If the UK has to pay reparations, will other countries?

[Controversialname]

If the UK is made to pay reparations where will that leave other nations who were or indeed still are involved in slavery?

So we get our reparations first from the Italians, Vikings (Norway, Sweden,Denmark, Finland, Iceland) and France (1066 and all the serf thing) before we consider paying anything to anyone.

Maybe the introduction Preparation Tax, let’s say extra 20% on inheritance tax and capital gains followed by public sector wage freeze and no extra money for Education and the NHS and a freeze on all benefits, that could be the Halloween budget announcement. It will still take centuries to pay.

Iunderstand why people find this strange and unfair, but there really wasn't another way to accomplish what they wanted.

Can you imagine if any nation, or say the UN, suddenly decided to ban something like fossil fuels? All of a sudden an important commodity, from a financial perspective, would be worth nothing (at least legally.) Companies that had invested significant amounts in research, discovering and exploiting oil reserves, even developing products, or petrol stations, would find their major assets worth nothing.

There would be bankruptcies all over the place and probably a huge market crash.

With the end of slavery it wasn't as all encompassing, but it would have had significant implications for the economic stability of some of the colonies had there been no effort to compensate the owners, as well as implications for actual production of things like agricultural products. Total economy crash wouldn't have been good for anyone.

There were some attempts to try and make sure former slaves weren't just kicked out and left to fend for themselves, which didn't work particularly well. However, this was the first time something like that had been tried, and some of the solutions we might use today either weren't thought of then, or the infrastructure didn't exist. Modern land redistribution as has been tried in a few places wasn't something being done at that point (and it's not like it's ever worked that well anyway.)

I ain't paying!!

@TempestTost excellent post. I think of it as something slightly akin to the 2008 bank bailouts, in terms of the taxpayer having to fork out to prop up a large entity for the indirect benefit of avoiding larger economic meltdown.

Yes, an event which certainly sticks in the craw, but at the same time, what's the other option? Mass failure of banks would screw us all.

What that would look like no one really knows.

I'm glad it was useful - I had absolutely no idea about the huge role the UK played in abolishing slavery both in the UK and other countries, or the massive cost both monetarily and in lives that we paid to do so until quite recently.

I have never, not once ever for even the tiniest second, felt any guilt whatsoever about being born white - because that would be stupid. And I have never contemplated for even a moment that I might owe anyone a single thing because of something my ancestors may or may not have done - because that would be utterly insane.

But I really didn't know how big a role the UK had played in savings so many slaves lives. Once I had read up on the reality of slavery, rather than what the idealogues want people to believe, I was absolutely done with even the concept of "reparations". The whole notion is utterly ridiculous and illogical.

So I just keep sharing the historical facts in the hope that eventually the identity idealogues will be too ashamed of spouting nonsense to keep it up -and because I was surprised and truly pleased to learn that Britain, all those years ago, did the right thing and made their reparations when it mattered, saving many thousands of slaves lives.

That’s an interesting point. And the fact that the UK was obviously not the only country to do this hundreds of years ago. Of course that doesn’t make it right, but you don’t see the spotlight on any other like it is here. Why is that?

Every country in the world has indeed been slavers. The Brits were slavers for a very short time historically speaking - of course it doesn't make it ok, but literally every country did it and most for far longer. So once you start talking reparations that means everyone owes everyone money for everything their ancestors did, and it just gets mental.

Britain is one of the very, very few that already made reparations to the tune of millions of pounds and thousands of British lives spent fighting slave traders, and spend 50 years saving slaves, after abolishing slavery in the UK and helping to abolish it in other countries.

Not just that, but actually slavery is still being carried out in other countries.

These "reparations" are a money grab by grifters, not remotely feasible and not on the same planet as fair or logical.

Humans having to work shitty jobs to survive is not "modern day slavery" it's just how Britain was before the social state developed. In many countries around the world people are still working flat out for rubbish pay in order to provide shelter, food and education for their families.
Slavery is being forced to work for no pay, entirely different.

