slavery but also for the system of indentured servitude which followed it.
The plan is likely to serve as inspiration to the African Union, which is beginning to consider its own reparations strategy, and will discuss the matter at a summit in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa this month.
A Foreign Office spokesman said there were no plans for a ministerial meeting and no date set for a UK-Caricom meeting.
The spokesman said: 'The Government's position on this issue has not changed – we do not pay reparations.'
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