Burnham wrote: \u201cThe Britain I believe in is confident, decent and brave. We led the world in abolishing slavery \u2013 and we can show leadership again today.\u201d<\/p>\n
While any formal statement will depend on that dialogue, Burnham gave what amounted to a personal apology, saying he wanted to share his \u201csorrow and regret\u201d for the pain and suffering of millions of people, and to recognise the way the slave trade still shapes the world now.<\/p>\n
However, he rejected demands from Caribbean countries and campaigners for the UK to pay financial reparations for its role in the slave trade, maintaining the position of successive governments that British people today could not be held liable for the past.<\/p>\n
He wrote that reparations were not the \u201cright answer\u201d, adding: \u201cI do not think that British people today can be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, which happened in a different age under different laws and in which they played no personal part.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, Burnham said he would launch a new drive to restructure debt for the poorest Commonwealth countries \u2013 led by former prime minister Gordon Brown and expected to eventually include organisations such as the IMF \u2013 helping them repay debt over a longer period and with better interest rates.<\/p>\n
Debt servicing costs for the poorest and most vulnerable Commonwealth countries are at their highest in more than 25 years, he added, with more than 40% of those spending more on interest repayments than on health.<\/p>\n
Burnham\u2019s intervention follows years of pressure from Caribbean states, backed by some African countries, for European nations including the UK, France and Spain to offer reparations<\/a> \u2013 including monetary compensation, a full formal apology, support for health and education and debt cancellation.<\/p>\n As recently as last week, the Commonwealth secretary general, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, said a formal apology for slavery<\/a> from King Charles, who will attend the heads of government summit, \u201cwouldn\u2019t hurt\u201d and the \u201ctime has come\u201d for a serious conversation on reparations.<\/p>\n Writing for the Guardian, Burnham said: \u201cThe transatlantic slave trade was a brutal and barbaric violation of those people. They were denied their humanity. They were separated from their families, treated as property and worked to their deaths.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to express my sorrow and regret for the pain and suffering of so many millions and to recognise the way it still shapes our world today.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cWe are offering a structured dialogue with those affected by the transatlantic slave trade. Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process and I am open to them.\u201d<\/p>\n A protester from the Guyana reparations committee holds a placard as people demonstrate on the day King Charles visited Georgetown, during a tour of Caribbean nations that will also take him to Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Photograph: Isabel Infantes\/Reuters<\/p>\n Burnham\u2019s intervention received a cautious welcome from leading figures in the Caribbean. Dorbrene O\u2019Marde, the chair of the Antigua and Barbuda reparations support commission, said his organisation welcomed the statement as \u201ca movement in the correct direction in the interest of reparatory justice and humanity generally\u201d.<\/p>\n But, he added: \u201cWe reject the decision that financial reparations will not be on the table.\u201d<\/p>\n Ralph Gonsalves, former prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines and a senior figure in the Repair campaign<\/a>, told the Guardian that an apology was the first point in the Caribbean community\u2019s 10-point reparations plan but \u201cthough necessary, is insufficient\u201d.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cWe are pleased to hear that [the UK] comes into a conversation. But it can\u2019t be a conversation about nothing. It has to be a conversation about something. If they are not going to entertain reparations, what is the conversation about? Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Sir Hilary Beckles, the chair of the Caricom reparations commission, said he believed Burnham \u201cis carrying the broad middle of British opinion on this matter\u201d.<\/p>\n He said the call for financial reparations need not be a stumbling block to progress: \u201cThere are much broader issues that can occupy that dialogue. So you don\u2019t know what you will emerge out until you have a conversation of decency.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the prime minister will find that Caribbean leaders are very reasonable people on the matter of developing a new Anglo-Caribbean bond \u2026 words are important, but the spirit of collaboration is more important.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement, the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, said Barbados was committed to a dialogue \u201cand will take part in good faith as a member of Caricom\u201d.<\/p>\n In the statement, she thanked Burnham for \u201cbreaking new ground\u201d but said she and the UK government \u201care not yet on the same page on every element\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter |Every day<\/p>\n Sign up to Headlines UK<\/p>\n Get the day\u2019s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cOn reparations in particular, our views differ, and we will say so plainly and respectfully. Honest disagreement on some questions should not hold back progress on the many others where we can readily agree.<\/p>\n \u201cAn apology, a commitment to eradicate a mindset that is anchored in Afrophobia and against all things \u201cblack\u201d, investment in health and education, development partnership that fights systemic poverty and institutionalised inequality, and fairer terms on debt for vulnerable states, as called for by the Bridgetown Initiative, are a few of the areas where we believe understanding can be reached and settled,\u201d her statement said.<\/p>\n \u201cI thank prime minister Burnham and his foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, for breaking new ground and recognising that this is the right thing, and the moral thing, to do by ensuring that we move to the next stage of engagement on this difficult and emotional issue,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n Jamaica\u2019s prime minister, Andrew Holness, also welcomed Burnham\u2019s willingness to discuss a formal apology. In September, Jamaican officials lodged a landmark petition<\/a> to the king seeking legal advice on its claim for slavery reparations, which will be heard by the privy council in March.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have always been open to having full and meaningful dialogue on this important issue. We welcome this development, coming in the wake of our legal petition which is now before the privy council,\u201d Holness said in a statement.<\/p>\n The UK government has taken a cautious approach to the issue amid pressure from leftwing<\/a> MPs to offer a formal apology and engage in reparatory justice, alongside concerns over the potential fiscal and electoral impact, with polls suggesting most voters are opposed<\/a> to financial compensation.<\/p>\n The Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm), which King Charles will also attend, runs from Sunday 1 November until Wednesday 4 November.<\/p>\n At the previous Chogm summit in Samoa two years ago, Britain\u2019s former colonies agreed \u201cthe time has come\u201d for a dialogue about reparations \u2013 even though then-prime minister Keir Starmer said it would not be on the agenda.<\/p>\n Officially, this year\u2019s theme is \u201caccelerating partnerships and investment\u201d, with discussions on climate, youth employment, growth and trade between the 56 member countries, which between them represent 2.7 billion people.<\/p>\n Some inside the UK government had questioned whether Burnham should even attend after the reparations row dominated the 2024 gathering. But his decision to address the issue head-on is likely to be welcomed in Antigua and Barbuda.<\/p>\n Campaigners see the summit as the culmination of decades of advocacy from Caribbean leaders for a deeper acknowledgment of the UK\u2019s historic responsibility for the enslavement of millions of Africans.<\/p>\n Advocates say the UK had been under increasing pressure to act after a UN resolution in March which described the trafficking and racialised chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.<\/p>\n The UK was among the 52 countries that abstained, saying that while it recognised the gravity of the issue, it disagreed with the fundamental proposition<\/a> of the text which it said risked creating a hierarchy of historical atrocities.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1793411890_828_500.jpg\")
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