Badenoch Rejects a UK Apology for the Slave Trade
Kemi Badenoch has come out against any British apology for the transatlantic slave trade. Andy Burnham, the prime minister, is weighing one before he travels to a Commonwealth summit.
A summit and a possible apology
Burnham flies next week to the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Antigua and Barbuda. Before he goes, he said he was considering a formal apology.
In an article for the Guardian, he said there would be no reparations in the form of financial compensation. He said he was ready to help poorer countries restructure their debt on more favourable terms.
Chancellor John Healey made the same split on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. The government is open to talking about an apology, he said. Considering an apology, he said, is not an admission that people in Britain today carry financial liability for the past, since they had no part in it.
Badenoch's objections
The Conservative leader spoke to broadcasters on Sunday. She called an apology a "navel-gazing distraction". She described slavery as an evil in which people from every continent and region took part.
She argued that leaders should be honest about the whole history, including Britain's leading role in ending the trade. In a social media post she asked whether Caribbean countries would also seek an apology from the descendants of African kingdoms, rulers and merchants who captured and sold people.
She added that Tony Blair's comments two decades ago made an apology from Burnham unnecessary.
On Sky News she said she feared an apology would be seen by campaigners as a step towards compensation. She did not think any money should be given, and said an apology was a way to "wedge open the door to ask for cash".
Badenoch also questioned whether future leaders should attend the Commonwealth summit at all, now that it is dominated by calls for reparations.
Our take
Healey described one way to separate an apology from payment: an apology that does not accept financial liability for events centuries ago. Badenoch doubts campaigners would read it that way.
Burnham has said only that he is considering an apology. Until he decides, it is unclear whether it would come with the debt offer he has described.
Source: the Guardian