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?

Do you seriously think that ordinary people voted government in in those days?

All this will do is cause more divisions and resentment amongst people in Britain and around the world. Race relations in this country are already on the way down. We don't want to find up like the US, however I feel we are going that way.

I wonder how much it will strain the existence of the Commonwealth

We shouldn't entertain it, but hearing the guy this morning he won't give up

I do think it’s incredibly messy and brings up the question of where do you draw a line in history. Do we chase up the Scandinavians for vikings or the French for the the Norse? Are the Italians to blame for the Roman Empire? Should all the countries that only exist because of colonialism be handed back to their indigenous owners?

To be honest there probably needs to be some form of global reset where everyone is entitled to a set amount food/ shelter/ healthcare.Those that can should labour. Everyone should have what they need. I know it all sounds a bit communist and I don’t think it’d ever come to pass. A billion people go to sleep hungry at night whereas waste of food is an enormous issue in other places.

Slavery still exists in many places too. How do you fix the problems of the past when it’s ongoing? As global consumers do we also bear responsibility for the Chinese people forced to labour in reeducation camps. Who benefits? who pays?

Living in the past forever helps nobody, look at the current events at the moment for proof. Yes we memoralise, we treat the past with dignity where we were wrong, we teach our children of the past mistakes, but this endless self flagellation doesn’t help.

That’s true. The English feudal system was pretty close to slavery too. These were decisions made by a tiny minority. Mainly they benefited themselves. Possibly we take all the wealth from the landowning classes and divvy that up between all the oppressed people , internal and external, of ye olde British empire and their descendants. I look forward to my fiver.

But the UK were happy to receive a lot of reparations after world war 1.

If they are happy to receive reparations for wrongdoing against them, they should be happy to give reparations to countries they have committed wrongdoing on

No one is saying the ordinary people should apologise though are they.

They are saying that the government should apologise for past wrongdoings. They haven't apologised for one single thing.

And a lot of the world is worse off to this day, because of what the UK did to them

Well written post. Thanks.

one problem is that the people who have to pay for it are ordinary people. There is no magic money tree - what are you willing to sacrifice in order to pay? The NHS? Benefits? Higher taxes?

Who will the money go to? Not the people who actually suffered due to the passage of time (unlike the German reparations to the Jewish people for example)

How do you put a figure on something that happened over 200 years ago?

We should absolutely never forget that it happened or gloss over it but I don't think monetary compensation is feasible. Contributing to stamping out modern slavery would be a better action IMO (and should, obviously, be prioritised anyway)

Yes, reparations were made as part of the peace agreement after WW1. Immediately after. And they were paid to, and by, specific countries. Not to individuals. It could also be argued that those reparations had a hand in the events that lead to WW2. The Nazis made a big thing about the unfairness or illegality of those payments.
Nothing is simple. And the further back we go the more difficult it becomes to compensate for wrongdoing in the past.

The relevant countries in South America can seek reparations from Spain and Portugal if they want.

The countries that the UK invaded, want reparations from the UK.

The destroyed a lot of the world, and the effects last to this day.

It can't just be glossed over

They are saying that the ordinary people should pay.

Where would the money come from? I came here as an immigration and never slaved anybody so do I have to pay for this too? I have been paying a lot to help the most vulnerable already.

The fact stands that the UK were happy to receive reperations from another country.

Yes, leave reperations out of it for a monet, the UK have never done ONE thing to compensate for wrongdoings in the past. The UK have never acknowledged things they have done to other countries. They have never acknowledged anything.They have never apologised even. A lot of countries have been left totally destroyed by the UK. And the effects are felt to this day.

You know there is a lot of bad feeling towards the UK round the world.

I think the UK are being stupid in prolonging such bad feeling againt the UK, and in not even attempting to even acknowledge or apologise

Who's "they".

The ordinary person has never had to pay reperations. It's always the government

Why on earth would you have to pay for anything?

Reperations are paid for by a government

As the government gets money from taxation that will be us.

Well the government should at least issue an apology

I think you will find that Tony Blair did apologise.

The government, who doesn't even put their hand in their pocket to pay the heating bill on their second home, you think those guys will be footing the bill?

Governments raise money through taxation though so we all pay though surely?

Even if we did pay reparations, where would the money go? I don’t think I’m much more cynical than the average, but I wouldn’t like to bet on how much would end up in corrupt pockets.

He was asked by a journalist why he didn't say sorry in a previous speech.

And he answered "well we are sorry".
That was it. To be honest it's a very brief 4 word apology. Its not much of an apology. He didn't give any details at all.

What leaders should do is read out a proper apology acknowledging all the different issues that the commonwealth countries and former colonies have gone through after British invasion.

I think this is a good thread to highlight something in the news today.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/i-uncovered-the-horrors-inside-saudi-detention-centres/

Slavery still exists. It’s one flavour of the inhumanity people have always shown to other people. The exploitation of migrant workers happens all over the world. It’s not all about skin colour, but it is true that a lot of the people in modern-day slavery come from Africa or south-east Asia. It’s easier for us to engage in debate about stuff that happened hundreds of years ago than see today’s problem.