by David Blair, Telegraph
To escape the cycle of Commonwealth recrimination, we must bury the post-colonial dogma of our diplomats
David Blair Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator Show biography
Published 02 November 2026 6:00am GMT
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How did it come to this? Are we doomed to bring out the worst in each other? As the King tours the Caribbean and Andy Burnham prepares to join Commonwealth leaders at this week’s summit in Antigua and Barbuda, one cry will drown everything else: Britain must pay reparations for slavery.
Nothing reflects more poorly on our relationship with the Commonwealth than the fact that all 34 African and Caribbean members have joined hands to endorse this demand.
As for how much Britain owes for its part in the Atlantic slave trade, one answer is $26.2tn (£19.7tn), according to a report compiled for the University of the West Indies by the Brattle Group, a US consultancy. That sum amounts to six times Britain’s entire GDP, 14 times the UK’s total national budget, or £281,000 from every man, woman and child in the country.
You might be reassured to learn that Burnham is not going to agree to the economic equivalent of dynamiting the British Isles and sinking them beneath the waves for eternity.
Instead, the Prime Minister set out his approach in The Guardian on Friday. In brief, Burnham is willing to abase himself and “face up to the past” – he is even “open to” a formal apology, apparently regardless of the legal obligations that it might create – but when it comes to reparations, his response is: “I do not believe that is the right answer.”
The danger is that Burnham will trap Britain in the worst position of all: agreeing that it deserves to be in the dock, conceding the principle of the case for the prosecution but opposing the suggested remedy.
Thanks to a strange case of ideological groupthink that unites British diplomats and politicians with Caribbean leaders, Burnham will give the latter everything except what they most want, which means this destructive issue will probably run and run.
Read also: Burnham hands Caribbean £40m after demands to atone for slave trade by Daniel Martin, Telegraph