It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The difference between an Empire and a Commonwealth.
In an Empire, this proposal could have been shot down-literally if necessary. In a Commonwealth where lots of national leaders get kudos from their voters for this sort of thing, there's much less Britain can do. Primus inter pares is a much weaker position than Primus.
It's the question that has plagued us since 1945- what exactly is Britain's role? One can say "soft power, punching above its weight, top of the second division, honest broker..." but what does that actually look like? And is the national psyche prepared for that? Neither "we're great" or "we're awful" is satisfactory, let alone mad flapping between the two.
I think the Commonwealth can still be a forum for the exchange of law, education, democratic practice, and culture. However, it requires the UK to do a lot of the heavy lifting, and I think the FO sees it is an embarrassing relic.
As for the UK itself, it ought to aim to be the dominant economic, scientific, cultural and naval power in Europe, with London positioned as the global agora.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Howard Jacobson was right, that Edward Said managed to turn perpetual grievance into an academic discipline.
If only Said had adopted the measured and generous Jewish attitude to their (justified) grievance.
If this farm boy may make an obvious point: The industrial revolution was made possible by the farming revolution. Which, in turn, relied on the great Columbian exchange.
It was about 1900 that more than half the US work force no longer worked on farms.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
If this farm boy may make an obvious point: The industrial revolution was made possible by the farming revolution. Which, in turn, relied on the great Columbian exchange.
It was about 1900 that more than half the US work force no longer worked on farms.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
This is a rather unpleasant truth, but it’s a truth nonetheless.
I would probably argue though the institutions left by the British in the extractive economies of the Caribbean don’t especially enable the likes of Jamaica to prosper in the modern world.
Relatedly, witness the educational performance of African Black British versus Caribbean Black British in UK schools.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
West Africa was probably the region most damaged by slavery. Its working age population, and that of the Central African hinterland, was emptied out many times over. By European traders to the West and Arab traders to the East.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
West Africa was probably the region most damaged by slavery. Its working age population, and that of the Central African hinterland, was emptied out many times over. By European traders to the West and Arab traders to the East.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
This is a rather unpleasant truth, but it’s a truth nonetheless.
One aspect being the 'traditional British education' that was a colonial legacy.
I can remember Bernie Grant praising it and here's another example:
In her 1970 autobiography, Unbought and Unbossed, she wrote: "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason."
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
Does the value of Barbados get offset against the reparations?
More to the point, they can’t actually force us to pay…
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
West Africa was probably the region most damaged by slavery. Its working age population, and that of the Central African hinterland, was emptied out many times over. By European traders to the West and Arab traders to the East.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
This is a rather unpleasant truth, but it’s a truth nonetheless.
One aspect being the 'traditional British education' that was a colonial legacy.
I can remember Bernie Grant praising it and here's another example:
In her 1970 autobiography, Unbought and Unbossed, she wrote: "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason."
WIthout following the entire subthread, that sounds to be like a parallel to the way many hicks-from-the-sticks Usonians would refer to the "little red schoolhouse" that taught them the basics well enough for them to get ahead.
I first met that reference in an Alistair Cooke book called "The Great and the Good".
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
Surely as democracies they have the right to ask. And as a democracy we have the right to say no.
If Trump was authentic he'd open every rally with, "Ha, just look at all you suckers believing I give a shit about anything but my own wealth power and glorification."
He's an almighty fraud. Anybody can't see that needs to go to specsavers.
The sad thing is he could actually say that now and they would still cheer!
Somewhat amazingly that's right. Most would.
Michael Moore called it right way back in 2016. Nothing much has changed in the last eight years, at least not against Trump and what he stands for.
If the politicians don’t bring the people with them, and the middle class gets hollowed out in favour of a small elite, then eventually those disaffected will vote for the revolution.
Trump is not 'bringing the people with him'. He is lying to them; giving them simple answers to complex issues; blaming the 'other'.
He and his ilk will not help the average man and woman in America. He will help the grifters and the techbroes. And whilst he does it, he will lie and blame the *other*. which is fine if you are not the 'other' - until, as history shows, you become the 'other'.
