David Lammy is mad to have flirted with reparations

As spokesman for the Caribbean Community (Caricom) of 20 countries, Dr Hilary Beckles has long campaigned for Britain to make amends for slavery by paying reparations to the former colonies of the West Indies. One politician that Beckles has always counted on for support is David Lammy, the son of Guyanese parents and the Labour MP for Tottenham since 2000. While in opposition, Lammy accused the then Tory government of ignoring the debts owed to the descendants of slaves in Britain and the Caribbean. He pointed out that when Britain abolished slavery in 1833, slave owners were paid £20million in compensation, while not a penny was given to the slaves themselves. Now that Labour is in government and Lammy is foreign secretary, Beckles has seized his moment. Caricom has this month called for a high-level summit with European nations, including Britain, and insisted that they must address the issue of reparations. Lammy ‘has been a supporter of [reparations] while he was in opposition’, Beckles said last week. ‘The question is whether he would be given a free hand in his government… to take the matter to a higher level.’ It looks like an astute move on Beckles’s part. Lammy is...