Hunglikeapolevaulter · Yesterday 15:35

@Whoelectedhim what you've posted in just the opinion of a few wealthy poshos though, who are welcome to pay their own reparations (and tbf I understand that Trevelyan has chosen to do so).
What they don't get to do is speak on behalf of the ordinary people whose ancestors didn't amass tremendous wealth, and they certainly don't get to the demand that the badly-needed tax money of those ordinary people gets handed over so that they get to feel a bit better about their ancestors.

So bar one, they all support reparation paid for by the likes of descendents of the working poor in the UK, through our taxes impacting the health, education and quality of life that have also been hard won from those who have directly benefitted from the hard labour of my own forebears. If so i and many others i would assume would like reparation. They dont get to use my tax to offset their conscience. How entitled they are.

Once I had read up on the reality of slavery, rather than what the idealogues want people to believe, I was absolutely done with even the concept of "reparations"

That's what tends to happen when people take the trouble to inform themselves, @dontbedaft2000, which could well explain why some prefer silly shouting to research

...So I just keep sharing the historical facts in the hope that eventually the identity idealogues will be too ashamed of spouting nonsense to keep it up

It's a worthwhile aim, but good luck with it when we see those facts ignored in favour of spouting cant, with outright untruths repeated even when the facts have been offered to someone directly
Fortunately this identifies the line between honest opinion and deliberate disinformation, which IME helps to makes things clearer

Every country in the world has indeed been slavers. The Brits were slavers for a very short time historically speaking - of course it doesn't make it ok, but literally every country did it and most for far longer.

Your really minimising what happened here. The transatlantic slave trade that Britain was part of was the largest in history and has had a lasting legacy on racism, Africa and the Caribbean of course.

I think there is a sweet spot between repatriations and shrugging your shoulders saving "everyone did it."

Acknowledgement of the wrong, acknowledgment of the scale and acknowledgement of the legacy while looking at policies that can improve the prospects for people in these countries. But monetary repatriations are not a good idea.

mollyfolk

If we focus on just the transatlantic slave trade, then it must be acknowledged that many of those same nations calling for reparations took part in the slave trade as well.

So, is the UK more culpable because, among the slavers of that era, they were able to build bigger boats or because they were more morally repugnant than the others?

They aren't more or less culpable than the others who took part. Portugal had the largest number of salves - not the uk. So not sure what you mean by biggest ships comment!

Because Portugal was trading slaves far earlier and longer than we were and so shipped far more slaves. The wealth which was accumulated by the monied classes in the UK over a shorter period was possible because of engineering advances in ship building and ruthless efficiencies. I think, I'll defer to any other information that you have on it.

You’re really minimising what happened here. The transatlantic slave trade that Britain was part of was the largest in history and has had a lasting legacy on racism, Africa and the Caribbean of course.

Do you have any figures for the scale of slavery in the ancient world, relative to the size of the population in Western Europe, Northern Africa, Turkey, etc (The Roman Empire, the Ancient Greeks, Egypt, the Near and Middle East in ancient times)?

Slavery seems to have been a fundamental part of society in the ancient world, so there must have been a vast amount? How can anyone say, how the transatlantic slave trade compares to that of the ancient world?

(I have no idea about what went on in India, China and the Far East generally at the same time)

We are in a cost of living crisis. Pensioners are being denied their winter fuel allowance, disability and sickness benefits are being cut. Whereas it's a nice idea to make reparations I don't think it should be the priority for the UK government at this time.

This is an excellent post. I wonder about the agendas at play and the bad actors determined to leverage our nation's history against us. There are far too many useful idiots at large, virtue signalling, ignorant yet very loudly opionated.

Well said. The British aristocracy, Royal Family and Church of England are welcome to assuage their consciences AT THEIR OWN EXPENSE.

Plus China, Russian, N Korea and Iran would be rubbing their hands in glee. Those countries will never pay reparations of any sort, but I am sure they are behind the scenes helping to foment unrest in those countries who think they might be able to squeeze something out of the UK.

I presume there is nothing stopping them, or any ofvthe many other aristocratic families who have not joined this organisation paying reparations themselves. They and their descendents have directly benefitted from slavery, and then directly benefitted from.the millions paid to them by the British taxpayer for decades in compensation. Why should anyone else pay when they directly benefitted. And yes, the Royals live off generational wealth from not only slavery but Empire in general.