Caribbean leaders hope new UK government is open to talks on slavery reparations

LONDON — Caribbean leaders hope that Britain under its new Labor government might shift its long-standing position on slavery reparations and agree to discuss how to address past wrongs and their current day legacy.

Consecutive British governments have rejected calls for reparations but the chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) reparations commission, Hilary Beckles, said this stance might change under the new Labour administration. In 2016 CARICOM, which groups 15 member states including Jamaica and Barbados, sent letters to former European colonial powers including Britain, requesting a meeting on reparations. None agreed to it but renewed calls are expected soon.

“It is our intention to persist with this strategy of calling for a summit (with European nations) to work through what a reparatory justice model ought to look like in the case of the Caribbean,” Beckles told Reuters this week. CARICOM has its own reparations plan, opens new tab, which, among other measures, urges European countries to formally apologise and demands debt cancellation and technology transfers. Britain’s new foreign minister David Lammy is of Caribbean descent and often refers to himself as a descendant of enslaved people. In an interview, opens new tab with The Guardian newspaper before the election, Lammy said his family history would inform his work.