David Lammy to open slavery reparations talks after Caribbean ex-colonies demand £18trillion
Caribbean officials are demanding trillions of pounds from the UK as the Foreign Office is open to reparations for slavery.
David Lammy’s office is expected to meet members of the Reparations Commission of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) in April, The Telegraph has claimed.
Caricom, a political grouping of 15 states, has been demanding compensation from former colonial powers for years.
According to Caribbean sources, the meeting has been planned as part of a Caricom delegation of officials and political leaders who will restate demands that Britain pay for its role in the slave trade.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy
Getty
It will be the first delegation of its kind, with Caricom never attempting to hold such a meeting in 14 years of Conservative Government.
Calls for reparations were repeatedly rebuffed by successive Tory Prime Ministers.
It comes after Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley claimed that Britain owes her country £3.9trillion, while a 2023 report put the figure owed to former Caribbean colonies overall at £18trillion.
She had previously put Sir Keir Starmer under pressure by pushing for reparations to be on the agenda at the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit in Samoa last year.
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Barbados PM Mia Mottley has been credited as a key voice in the campaign for reparationGetty
The King and Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley during the Cop26 summit in 2021PALammy has previously voiced support for reparations. In 2020, he said that there was a need for a “reckoning” with Britain’s colonial past, and a process of “repairing.”
Attorney General Lord Hermer has also voiced his support for reparations. In a 2020 podcast for Matrix Chambers, where he served as head of chambers, he said that “there was a moral and legal” case for reparations, and a “certainly moral” argument for it.
Meanwhile, several backbench Labour MPs, as well as former leader Jeremy Corbyn, have voiced their support for some form of reparation.
Corbyn, now the Independent MP for Islington North, told an event in Kingston, Jamaica last year: “The longer Britain continues to drag its feet, the more the case for reparations grows…reparations are about building something new. They are about investing resources…that could now be invested in healthcare, housing and education.”
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn
PA
Among campaigners from Caribbean communities, there is hope that Labour will be more open to the cause of reparations.
Caricom delegates are likely to present an updated set of 10 demands for reparations justice.
A Foreign Office spokesman told The Telegraph there were no plans for a ministerial meeting and no date set for a UK-Caricom meeting.
The spokesman added: “The Government’s position on this issue has not changed – we do not pay reparations.”