This is an extract from an essay published on Matt Goodwin’s Substack on 2nd November.
Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham has just sparked a national debate by saying he is “open” to making a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.
“Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state”, he wrote in The Guardian newspaper at the weekend, will form an important part of the process of having a dialogue with nations affected by the transatlantic slave trade.
“I am open to them”, said Burnham, signalling his support for a formal apology.
But I strongly disagree. Britain should neither be apologising nor paying financial reparations for its role in the slave trade. Here’s why.
Nobody denies that slavery was horrific. Human beings were bought, sold, separated from their families and worked to death. It was utterly appalling.
But the calls for a formal apology, which will inevitably open the door to enormous financial “reparations” being paid to those same nations, must be strongly opposed.
While I suspect that we will not hear about it on the BBC, in school classrooms, or university seminars, Britain led the world in efforts to abolish the slave-trade.
We formally abolished the practice in 1807, legislated to abolish slavery across much of the British Empire in the 1830s, and deployed considerable naval power to ensure that the slave-trade was brought to an end.
Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham has just sparked a national debate by saying he is “open” to making a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.
“Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state”, he wrote in The Guardian newspaper at the weekend, will form an important part of the process of having a dialogue with nations affected by the transatlantic slave trade.
“I am open to them”, said Burnham, signalling his support for a formal apology.
But I strongly disagree. Britain should neither be apologising nor paying financial reparations for its role in the slave trade. Here’s why.
Nobody denies that slavery was horrific. Human beings were bought, sold, separated from their families and worked to death. It was utterly appalling.
But the calls for a formal apology, which will inevitably open the door to enormous financial “reparations” being paid to those same nations, must be strongly opposed.
While I suspect that we will not hear about it on the BBC, in school classrooms, or university seminars, Britain led the world in efforts to abolish the slave-trade.
We formally abolished the practice in 1807, legislated to abolish slavery across much of the British Empire in the 1830s, and deployed considerable naval power to ensure that the slave-trade was brought to an end.
Britain led the world in efforts to abolish the slave-trade.
Britain has a history that includes some wrongs. But it also includes people who recognised those wrongs and risked their lives to put them right. Their courage belongs in our national memory too.
As we approach Remembrance Sunday, I think of the generations of British people who sacrificed everything so that others could live in freedom.
We owe them an honest account of the country they served, one that recognises Britain’s achievements alongside its failures and one that protects the British people of today who are not responsible for what happened centuries ago.
We should be looking forward, building stronger trading relationships with many of these nations, helping to free people who are enslaved today, and teaching our children both the positives and negatives in our past.
Yet another apology, yet another cheque paid for by the British people, will neither liberate a living slave nor improve the lives of the struggling British people. We should be remembering our history with honesty and putting our own people first.
And it is time our Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, did the same.
Subscribe to Matt Goodwin’s Substack here.
As we approach Remembrance Sunday, I think of the generations of British people who sacrificed everything so that others could live in freedom.
We owe them an honest account of the country they served, one that recognises Britain’s achievements alongside its failures and one that protects the British people of today who are not responsible for what happened centuries ago.
We should be looking forward, building stronger trading relationships with many of these nations, helping to free people who are enslaved today, and teaching our children both the positives and negatives in our past.
Yet another apology, yet another cheque paid for by the British people, will neither liberate a living slave nor improve the lives of the struggling British people. We should be remembering our history with honesty and putting our own people first.
And it is time our Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, did the same.
Subscribe to Matt Goodwin’s Substack here.
Photo by: Hussain Badshah.
