Britain’s former colonies should be thanking this country for the legacy of Empire, not demanding reparations, Robert Jenrick has said.
Writing in the Daily Mail, the Tory leadership contender says Commonwealth countries owe Britain a ‘debt of gratitude’ for the democratic institutions inherited from the Empire.
Mr Jenrick savages Sir Keir Starmer for ‘capitulating’ to pressure at the weekend and signing up to a Commonwealth Summit declaration which commits leaders to starting a ‘conversation’ about reparations for the transatlantic slave trade.
Some campaigners have claimed that reparations could eventually run to £19 trillion – seven times the annual output of the entire British economy.
Mr Jenrick calls for an end to the narrative ‘stoked by a liberal elite and Labour politicians’ that Britain should regard its imperial past with ‘crippling shame’.
He says that while the British Empire was not an ‘unadulterated good’, people should be ‘very proud indeed’ of its record.
And he points out that the Royal Navy spent years battling to end the slave trade, adding: ‘British blood was spilled fighting the African kings that sought to perpetuate it’.
Downing Street yesterday insisted that the declaration at the end of the Commonwealth Summit in Samoa at the weekend would not result in Britain paying vast reparations to former colonies in the Caribbean.
The PM’s official spokesman told reporters that Sir Keir was ‘focused on looking forwards, not backwards, and working with Commonwealth countries on the challenges of the future.’
He added: ‘The PM’s made clear the UK’s stance on reparations is that we do not pay reparations. We need to look forwards, not backwards.’
Chancellor Rachel Reeves warned last night that the UK could not afford to pay reparations on the scale being demanded.
But senior Labour figures are pushing Sir Keir to engage with Commonwealth countries on the issue.
Former Labour Cabinet minister Baroness Amos said that Britain had not understood the damage done to Caribbean countries by the abhorrent trade and did not appreciate ‘the importance of saying sorry’.
Lady Amos, who has been tipped to be the next British ambassador to the United States, told the BBC that Britain had to ‘deal with the legacy of a very dark past’.
Left-wing Labour MPs have also criticised Sir Keir’s reluctance to move faster on the issue, with Clapham and Brixton Hill MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy saying his approach ‘reeks of colonialism’.
Voting closes in the Tory leadership contest on Thursday, with members choosing between Mr Jenrick and the former business secretary Kemi Badenoch. Rishi Sunak’s successor will be announced on Saturday.
In an interview with Sky News yesterday, Mrs Badenoch said she wanted to make the country ‘more Conservative’.
But she also voiced fears about the impact becoming prime minister could have on her family, saying: ‘I am very well aware of how life could change, for the worse in, in many circumstances. But I also worry even more about the direction of the country and what will happen unless we can turn things around.’