World

UK Prime Minister Open to Apology for Slavery, but Reparations Still Unfulfilled

By Verene A Shepherd

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has indicated that Britain is willing to issue a formal apology for its role in the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery. The statement comes amid ongoing calls from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) for both an apology and reparations. CARICOM’s Reparations Commission has sought dialogue on these issues for years, but previous requests have only received expressions of sorrow and regret, not an apology or a promise of one.

In 2015, former Prime Minister David Cameron rejected calls for reparations and instead announced a £25‑million UK‑funded project to build a new prison in Jamaica to facilitate the deportation of Jamaican nationals serving long sentences in British prisons. That proposal sparked controversy.

The Caribbean Community’s Ten‑Point Plan for Reparatory Justice stresses that a formal apology would be a gesture of goodwill, acknowledge shared history, accept responsibility for past crimes, and pave the way for meaningful reparations. The plan argues that reparations should go beyond improved debt repayment conditions and include debt cancellation rooted in the legacy of colonialism.

Sir Arthur Lewis, a key figure in the modern Caribbean reparations movement, argued in his 1939 book *Labour in the West Indies: The Birth of a Workers’ Movement* that Britain bears responsibility for the unpaid labour of millions of enslaved people in the Caribbean and that this constitutes a debt that has yet to be repaid.

Statements in the Ten‑Point Plan, Ghana’s March 2026 United Nations Resolution, and the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination’s General Recommendation No. 40 all emphasize that the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery created a racialised regime of violence and governance that has shaped modern global power structures.

The author calls for a conversation on actual reparations, including debt cancellation and monetary compensation, and urges Britain to acknowledge its “black debt.” The article reflects the author’s own views and does not necessarily represent Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.