UK continues to resist Commonwealth calls for slavery reparations

Commonwealth countries are pressing for slavery reparations talks, but the UK, despite years of reflection on its colonial past, remains opposed to financial compensation, according to officials and analysts. “I think segments of British society might be ready to talk about reparation, but you have other sectors, the majority really, that strongly oppose it,” Sascha Auerbach, director of the Institute for the Study of Slavery at Nottingham University, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Meeting last week at a summit in Samoa, the Commonwealth’s 56 members said the “time has come” for talks about the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, in a landmark declaration that raised the prospect of future reparations. African, Caribbean and Pacific nations want Britain – and other colonial powers – to apologize for slavery and other ills of colonization and to start talks about compensation. Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has rejected both requests, arguing that he wants to “look forward” rather than have “very long endless discussions about reparations” involving the past. “I think he is concerned that the country is not ready to have this conversation,” said Alan Lester, a historian at the University of Sussex, noting that any talk...