Burnham maintains UK opposition as Caribbean leaders demand reparatory action
At the opening of the Commonwealth summit in St John’s, Antigua and Barbuda, King Charles III said that learning more about the horrors of slavery had strengthened his determination to address past wrongs. “We cannot change the actions of those who came before us,” he told leaders. “We can, however, learn from the past.”
Charles said the transatlantic trade in enslaved persons still casts a shadow over the islands and other Commonwealth members. “That shameful chapter of history is one that fills my heart with horror and my soul with the most profound personal sorrow,” he said.
Charles said further learning through “listening, learning and looking” had deepened his commitment to modern partnerships capable of addressing past wrongs. His speech pointed to education, employment, intra-Commonwealth trade and climate resilience as responses to continuing hardship and disadvantage. “For, as any sailor navigating the seas knows, we cannot command the winds, least of all where the winds of yesterday have delivered us, but we can choose how we set our sail,” he said.
Photographs from the summit showed Charles speaking with students during the Commonwealth Youth Forum at the University of West Indies in St John’s, and Burnham walking to meet waiting media on the sidelines of the summit at the American University of Antigua in Osbourn.
Charles stopped short of an apology or explicit backing for reparations. The Guardian reported that the address would have been drafted by Charles personally with his advisers and that palace aides had indicated there would be “no surprises” in it for the UK government. The Guardian also reported that Britain’s royal family benefited from the transatlantic trade, described Charles as politically neutral and said Charles was not expected to offer an apology. A palace spokesperson said it would “not be appropriate” for the king to announce a change in government policy.
Reparations were not among the formal agenda items for the Commonwealth heads of government meeting, a 56-member bloc whose stated priorities included trade, climate resilience and finance, sustainable debt, democracy and opportunities for young people. Sustained campaigning by Caribbean governments and a growing international reparations movement nevertheless brought the issue to the center of political debate surrounding the gathering, as Caribbean leaders and campaigners intensified demands for an apology and reparations from Britain.
UK prime minister Andy Burnham said Britain’s position on reparations was clear. “I’ve been very clear that we do not support reparations, and I made that quite abundantly clear in the piece that I wrote in advance of coming here,” he said. He added that Britain does support Commonwealth countries “around development and helping them with debt issues that they’ve got, green finance,” which “we’ve done under all governments” and, in his view, “should continue to do as part of being a Commonwealth.”
Burnham refused to be drawn on whether the UK might offer further financial contributions to the Commonwealth, stopping short of direct reparations. Pressed on whether this could mean additional financial contributions that would weigh on the taxpayer, Burnham said, “Well, you’re getting ahead.” He called for “meaningful dialogue where we take time to listen” and described the Commonwealth relationship as a two-way arrangement that benefits Britain.
Burnham had said he was open to Britain apologising for slavery, with officials holding talks with national leaders in Antigua about what that could entail. He proposed discussions on debt resets for smaller Commonwealth nations and announced £40m ($54m) for critical infrastructure in the Caribbean over the next three years. The Guardian reported, citing AFP, that Burnham discussed slavery with Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley during a meeting on Monday, one of several bilateral meetings the prime minister was expected to have at the summit. Downing Street said they discussed Britain’s “offering a structured dialogue for communities impacted by the transatlantic slave trade,” including the “next steps.” Burnham also said UK trade with the rest of the Commonwealth had risen significantly in the previous year and that the relationship supported growth in Britain.
Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said “fairness” required an “honest engagement with our shared history” and called for meaningful and respectful dialogue on reparatory justice and the enduring consequences of slavery and colonialism.
But Caribbean leaders have stressed that dialogue must extend beyond an apology. Philip J Pierre, chair of the Caribbean Community, or Caricom, described an apology as an “essential first step” but said an “apology without repair is incomplete.” Pierre said any structured dialogue must allow consideration of the entirety of Caricom’s 10-point reparations plan, including public health, education, cultural restitution, psychological rehabilitation, debt cancellation and monetary compensation.
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, chair of the House of Commons all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan Reparations, welcomed debt relief but warned against presenting it as reparations. “Reparations was never about personal guilt. It is about the responsibility of states and institutions that still stand,” she said. “Aid is not reparations, because aid leaves the power with the giver. Agency was the crime. Agency has to be the remedy.”
Outside the heavily secured summit venue, protesters gathered with placards reading “We know what you did and we can see you” and “You say appalling atrocity, yet you refuse to apologise,” as calls for an apology and reparations from Britain intensified. Lenworth Johnson said an apology was necessary and that if the king’s constitutional position prevented him from apologising, the British government should authorise him to do so. Radcliffe Robins said the wealth enjoyed by Britain and other western powers was built in part on enslavement, and demanded an apology from the king and royal family along with reparations. “It is absolutely necessary that his majesty the king and the royal family apologise for the brutality and the injustice that they have imposed on us,” he said. “And with that, we ask for reparations.” Another protester said the demonstration was intended to ensure those entering the summit knew campaigners were “watching them and listening to what they’re saying and what they’re doing.” Dorbrene O’Marde, chair of the Antigua and Barbuda Reparations Support Commission and one of the organisers, said: “One whose heart is filled with horror and whose soul bears the most profound personal sorrow must surely be moved beyond words – beyond repeated emotional expression without acceptance of responsibility.” She added: “Genuine moral consciousness demands apologies – the acknowledgment of wrong, the acceptance of responsibility and the commitment to pursue reparations. Unfortunately King Charles III does nothing of the sort. He has again failed the people who recognise him as king.”
The demonstrations followed a Monday reparations event hosted by the House of Commons all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan Reparations alongside campaign organisations. The meeting was followed by a candlelight vigil on an Antiguan beach commemorating enslaved Africans brought to the island. The Rev Bonnie Smith, president of the Antigua Christian Council, asked those gathered to remember people taken from their homes, separated from their families and forced across the Atlantic into enslavement. “Their names may be absent from our records, but they are not absent from your love,” she said. “Their voices may have been silenced, but their lives have never ceased to matter.”
Prof Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the Caricom Reparations Commission, said the reparations campaign was part of a wider struggle for peace and justice. “We are concerned about the unleashing of terror and violence upon innocent people,” he said. “We believe that reparatory justice that calls for human decency, equality and justice for all is the philosophy that will hold us together as humanity going into this 21st century.”
Ralph Gonsalves, a former prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines and a senior figure in the Repair Campaign, the reparatory justice movement, said he believed Charles’s expressions of sorrow were sincere but was disappointed the speech had not gone further than his previous remarks. “The apology hasn’t come. And there’s no talk about reparatory justice. So to that extent, this speech to me was a disappointment,” he said. Gonsalves said support for health, education and infrastructure fell within the UN sustainable development goals and called for “a special carve-out in respect of reparatory justice.”