No, the problem is that the traditional politicans are not bringing the people with them, which is why they are voting for the revolutionary.
The revolutionary may or may not actually help them, but he’s at least making the effort to talk to them before the election.
The current discussion on reparations comes to mind…
Group of politicians: you must pay reparations because of our moral values. You don’t have a choice.
Electorate : We don’t want to
Group of politicians: then you are scum
The joke is that a portion of the political class has now, for generations, proclaimed the absolute power of democracy and contempt for elites. Meaning the old elites. The Old10K.
The plebs *heard* that they are sovereign. And “‘Must' is not a word to use to princes.”
So we have a political class that believes that it decides on right and wrong, and the electorate must solemnly assent to their virtue.
And an electorate that agrees with Mirabeau - “When the people complain, the people are always right.”
I'm old enough to remember how Brexit was sold as an opportunity to rekindle our Commonwealth links. How quickly a new hope has turned into the empire strikes back.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
West Africa was probably the region most damaged by slavery. Its working age population, and that of the Central African hinterland, was emptied out many times over. By European traders to the West and Arab traders to the East.
You forgot the African traders in the middle.
Yes, the slave trade and the industrial capitalism of Great Britain shared the same origins for their wealth. This is the extraction and alienation of labour from the value that it produced, with the rich accumulating the products of that labour. Certainly the African middlemen benefitted, as did British ship owners, insurers, financiers and factory owners making chains in the Black Country. More benefit came to Britsh merchants due to to the terms of trade, and more harm to the African slaves than the coal-miners of Wigan.
It would be more just to see economic reparations based on class than race, but when there is even the mildest hint of that in next week's budget the PB Blimps go apoplectic.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
Yes, it’s geopolitical reality.
As I said yesterday, the fact is much of the developing world now has a new benefactor showering money and investment on it, no strings attached (well, strings attached but different ones).
So this is a bidding game. In this case instead of being called something like “belt and road” or “Wagner” it’s labelled “reparations”.
Britain either plays or doesn’t. France has already been strategically defeated on this, so we’re not the first.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
You don't walk out. You just say "No. You must be joking!" and sit there. You certainly don't sign a declaration that opens the door. You refuse to sign. Simple.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
Surely as democracies they have the right to ask. And as a democracy we have the right to say no.
Certainly so, but saying no doesn't guarantee either popularity or support next time we need some friends. That's just Realpolitik.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
West Africa was probably the region most damaged by slavery. Its working age population, and that of the Central African hinterland, was emptied out many times over. By European traders to the West and Arab traders to the East.
And its still being emptied with people traffickers being the modern slave traders.
The Nigerian nurses at the local hospital being another aspect of human resources taken from their homeland to benefit richer countries.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
David Lloyd George’s childhood cottage is to be “decolonised” with the help of funding from the Welsh Government.
The Liberal prime minister’s modest birthplace in rural Wales has been converted into a museum, which has been swept into plans to make his homeland “anti-racist”.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
Surely as democracies they have the right to ask. And as a democracy we have the right to say no.
Certainly so, but saying no doesn't guarantee either popularity or support next time we need some friends. That's just Realpolitik.
Realpolitik is rejoining our friends in the EU as equals. The Commonwealth is an outdated relic. Members of he Commonwealth have more to lose on its demise than we do. And the Queen is dead so no offence.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
I don't think that's a precedent. There were still people alive in 2013 who would have either directly participated in, or suffered from the actions for which the compensation was being paid. Legally, morally and practically it's very different from something four times longer ago, roughly speaking seven generations.
The point-scoring and hyperbole on both sides of this argument is mad.
David Lloyd George’s childhood cottage is to be “decolonised” with the help of funding from the Welsh Government.
The Liberal prime minister’s modest birthplace in rural Wales has been converted into a museum, which has been swept into plans to make his homeland “anti-racist”.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
I don't think that's a precedent. There were still people alive in 2013 who would have either directly participated in, or suffered from the actions for which the compensation was being paid. Legally, morally and practically it's very different from something four times longer ago, roughly speaking seven generations.
