King Charles has arrived in Antigua and Barbuda, the latest stop on his Caribbean tour, as Andy Burnham indicated that the Government could consider issuing a formal British apology for slavery.
The move would mark a significant change from previous policy. The PM said he was “open” to the possibility of the UK formally apologising for its role in the transatlantic slave trade.
However, he ruled out financial reparations, saying he did not believe they were “the right answer”.
Kemi Badenoch criticised the proposal, describing the PM’s consideration of a formal apology as a “navel-gazing distraction”.
The Leader of the Opposition said slavery was “an evil in which people from every continent and region participated” and argued that the Commonwealth should be “looking forwards, not backwards”.
The announcement, made ahead of next week’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting presided over by King Charles, has placed the sensitive issue at the centre of the agenda once again.
Caribbean nations had renewed their calls for Britain to apologise for its role in the slave trade and provide reparations before the King’s tour began.
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for African Reparations, said a formal state apology would “cost nothing”. She added that it could help ease the “stench of Empire” that the King’s visit represents to many people in the Caribbean.
King Charles arrives in Antigua and Barbuda during the latest stage of his Caribbean tour, as Andy Burnham indicates the Government may consider a formal British apology for slavery
King Charles receives a warm welcome from Antigua and Barbuda’s Governor-General, Sir Rodney Williams, although critics have described the visit as carrying a “stench of Empire”
She told the BBC that the issue had made the relationship with the monarchy and the UK “problematic” in the eyes of many people.
Bert Samuels, deputy chair of the Jamaican National Reparations Committee, meanwhile accused Charles of “walking in a crime scene” during his Caribbean visit.
Attention will now turn to Charles’s opening address on Tuesday, when presidents, prime ministers and other representatives from the Commonwealth’s 56 member states gather in Antigua and Barbuda.
The King’s remarks will be guided by ministers and are expected to reflect the UK Government’s changing position after it previously refused to issue a formal apology.
Before the tour, ministers were understood not to have advised the King to offer either an apology or reparations.
Even so, Charles began the nine-day trip last Tuesday by acknowledging the “great suffering of the past” during a speech at a youth rally in the Bahamas.
Mr Burnham told The Guardian that the Government was now “offering a structured dialogue with those affected by the transatlantic slave trade”.
“Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process and I am open to them,” he said.
While Mr Burnham said people in Britain today could not “be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, that happened in a different age under different laws and in which they played no personal part”, he expressed “sorrow and regret for the pain and suffering of so many millions”.
Mrs Badenoch rejected the PM’s consideration of a formal apology, pointing to former prime minister Sir Tony Blair’s comments in 2006. He expressed “deep sorrow and regret” over Britain’s involvement in the slave trade but stopped short of issuing a full apology, arguing that the country had already confronted its history.
The leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch has claimed the PM’s consideration of a formal apology is a ‘navel-gazing distraction’
In a lengthy post on social media, Mrs Badenoch said: ‘We should be honest about the whole history, not select the parts that are politically convenient today, especially given Britain’s leading role in ending the transatlantic slave trade.
‘If Caribbean countries are asking Britain for a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, will they also be asking the same of the descendants of African kingdoms, rulers and merchants who captured, sold and profited from the trade?’
She added: ‘As Prime Minister, Andy Burnham should be Britain’s greatest defender. Instead, he is writing articles saying we need to confront our history (as if we haven’t done enough of that) and considering another formal historical apology.
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‘Tony Blair already expressed Britain’s deep sorrow and regret for our role in the slave trade nearly 20 years ago. There is no need to do so again. This is all another navel-gazing distraction. The Commonwealth should be looking forward, not endlessly backwards.’
The King has trodden a difficult path on his latest tour with protests on the first leg of his tour in the Bahamas.
Historian Sir Anthony Seldon said today that the King’s tour was ‘the most perilous of his reign so far’ and while he could be ’empathetic’ about slavery, it was not ‘his right’ to offer an apology.
Suggesting the Government’s ‘change of position in just four weeks’ – when it ruled out an apology at the beginning of October – now paved the way for a formal apology next year, he told the BBC it may reflect a recognition of how ‘under pressure and beleaguered’ the King is.
Warning that the King had ‘so few cards in his deck’ and there could be ‘the danger of an episode’, such as when the late Queen had ‘eggs thrown at her twice’ in the Caribbean, he said an apology might ‘take the sting out of it – if it works’.
‘There is more at stake here – it is the authority of the monarchy and it is the future of the Commonwealth, with Russia and China nibbling away at it. Putin had an African leaders’ meeting in Moscow last week and China is enormously interested in the new oil and gas reserves in the Caribbean,’ he told Radio 4’s Today programme.
Yesterday before leaving Guyana for his latest stop, Charles acknowledged the country’s history of slavery and resistance, paying a sombre visit to Independence Park in the capital city of Georgetown, where dozens of people involved in the Demerara Rebellion of 1823 were hanged.
Andy Burnham (pictured with Scottish First Minister John Swinney on Friday) said Britain must ‘face up to the past’ in terms of the transatlantic slave trade, but ruled out financial reparations
He paused to reflect at the spot where the public executions took place during the brutal crushing of the rebellion.
And he listened intently as Guyana minister of culture Steven Jacobs explained the history of the site on the second day of his state visit.
In the early 19th century, up to 13,000 enslaved men and women, working across 60 sugar estates in the British colony of Demerara-Essequibo, now modern-day Guyana, refused to work, mistakenly believing that the British Parliament had passed laws granting their freedom that were being withheld from them by plantation owners and officials.
Governor John Murray declared martial law, with British troops crushing the peaceful movement, leading to the deaths of up to 500 people.
Ahead of the visit, Guyana’s President Mohamed Irfaan Ali said Charles had recognised slavery as the darkest days in human history, but an apology would be ‘the next step.’
Buckingham Palace previously made it clear the monarch will not be apologising for Britain’s role in slavery or discuss reparations, in line with Government policy.
The British Government has never formally apologised for slavery or offered to pay reparations.
Mr Burnham described the transatlantic slave trade, when enslaved Africans were trafficked to the Americas, as a ‘brutal and barbaric violation’ and said Britain must ‘face up to the past’.
He also acknowledged Commonwealth countries had for years been asking for an ‘honest conversation’.
Downing Street believes it is in the UK’s interest to strengthen the Commonwealth, where China and Russia are seeking to exert influence.
Welcoming the PM’s comments, the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, said she would engage in good faith while still seeking reparatory justice.
Britain had a key role in ending the trade, through Parliament’s passage of a law to abolish slavery in 1833.
However, as part of that law, British plantation owners were paid for the loss of their slaves.
The UK only finished paying off the debt it incurred to cover the payments in 2015.
Ms Bell Ribeiro-Addy said Britain had ‘to acknowledge what the British state did’ and said it was ‘too easy’ to dismiss financial reparations, but said ‘no-one had sent the UK an invoice’ and that talking about it in financial terms had ‘stopped the debate’.