\n<\/p>\n
Commonwealth politicians say they will not back down from seeking reparations as UK public figures, including a former Reform insider, warn the rightwing party\u2019s pledge to \u201cpunish\u201d countries seeking justice for slavery would harm and isolate Britain.<\/p>\n
This week, Reform UK said they would halt visas for nationals of countries formally demanding reparations<\/a> from Britain if they took power.<\/p>\n Arley Gill, the head of Grenada<\/a> Reparations Commission, said: \u201cIt is not funny that they think after years of invading and colonising a people that they think a British visa for those same people is a privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n Last month a resolution spearheaded by Ghana<\/a>, which described the historical transatlantic trafficking and enslavement of Africans as \u201cthe gravest crime against humanity\u201d and called for reparations, was passed by the UN general assembly.<\/p>\n Zia Yusuf, Reform\u2019s home affairs spokesperson, said on Monday the UK was being \u201cridiculed on the world stage\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile countries like Jamaica, Nigeria and Ghana<\/a> ramp up their demands for reparations, the Westminster establishment has rewarded them. Enough is enough,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sri Lanka, where Yusuf\u2019s parents migrated from, is among countries seeking colonial redress <\/a>from the UK.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Ralph Gonsalves, the opposition leader and former prime minister of St Vincent and Grenadines, accused Farage of \u201cdoing an imitative Trump\u201d and \u201cseeking another cultural wedge issue\u201d that \u201cwill certainly isolate Britain further.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNone of us in the Caribbean<\/a> who are advocating reparations would be cowed by that sort of talk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, the present is the past because of the legacy of underdevelopment, which can be empirically sourced to native genocide and the enslavement of African bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n The UK has never formally apologised for slavery.<\/p>\n Calling for \u201cinter-nation dialogue\u201d, Hilary Beckles, the chair of Caricom reparations commission, said \u201cthe idea the victims of an enormous crime calling for justice are to be doubly punished is tragic.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cCrimes against humanity have been committed against so many people on this planet and most have now received some form of apology (or) reparations.<\/p>\n \u201cThe view seems to be that the legacy of toxic racism, the legacy of white supremacy politics is still so intense that Black people are deemed undeserving \u2026 (but) I think the British parliament is filled with people who do not share that view.<\/p>\n \u201cI have no doubt in time the British people and the British government will come to realise (dialogue) is what is required.\u201d<\/p>\n On Tuesday, the Reform leader, Nigel Farage<\/a>, said the UK had spent \u201cfour decades on the high seas \u2026 driving slavery off the world\u2019s oceans\u201d.<\/p>\n Gill said Reform\u2019s position showed a \u201cterrible lack of knowledge\u201d of the issues, highlighting that enslavers were compensated by British taxpayers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last month, the UK and Nigeria agreed a \u00a3746m deal <\/a>in which the UK would provide loan financing to refurbish two major ports in Lagos. The deal includes a \u00a370m contract for loss-making British Steel in Lincolnshire, which has a Reform UK mayor.<\/p>\n Neville Watson, was Reform UK\u2019s only Black branch chair until he left last year, having called for reparations.<\/p>\n Watson, the Christian People\u2019s Alliance candidate for 2028\u2019s London mayoral elections, said Reform\u2019s stance would \u201cpunish nations for raising legitimate historical claims\u201d and compound UK skills shortages.<\/p>\n He described the UK-Nigeria trade deal as a reminder our \u201cprosperity is seated in partnership\u201d, adding that the Reform visa policy would \u201ctear down the very fabric of trade and diplomacy\u201d.<\/p>\n Antoinette Fernandez, the global majority Greens reparations officer, said: \u201cBritain outlawed slavery because consistent slave uprisings made it no longer profitable.<\/p>\n \u201cReparative justice is about correcting not just the wrongs of the past but the ongoing exploitation of African countries \u2013 a large majority of which still provide natural resources and goods to Europe for which they are consistently shortchanged.\u201d<\/p>\n Bell Ribeiro-Addy, a Labour MP and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afrikan Reparations said Reform\u2019s policy was a \u201cridiculous provocation\u201d, adding \u201creparatory justice was never simply about money. The demand is for acknowledgment, truth-telling and structural repair.\u201d<\/p>\n She added: \u201cReform have either failed to grasp that, or chosen to ignore it. What they are effectively doing is threatening the descendants of the enslaved for insisting the transatlantic slave trade be recognised as a crime against humanity. Some still believe they sit at the head of a table the rest of the world was never invited to. The world is changing.\u201d<\/p>\n Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich South, said: \u201cThe total death toll (of slavery) may exceed 20 million. We confront that history honestly not as an act of self-flagellation but because the alternative \u2013 the insistence that power never has to account for itself \u2013 is exactly the logic that makes atrocities possible in every generation.\u201d<\/p>\n Since Brexit, the UK has turned again to former African, Caribbean and Asian colonies to fill skills shortages<\/a> in teaching, health, social care and the Prison Service.<\/p>\n At a press conference on Tuesday where Farage was asked if the party had done any modelling on cost and the impact on UK employers, he said they would not backdate the visa block.<\/p>\n Keir Starmer has previously said the UK would not pay reparations<\/a>, but No 10 has indicated the country could support some forms of reparatory justice<\/a>, such as restructuring financial institutions and debt relief.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n