The point-scoring and hyperbole on both sides of this argument is mad.
It's clearly seen as a precedent or it would not have been mentioned.
The first, American, was developed on the back of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but bequeathed the Declaration of Independence and the Slave Trade Acts of 1807 and 1833.
The second was India, which was essentially farmed for tax. There’s an unresolved debate about whether British “deindustrialised India”, or - via railways and irrigation - left a much better off country. It seems difficult to imagine the fact of the “world’s largest democracy” without the imperial legacy.
The third were the settler colonies - including NZ - where development invariably took place on the sometimes dubious seizure of native lands. Yet (and this colours my opinion of colonialism overall) I think we should surely celebrate the success of these countries in establishing largely happy, liberal, and economically successful polities. Rather indeed a New Zealand than a Haiti.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
West Africa was probably the region most damaged by slavery. Its working age population, and that of the Central African hinterland, was emptied out many times over. By European traders to the West and Arab traders to the East.
And its still being emptied with people traffickers being the modern slave traders.
The Nigerian nurses at the local hospital being another aspect of human resources taken from their homeland to benefit richer countries.
A few years back I was told it was racist to want to train 100%+ of the NHS staff requirement in the U.K.
David Lloyd George’s childhood cottage is to be “decolonised” with the help of funding from the Welsh Government.
The Liberal prime minister’s modest birthplace in rural Wales has been converted into a museum, which has been swept into plans to make his homeland “anti-racist”.
Wasn’t he born in Manchester, and moved to N Wales as a child.
The first, American, was developed on the back of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but bequeathed the Declaration of Independence and the Slave Trade Acts of 1807 and 1833.
The second was India, which was essentially farmed for tax. There’s an unresolved debate about whether British “deindustrialised India”, or - via railways and irrigation - left a much better off country. It seems difficult to imagine the fact of the “world’s largest democracy” without the imperial legacy.
The third were the settler colonies - including NZ - where development invariably took place on the sometimes dubious seizure of native lands. Yet (and this colours my opinion of colonialism overall) I think we should surely celebrate the success of these countries in establishing largely happy, liberal, and economically successful polities. Rather indeed a New Zealand than a Haiti.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
You don't walk out. You just say "No. You must be joking!" and sit there. You certainly don't sign a declaration that opens the door. You refuse to sign. Simple.
That's pretty much the same as walking out. Basically, you leave without a communique. I suspect that is what a lot of previous UK governments would have done. This one chose not to grandstand. Unlike others on here, I don't see that as an act of treason. We decide whether the door opens. It's all in our hands.
The first, American, was developed on the back of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but bequeathed the Declaration of Independence and the Slave Trade Acts of 1807 and 1833.
The second was India, which was essentially farmed for tax. There’s an unresolved debate about whether British “deindustrialised India”, or - via railways and irrigation - left a much better off country. It seems difficult to imagine the fact of the “world’s largest democracy” without the imperial legacy.
The third were the settler colonies - including NZ - where development invariably took place on the sometimes dubious seizure of native lands. Yet (and this colours my opinion of colonialism overall) I think we should surely celebrate the success of these countries in establishing largely happy, liberal, and economically successful polities. Rather indeed a New Zealand than a Haiti.
I agree, but I think we also misunderstand the nature of the Empire. The Empire was just the formalisation/reinforcement of Britain's economic activity in the world. Had we been allowed to just have spheres of influence, without the cost of formal annexation, we would have done it. Look at China in Africa. It's getting everything it wants, without having to put troops there and put a flag up. If someone else starts muscling in, it may have to.
I'm old enough to remember how Brexit was sold as an opportunity to rekindle our Commonwealth links. How quickly a new hope has turned into the empire strikes back.
Yes, the irony of PB Tories claiming the moral high ground to criticise Starmer for being crap (which, TBF, he probably is), is quite striking.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
West Africa was probably the region most damaged by slavery. Its working age population, and that of the Central African hinterland, was emptied out many times over. By European traders to the West and Arab traders to the East.
