No, Keir Starmer – Reparations Aren’t Just About the Past

They’re about the present too.

by Ash Sarkar

25 October 2024

Keir Starmer and King Charles visit Samoa, October 2024. Chris Jackson/Reuters
Keir Starmer and King Charles visit Samoa, October 2024. Chris Jackson/Reuters

For the past few days, the heads of 56 Commonwealth governments (plus King Charles) have been confabbing on the Pacific island of Samoa. Top of the agenda? Whether the UK owes reparations for its leading role in the transatlantic slave trade, or at the very least an apology. And you thought your family reunions were dicey.

So, what’s the case for reparations? To put it bluntly, the trafficking of human life made the UK very rich. Profits came not only from the sale of enslaved people, but from the goods they produced. One estimate puts the reparative sum owed by the UK at £20 trillion, which represents the value of the total unpaid wages plus compensation for loss of life.

By 1791, British Caribbean islands were the world’s leading producers of sugar. Enslaved people produced around three-quarters of raw goods exports from the new colonies. And even after abolition, slave money – both the wealth slaveholding activities generated and the compensation given by the British government to slaveholders after the practice was outlawed – powered the industrial revolution.

As Karl Marx wrote, industrial capitalism in Europe was entwined with “slavery pure and simple in the new world […] capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt”. One study found that places in Britain with the highest levels of slavery wealth saw capitalists’ income rise by more than 100% during the industrial revolution.

Awkwardly for King Charles III, his ancestors were pioneers in the transatlantic slave trade. The Company of Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa was granted a charter by King Charles II, and led by the man who would become King James II. Later called the Royal African Company, this group had a monopoly on British trade with West Africa (which included slavery, amongst other things).

The politics of reparations is, to say the least, tricky. While some countries in the Global South (including Commonwealth nations like the Bahamas, Ghana, Lesotho and Gambia) have been forthright in their demand for reparatory justice, the conversation in Westminster is markedly more hostile. Conservative party leadership contender Kemi Badenoch branded reparations “a scam”, while Nigel Farage seemed to be having a whale of a time on GB News pooh-poohing the idea.

The argument prevalent amongst much of the British political and media landscape is basically that reparations for slavery are a slippery slope into absurdity, that responsibility for the transatlantic slave trade is shared with Africans who sold their people into bondage, and Britain abolished the practice early on in the 19th century anyway. That sounds a bit like Nelson Muntz crowing about how he stopped beating kids up – but neglecting to mention that he kept all their lunch money. This context is probably why prime minister Keir Starmer has ruled out reparations, claiming he wants to be focused on the future rather than the past.

But reparations are not just about the wrongs of history. The Caribbean is the most exposed region to climate-related natural disasters; in Africa, millions of people have already been displaced by climate shocks. You don’t have to agree that Britain is the villain of the world to think that we have a responsibility to pay for climate adaptations in poorer countries.

As others have pointed out, Britain has never formally apologised for its role in the slave trade. And an apology is much cheaper than financial reparations. But while King Charles III acknowledged the “painful aspects” of British history and expressed his “sorrow”, he stopped short of saying sorry. I guess it really is the hardest word.

The article was adapted from our newsletter The Cortado. For more analysis straight into your inbox, click here.

Ash Sarkar is a contributing editor at Novara Media.

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