KIM RYE
The subject of slavery reparations has once again raised its ugly – and divisive – head with Foreign Secretary David Lammy recently thrust into the spotlight as “sources claim” his department is “set to meet a Caribbean delegation demanding trillions of pounds”, according to the Telegraph.
Representatives of Caricom (the Reparations Commission of the Caribbean Community) is apparently scheduled to visit Britain in April to demand compensation for Britain’s involvement in slavery, during a period of the 18th century when British ships transported over 800,000 enslaved Africans to the West Indies and American colonies. But is it?
Mia Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados has, according to the Telegraph, stated that Britain owes her country £3.9 trillion, while a 2023 report put the figure owed to the Caribbean colonies at £18 trillion. This was backed up by Patrick Robinson, an International Court of Justice judge who stated that reparations should be enshrined in international law, and that Britain was obliged to pay.
David Lammy has a long record of pushing for reparations to “repair” Britain’s colonial past. However, he has more recently claimed that conversations need to be about the future rather than the transfer of cash. According to the Telegraph report a Foreign Office spokesman has declared “the government’s position has not changed – we do not pay reparations.”
However, this has now kicked off an astonishing and extremely confusing row between the Foreign Office and the Telegraph, covered here in full in a MUST WATCH video by Daniel ShenSmith, a YouTuber and barrister, who states that the Foreign Office’s comments are potentially libellous!
An article on the front page of the website of the West Africa Squadron Memorial Fund tells this story of the Royal Navy which was, after the end of the Napoleonic War, the largest navy in the world. Its capture of the slaving ships and its liberation of slaves, many of whom were released on the island of St Helena or on the coast of North Africa, is one of the most illuminating stories in the history of our nation – yet it appears to be little-known; ignored, it seems, by the Conservatives, Labour and the ‘liberal’ mainstream media.
A month ago The News published a story about a project to create a memorial to honour Portsmouth sailors involved in the operation to free the slaves. It appears that a fund of nearly £70,000 from 1,240 donors was set up for an already-built memorial to be placed at Gunwharf Quays, the site of the departure of expeditions to the North Atlantic between 1807 and 1867, during which 1,600 personnel perished attempting to save 150,000 African slaves bound for the USA.
The owners of Gunwharf, Landsec (Real Estate investment company Land Securities Group) and Portsmouth City Council all failed to step up to the plate after talks with the sculptor Vincent Gray and the campaigner Colin Kemp amounted to nothing. Mr. Kemp told The News “The Squadron was based in Portsmouth and many of the current residents will probably have descendants who were in the West Africa Squadron and they should be proud of Portsmouth. It’s the home of the Royal Navy.”
This provokes many questions. 1. Why, when the discussion of reparations is regurgitated, is the question of reparations to the descendants of British sailors who died freeing the slaves never included in the conversation? 2. Why is this not front and centre of the National Curriculum in its Key Stage 3 focus on the transatlantic slave trade? 3. Why have these various authorities and most mainstream media not mentioned this in their discussion and reportage of this subject in a positive light?
Why is Britain always portrayed as the bogeyman of the world?
Also, the navel-gazers of the Left need to research the Barbary slave trade whereupon hundreds of Cornish, Devonian and Southern Irish families, including children, were captured by Barbary corsairs and shipped to North Africa as slaves over a 300-year period from the 1500s. Is that on the National Curriculum? Why the silence? Where’s the memorial?
This government in general loves to play down Britishness, obsessed as it is with curtailing free speech (no more of those conversations in the pub in case it “offends” somebody).
The Labour front-bench, which decries English patriots in particular as ‘far right’, seriously needs to get to grips with the fact that most of us are proud of our nationality and of our history, warts and all. It needs to quit the self-loathing, the obsession with ‘Islamophobia’, and instead address the rise and rise of ‘Britophobia’ currently being promulgated by its followers on the far-left – and present our history more positively, instead of misrepresenting us only as a nation of slave-traders.
Shame on this government for its opacity on the subject of ‘discussions’. Yet more obfuscation from the sorry shower elected to govern us on 4th July last year.
Kim Rye is a former Fleet Street copytaker, freelance journalist and political commentator.
If you enjoy The New Conservative and would like to support our work, please consider buying us a coffee or sharing this piece with your friends – it would really help to keep us going. Thank you!
This article (Reparations – To Pay or Not to Pay?) was created and published by The New Conservative and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Kim Rye
••••
The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)
••••
Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.
••••
Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.
••••
Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Liberty Beacon Project.
Leave a Reply