You forgot the African traders in the middle.
Yes, the slave trade and the industrial capitalism of Great Britain shared the same origins for their wealth. This is the extraction and alienation of labour from the value that it produced, with the rich accumulating the products of that labour. Certainly the African middlemen benefitted, as did British ship owners, insurers, financiers and factory owners making chains in the Black Country. More benefit came to Britsh merchants due to to the terms of trade, and more harm to the African slaves than the coal-miners of Wigan.
It would be more just to see economic reparations based on class than race, but when there is even the mildest hint of that in next week's budget the PB Blimps go apoplectic.
Industrialisation has floated almost every boat, over 200 years.
The pre-industrial world was an even more extractive, profit-seeking, and cruel, place than the world of today.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
That’s a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
No, its the reality.
The inhabitants of the West Indies are the descendants of the slaves transported westwards. Would they now be better or worse off if they were the descendants of slaves who remained in Africa or those who were transported northwards or eastwards ?
Likewise the descendants of those indentured workers transported to the American colonies or convicts sent to penal servitude in Australia would be the ultimate beneficiaries.
The first, American, was developed on the back of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but bequeathed the Declaration of Independence and the Slave Trade Acts of 1807 and 1833.
The second was India, which was essentially farmed for tax. There’s an unresolved debate about whether British “deindustrialised India”, or - via railways and irrigation - left a much better off country. It seems difficult to imagine the fact of the “world’s largest democracy” without the imperial legacy.
The third were the settler colonies - including NZ - where development invariably took place on the sometimes dubious seizure of native lands. Yet (and this colours my opinion of colonialism overall) I think we should surely celebrate the success of these countries in establishing largely happy, liberal, and economically successful polities. Rather indeed a New Zealand than a Haiti.
The first, American, was developed on the back of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but bequeathed the Declaration of Independence and the Slave Trade Acts of 1807 and 1833.
The second was India, which was essentially farmed for tax. There’s an unresolved debate about whether British “deindustrialised India”, or - via railways and irrigation - left a much better off country. It seems difficult to imagine the fact of the “world’s largest democracy” without the imperial legacy.
The third were the settler colonies - including NZ - where development invariably took place on the sometimes dubious seizure of native lands. Yet (and this colours my opinion of colonialism overall) I think we should surely celebrate the success of these countries in establishing largely happy, liberal, and economically successful polities. Rather indeed a New Zealand than a Haiti.
You've missed out when we owned France .
IIRC our departure from France, Calais excepted, more or or less coincided with the previously French or Norman-French speaking government changing to speaking English. Of a sort, anyway.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
West Africa was probably the region most damaged by slavery. Its working age population, and that of the Central African hinterland, was emptied out many times over. By European traders to the West and Arab traders to the East.
And its still being emptied with people traffickers being the modern slave traders.
The Nigerian nurses at the local hospital being another aspect of human resources taken from their homeland to benefit richer countries.
A few years back I was told it was racist to want to train 100%+ of the NHS staff requirement in the U.K.
Have times changed?
Yes, now it’s racist to import the nurses from Nairobi, Lagos, Manila etc. because it means their own populations don’t see the nurses working there.
Dare I suggest that it’s a lot cheaper for the NHS to fund training courses for nurses and doctors in the 3rd world, than it is to fund them in the UK, especially in times of a massive shortage of these skills.
Tim S. -- You may want to look at Colin McEvedy's "Penguin Atlas of African History". He claims that the slave trade had "no effect at all" on Africa's population growth. As of 1800, sub-Saharan Africa already had a population of 60 million, of which West Africa had about 24 million. (pp. 90-91)
(Yes, that surprised me, too, when I first read it years ago, but the numbers seem to support him.)
The first, American, was developed on the back of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but bequeathed the Declaration of Independence and the Slave Trade Acts of 1807 and 1833.
The second was India, which was essentially farmed for tax. There’s an unresolved debate about whether British “deindustrialised India”, or - via railways and irrigation - left a much better off country. It seems difficult to imagine the fact of the “world’s largest democracy” without the imperial legacy.
