UK conference on reparations to open as debate dominates Commonwealth talks

Politicians and campaigners are due to host the second national conference on reparations this weekend, as the issue continues to dominate the Commonwealth summit. The All-party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations (APPG-AR), a group of cross-party MPs, plans to build on the growing momentum to provide reparations and justice to countries blighted by transatlantic slavery. Last year’s conference was attended by 850 people, with 22 sessions discussing a range of policy issues from the restitution of artefacts to land rights, education, trade unionism, planetary repair, economics, law and culture. This year’s conference, entitled From Acknowledgment to Action, will focus on how policymakers and campaigners can move towards concrete policy ideas for reparations on a local, national and international scale. The Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, chair of the APPG-AR, said: “Reparations are not about relitigating historic injustices, they are about remedying the deep-rooted inequalities that still shape our world today. At a time when there is growing awareness of how racial hierarchies that endure to this day were constituted to justify the enslavement and colonisation of African peoples, state-led action on reparations is sadly lacking.” The conference follows the widely criticised remarks by Keir Starmer, who, while travelling to the conference,...