Caribbean leaders hope that the UK will shift its long-standing position on slavery reparations under a new Labour Government.
The chairman of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) reparations commission, Hilary Beckles said Britain might agree to discuss how to address past wrongs and their current day legacy with Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.
Beckles said consecutive British Governments have rejected calls for reparations.
Caricom – which is made up of 15 member states including Jamaica and Barbados – sent letters in 2016 to former European colonial powers including Britain, requesting a meeting on reparations.
Nobody responded to the requests but further appeals are expected soon.
Measures among Caricom’s own reparations plan include European countries formally apologising and demanding debt cancellation and technology transfers.
Beckles said: “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.”
It comes as foreign minister David Lammy is of Caribbean descent and has previously discussed that he is a descendant of enslaved people.
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Ahead of the election, Lammy said his family history would inform his work.
“[Lammy] has been a supporter of the [reparations] discourse while he was in opposition,” Beckles added.
“The question is whether he would be given a free hand in his Government… to take the matter to a higher level.”
Last year a Labour spokesman said reparations were not party policy.
CARICOM – which is made up of 15 member states including Jamaica and Barbados – sent letters in 2016 to former European colonial powers including Britain, requesting a meeting on reparations
Reuters
The topic remains deeply disputed across the globe.
Reparations are set to be on the agenda when Starmer travels to Samoa for a Commonwealth heads of Government meeting later this month.
All three candidates running to be the next Secretary-General of the Commonwealth support reparations.
