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?

Yes what about the whole village taken by the barbers in Baltimore in Ireland or also in Cornwall?

Exactly. And where does it stop? Should Italy be paying reparations for the Roman's invading Britain? Or the French for 1066?

There is almost no chance the UK (or any other country) will pay financial reparations for slavery

And why us? Why not ask for reparations from Spain and Portugal for all the slaves that died in South America?

How about renaming foreign aid as reparations, would that work?

Just allow movement without borders and allow wealth to settle according to where it lands.

How far are we going back? Italy and Scandinavia are completely fucked if we’re going right the way back .

It is such a ridiculous concept. No nation should entertain doing this.

"When you say "we should pay" you mean UK tax payers should pay. What about UK tax payers who are descended from slaves? Will they be exempt? If not, what are they being punished for? What about mixed race tax payers? Do they pay half? Utterly unworkable."

And further from this, most of the British public will not have descended from the aristocracy, royalty, landowners and people who profited from slavery.
Most of us will have descended from poor working class people who were exploited and abused by the same system.
And we still feel the effects of the class system to this day poor working class families have less access to quality services, poor social mobility and lower life expectancies.

Where are our reparations from the government? The idea that poor working class families should pay reparations through our taxes is a disgrace.

It is also pure hypocrisy considering the slave trade is alive and well in a lot of countries. If it was truly a case of moral righteousness then that would be the priority.

We have no money. The chancellor today has just changed the government’s rules to allow them to borrow more money.

We’ve appologised, we were instrumental in stopping the slave trade, we’ve send billions in aid overseas. It can’t be done. We really should send artifacts and treasures back however.

Brazil should pay the most, they kept going until the end. In fact my great great grandfather was on one of the ships that chased one of the last slave ships down in 1860 off the coast of the Caribbean.

@GretchenWienersHair Gretchen, the 2015 debt was because in 1833 the UK government bought the freedom of all the slaves in the Empire, using 40% of its national budget to do so.

Wasn't that a GOOD thing to do, to buy their freedom? The slaves wouldn't have been freed otherwise.

Oh really?

So you think it would be fine if 5 million people decided to move here? 10 million? 50 million?
Absolutely anyone from anywhere?

Please do explain how you forsee that working out. Where are all the jobs for them? Where will all these people sleep? What could they eat?

Do you have so little imagination?

This is never happening but I agree with the perception that a Labour PM might be considered a soft touch. I think the answer has been no for some years.

An apology would be an admission of guilt, whereas bland expressions of regret are more like "yes I agree it was bad" ie not taking responsibility

I'd guess they don't want to apologise in case it opens the floodgates for compensation claims

It will NEVER happen. Historically it's only typically happened for countries defeated in war, or within-state settlements with group. Even within-state, the issues are very complex.

I like what we (not currently living in the UK) are doing with respect to Iraq as an example. What we did there was dubious at the time, and with hindsight illegal (not that it really matters) and we unleashed murder and mayhem and a whole cascading set of events. We have a reponsibility there, and we've not ignored it

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-iraq-development-partnership-summary/6059e644-5690-4d79-a664-b2b14a019d64#:~:text=The%20UK%20contributed%20over%20%C2%A3,%2C%20toilet%2C%20and%20shower%20facilities.

The UK contributed over £400 million in humanitarian and stabilisation assistance to those in areas affected by the Daesh conflict. This helped support over 200,000 people with food assistance, over 4.2 million people with healthcare and 690,000 people with safe drinking water, toilet, and shower facilities.

A pp shows it’s already been done anyway

Reparations doesn't just mean money. It could be anything aimed at offering opportunities, reducing inequalities and increasing prosperity.

An official apology was made by Tony Blair. Does every government need to repeat it?

https://www.antislavery.org/latest/tony-blair-apologies-britains-role-slave-trade-2/

17 years ago.

Exactly this - where do you stop?

I think most of us are descended from agricultural workers or people who were down the coal mines in the 19th century so it's a bit of a stretch to say we benefit from slavery or Empire.

Slavery was 200 years ago. Surely it's time to start looking forwards, not backwards?

A lot of that does happen via aid. The bigger issue is what happens to that aid.

Given that the descendants of those slaves got the entire British Empire in the West Indies given to them, do you not think we have given enough? To say nothing of the cost (in money and lives) of the Royal Navy's campaign (begun in 1809) to stop the slave trade.

There is no argument, moral or legal, for the UK to pay so-called "reparations".

We should rather open our eyes to what is going on in the world right now. Who do you think built that fancy hotel for your holiday in Dubai? Football stadiums in the desert? Pick your fancy coffee beans? Slaves, that is who. A simple google will reveal a lot. But it is too uncomfortable to take on some of the richest countries and rulers on the planet than the simpering bishops and politicians, eager to win a vote (and only until they do!)

Those people demanding reparations are chancers. The money if paid no doubt would go to line their pockets when they are already along the wealthiest in their societies. Probably noone lower down in society would see the benefit. They are gold diggers. They are only doing it now because they perceive our government as weak losers (which they are) and because they make those demands at intervals anyway.

For those so obsessed with what the British empire did hundreds of years ago, I consider you absolute hypocrites unless you campaign for current victims of todays slavery in all its forms, with equal or more gusto, as there are plenty of nations using it as current practice. If you aren't doing that you are no more than a virtue signaller.

Most people who demand reparations and similar usually seem very ill informed as to what actually happened in the slave trade, including that Britain took a massive unprecedented step (at the time) in ending it. And didn't only pay that huge debt cited above, but policed the seas etc meaning much, much more cost if you add everything up. They are usually also people who can only give a very one sided 'British empire bad' view of history, which can never be an intelligent, informed or rational one.