The Daily Telegraph says there is no case for Britain paying reparations and questions why no one is calling for reparations from West Africa:
Britain’s affection for the Commonwealth is well-placed. The organisation has managed to rise above the fraught history of Empire to remain a useful and relevant space for global discussion, and a powerful political force.
It is disappointing, therefore, that Sir Keir Starmer will arrive at the Commonwealth summit in Samoa today to find some attendees focused not on current issues but instead on re-litigating the history of slavery, with the final communique set to contain a call for potential reparations.
Such demands stand on shaky moral ground. The contention that slavery gave rise to British wealth appears unfounded, with generations of motivated activists attempting to find some way in which the Industrial Revolution and Britain’s subsequent economic growth derived from the trade, and in each case appearing to fall short.
Meanwhile, the argument that those living today have a moral responsibility to make amends for the sins of their forefathers can be rejected out of hand. Britain has not sought compensation from Denmark for the depredations of the Vikings, or from North Africa for the acts of the Barbary corsairs, and would rightly be laughed at if it did.
Indeed, as the historian Lawrence Goldman has noted, even if reparations were conceded, the countries of West Africa – willing participants in the trade – could be held liable as well. Yet they are curiously absent from the discussion.
This should not surprise us: the issue of reparations has become relevant not because the moral or economic case is stronger than it once was, but because Western countries seeking to manage their new-found diversity have given moral credence to arguments they should have rejected. They have allowed every disparity and inequality to be laid at the feet of their own racism, and agreed, in the process, to make amends. The demands for reparations simply reflect this logic back at us.
Sir Keir has stated that Britain does “not pay reparations”, but he may find the rhetoric of the Left hard to resist. We have seen in the past how rapidly his mind can change, and it is notable that he has chosen, in David Lammy, a Foreign Secretary who has previously called for the UK to “listen” to demands for financial redress.
Other countries, too, will have taken note of Sir Keir’s apparent weakness as a negotiator, and the decision to sign over the Chagos Islands in response to “pressure”. As Kipling warned us: once you pay the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane.
