Britain’s former colonies should be thankful for the legacy of empire, not demanding reparations, according to the Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick.
In comments that were described by a Labour MP as “deeply offensive”, the former minister said countries that were part of the empire “owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them” in the form of legal and democratic institutions.
Jenrick made the comments in an article in the Daily Mail, pushing back against the growing momentum to provide reparations and justice to countries and people affected by transatlantic slavery.
Commonwealth leaders agreed at the weekend that the “time has come” for a conversation about reparations for the slave trade.
Keir Starmer was among 56 heads of government who signed a document at the Commonwealth summit that acknowledged calls for “discussions on reparatory justice” for the “abhorrent” transatlantic slave trade.
Starmer was criticised before the conference after he told reporters he wanted to “look forward” rather than have “very long endless discussions about reparations on the past”.
Jenrick accused Starmer of doing a U-turn on the issue and of “capitulating to those determined to tear our country down”.
The MP, who is regarded as trailing his rival, Kemi Badenoch, in a run-off for the votes of Conservative members before the announcement of a final result on Saturday, claimed that the debate about reparations had “seeped into our national debate through universities overrun by leftists peddling pseudo-Marxist gibberish to impressionable undergraduates”.
He said: “The territories colonised by our empire were not advanced democracies. Many had been cruel, slave-trading powers. Some had never been independent. The British empire broke the long chain of violent tyranny as we came to introduce – gradually and imperfectly – Christian values.”
Alongside “honesty about the crimes of colonialism”, Jenrick said, Britain should be proud of its “achievements”, instancing the model of common law and other British institutions in former colonies.
He wrote: “I’m not ashamed of our history. It may not feel like it, but many of our former colonies – amid the complex realities of empire – owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them.”
Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations, which has organised Britain’s second national conference on reparations, taking place on Sunday, described Jenrick’s comments as “deeply offensive and an obnoxious distortion of history”.
She said: “Enslavement and colonialism were not ‘gifts’ but imposed systems that brutally exploited people, extracted wealth, and dismantled societies, all for the benefit of Britain. To suggest that former colonies should be ‘grateful’ for such unimaginable harm disregards the legacy of these injustices and the long-term impact they still have on many nations today.
“Following Brexit we need to establish ourselves as a nation that everyone can do business with. We cannot afford such vile, baseless commentary. Whilst it might send perfectly pitched dog whistles for a Tory leadership contest, these insulting sentiments are catastrophic for international relations.”
Days before the deadline for Conservative members to cast their votes on who should succeed Rishi Sunak as leader, Badenoch has also spoken out against reparations, claiming that British politicians are “too embarrassed” to be visibly against the idea.
“I would not put my name to any document that mentioned reparations,” she told the Telegraph.