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?

All the posters on here talking about themselves, "why should I have to pay this" etc.

But do any of you have any empathy for what other countries went through? There was a huge amount of suffering and genocide and cruelty

It doesn't make sense to me purely because I presume tax will pay for it which is all the public?..
We have members of public that have descended from slavery, we aren't all white.
So are they paying their own ancestors? Just because they are British...

I feel it's very confusing..hopefully I'm wrong 😅 I just don't understand how it works

"People demanding reperations are chancers"

Mmm, but the UK have accepted reperations from other countries in the past?

And I'd like an apology from the Romans for invading, and the bloody Normans for invading. I'd like an apology on behalf of the Scottish part of the family for the Highland clearances, and for the eviction of my Irish families from their homes in the 19th century. And for the aristocracy taking the common land in the village I'm from thereby causing poor people to be even poorer. Lots of those events were either carried out by governments or were allowed as it was rich people doing it to poor people. The poor people, of course, had no say in it and couldn't resist.

I think people do, but whatever you've been told about Britain, it isn't true that Brits and their ancestors have never suffered in the same way as people in other countries.

It's also hard for Brits to accept that we or our ancestors are somehow uniquely culpable for the actions and machinations if mostly wealthy people in the past whom we share nothing with except a nationality.

Why deflect so much though.

You can ask for apologies from those countries.

The same as the people who were invaded and destroyed by the UK, have the right to ask for an apology from the UK government.

@Danajune11 yes and the post WW1 reparations were wrong. The payments bankrupted and humiliated Germany to the extent it led to the rise of Nazism.

I think something can be done but as people have said it is complex and simply demanding trillion of pounds that the UK government does not have is a bit dumb.

The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are around 40m people in slavery around the world in 2024. I think nations around the world should be making a concerted effort to make sure historical wrongs aren't continuously repeated in the modern world.

Given that there are people in the UK enslaved right now, the cost of living crisis, the shoddy state of public services - well you can bang on about empathy all you like but we just don't have 18 trillion, which tbh was hilarious to ask for anyway.

If they want that much, they're going to need to ask China. China have us all by the short and curlies fiscally.

Tony Blair did give an apology, but as it hasn't sunk in yet, it would be worth successive governments repeating it until the rest of the world decides to listen.

Everyday British people are not responsible.

But it's not unusual for a government to acknowledge or apologise for past actions in its country.

Yes, not my ancestors who were being fucked over by the same people getting wealthy off slavery.

Well with the taxes I pay that are to be used for our essential services. Taxes would have to raised for this.

It wasn't much of an apology was it?

He gave a speech about slavery and he didn't say sorry.

He was then asked at the next press conference, why didn't he say sorry.

He then said "well we are sorry".

That was it.
That was all he said.

Four words.

A proper apology talks about what actually happened.

This. It will be a monumental act of self-harm. To afford 19 trillion there will be (nota bene) no public services for 16 years so no hospitals, no education, no bin collections nothing. Think about that. Life as we know it for a generation will stop.

Exactly. So it isn't going to happen.

Although I do think if we ended up paying anything, there needs to be a contract that stipulates no more requests for money will be entertained in future.

You are mis quoting me then responding to your own mis quote.

Also reparations doesn't have an 'e' in the middle.

Do you think it was OK that the UK accepted reparations in the past then?

Have people any idea how much 18 trillion pounds is? Our entire GDP is 2.2 trillon pounds.

Say we did pay the 18 trillion. We would be a wrecked, failed state, vulnerable to hyper inflation, crippling debt payments and worse.

There would be huge amounts of refugees fleeing the UK, a good minority of whom would have the right to return to some of the countries demanding repairations. The people that remained would be destitute and prey to extremist politics.

Would it really benefit the countries demanding this to have a UK that is broken and financially ruined beyond repair - oh and with nuclear weapons.

I didn't misquote you. I typed out word for word what you said.

You wrote "people demanding reparations are chancers".

So I didn't misquote you. (By the way, while youre looking at spelling and grammar typos -there's always one! There should not be a space between mis and quote)

I'm not deflecting. I'm pointing out how ludicrous it is to expect any nation to apologise, or make reparations, for events in the past. Anyone with any knowledge of history can point to all sorts of events which were awful, which was the point I was making. It would be a constant apology / reparations going on forever.
When did we stop the slave trade? 1807
When did the abolition of slavery take place in the colonies? 1834.
And we didn't have adult suffrage until 1928. So the man or woman in the street couldn't have voted to end slavery until then, although many individuals did campaign for an end to slavery including working class people.

But the UK accepted reparations for events that happened in the past.

So why was that OK?

Still mis quoting me.

Ì think we need to be more concerned about modern slavery in any case, but really if the government paid reparations it would be the entire population paying ( again) for something a tiny proportion of people benefitted from. People who are British descendents of slaves, descendents of the British Empire, people who were exploited by the very same people in the UK ( slate miners in Wales, cotton mill workers etc) would be the ones payingvthrough their taxes. The people who should be paying reparations are the families of slave owners who were paid millions upon millions in 'compensation' that allowed them to buy huge swathes of land, stately homes/factories etc in Britain where they continued to exploit people. They are easily identifiable because for most of them, their descendents are still benefitting from that compensation money.