Neil Oliver has warned the UK Government that any attempts to pay reparations for slavery would amount to “theft” from the British people. The Scottish historian said those living in the UK had “nothing to do” with the institution and should not be punished for the actions of their ancestors.
It comes as the family of Victorian-era prime minister William Gladstone is preparing to apologise to people in the Caribbean for his family’s part in slavery. Gladstone’s Scottish father was one of the largest slave owners in the British West Indies.
John Gladstone was a Scottish merchant who made a fortune as a Demerara sugar planter and had hundreds of enslaved people working in plantations in the decade before emancipation. After slavery was abolished in 1833, John received the largest compensation payment made by the Slave Compensation Commission – around £93,000, the modern equivalent of about £10million.
Oliver said calls for government reparations were another attempt to “taint” British history. Speaking to GB News, he said: “Obviously the Gladstone family can do as they please with their money. As private people, they can choose to apologise for whatever they want, as long as it doesn’t pave the way for taxpayers’ money being paid in some form of reparation, as long as it doesn’t continue to normalise this notion that we in the present should somehow have to atone financially for things that were done hundreds of years ago.
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“I think it’s undeniable that it’s just part of rubbishing Britain’s past at the moment and seeking to make it look as though the only nation that has ever had lamentable behaviour in its past, that only Britain is guilty of this, historically. Any wealth that Britain had, the British Empire had amassed through whatever, all of that and more was sprayed up the wall and down the drain during the 20th century, especially World War One.
“Then again in World War Two, Britain was financially broken by that. Any and all of that money that had been amassed was gone. And any reparations paid now would be theft from British people who had nothing to do with the slave trade and who saw no benefit from it in any conceivable way.”
Charlie Gladstone, the great-great-great grandson of John, said he “felt absolutely sick” when he found out about his family’s slave-owning past. He described his ancestor as “a vile man” and said: “We have no excuses for him”.
The Gladstone family plan to make their official apology at the opening of the University of Guyana’s International Institute for Migration and Diaspora Studies, which it is reportedly helping to fund with a grant of £100,000. Rob Gladstone, Charlie’s brother, called on the UK Government to begin “reparative justice” by apologising for slavery within the British Empire.
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