UK PM Burnham “open” to slavery apology but rules out reparations

Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Saturday he was “open” to the UK issuing a formal apology for its role in the transatlantic slave trade but ruled out financial reparations, Vanguard reported.

The remarks came days before Burnham attends a Commonwealth leaders summit in Antigua and Barbuda, running from November 1 to 4, as King Charles III tours the Caribbean.

“I want to express my sorrow and regret for the pain and suffering of so many millions and to recognise the way it still shapes our world today,” Burnham wrote in the Guardian. He called the slave trade a “brutal and barbaric violation” of the rights of those enslaved.

He said his government wanted a “structured dialogue with those affected.” “Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process and I am open to them,” he wrote.

Burnham again rejected compensation. “I do not believe that is the right answer,” he said. “I do not think that British people today can be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, that happened in a different age under different laws and in which they played no personal part.”

Britain has never formally apologised for slavery or agreed to pay reparations. In the Bahamas on Tuesday, Charles acknowledged “the great suffering of the past” during the first leg of his tour.