The third were the settler colonies - including NZ - where development invariably took place on the sometimes dubious seizure of native lands. Yet (and this colours my opinion of colonialism overall) I think we should surely celebrate the success of these countries in establishing largely happy, liberal, and economically successful polities. Rather indeed a New Zealand than a Haiti.
Sometimes dubious?
In the NZ case, land was usually fairly acquired* In some egregious cases, it was seized or stolen.
*If one can accept that indigenous land can ever be sold.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
You don't walk out. You just say "No. You must be joking!" and sit there. You certainly don't sign a declaration that opens the door. You refuse to sign. Simple.
That's pretty much the same as walking out. Basically, you leave without a communique. I suspect that is what a lot of previous UK governments would have done. This one chose not to grandstand. Unlike others on here, I don't see that as an act of treason. We decide whether the door opens. It's all in our hands.
They all leave without a communique. It's not us walking out. They all walk out. Not agreeing to reparations is not grandstanding. It's resisting blackmail and I'm sure would have the support of the vast majority in the UK. No doubt there will be a poll soon.
Tim S. -- You may want to look at Colin McEvedy's "Penguin Atlas of African History". He claims that the slave trade had "no effect at all" on Africa's population growth. As of 1800, sub-Saharan Africa already had a population of 60 million, of which West Africa had about 24 million. (pp. 90-91)
(Yes, that surprised me, too, when I first read it years ago, but the numbers seem to support him.)
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Bahamas is, of course, a super-rich playground and tax haven.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
You don't walk out. You just say "No. You must be joking!" and sit there. You certainly don't sign a declaration that opens the door. You refuse to sign. Simple.
That's pretty much the same as walking out. Basically, you leave without a communique. I suspect that is what a lot of previous UK governments would have done. This one chose not to grandstand. Unlike others on here, I don't see that as an act of treason. We decide whether the door opens. It's all in our hands.
If you welcome turning it into a political question domestically, then you shouldn't complain if the debate goes in a direction you don't like.
The first, American, was developed on the back of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but bequeathed the Declaration of Independence and the Slave Trade Acts of 1807 and 1833.
The second was India, which was essentially farmed for tax. There’s an unresolved debate about whether British “deindustrialised India”, or - via railways and irrigation - left a much better off country. It seems difficult to imagine the fact of the “world’s largest democracy” without the imperial legacy.
The third were the settler colonies - including NZ - where development invariably took place on the sometimes dubious seizure of native lands. Yet (and this colours my opinion of colonialism overall) I think we should surely celebrate the success of these countries in establishing largely happy, liberal, and economically successful polities. Rather indeed a New Zealand than a Haiti.
Sometimes dubious?
In the NZ case, land was usually fairly acquired* In some egregious cases, it was seized or stolen.
*If one can accept that indigenous land can ever be sold.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Osborne, yes. Cameron, I think not.
Impossible to imagine a British PM now suggesting, as Cameron did, that he was proud of the Empire. But that was only 2013.
The last 10 years have really been a roller coaster.
I think it's strange that as the world moves back towards the pre-1945 view that the strong do as they will, the weak as they must, our own leaders are in complete denial about it.
That’s the point I made yesterday about our increasingly Hobbesian world.
I don’t wish for Britain to surrender its long-standing support for international institutions, but there seems to be gross lack of realpolitik and, at the end of the day, simple self-belief.
The Empire to me a key battle-line, because it is an essential part of British experience 1600-1960. It’s impossible to imagine the UK without it.
And therefore a total repudiation and condemnation of it really calls into question whether the UK itself has any legitimacy.
However cruel, selfish, and exploitative it was, the Industrial Revolution, which was kick-started in the UK, has been a huge blessing to humanity.
It’s hard to imagine just how dreadful the standard of living was in 1800, for the 90% of the world’s inhabitants then, who lived in absolute poverty. The richest country in the world, the UK, had a standard of living worse than modern Haiti.
Industrialisation and trade liberated the world from all that.
However cruel and bigoted the 19th century may seem, from 2024, it was an era of constant social progress.
This is also my view. The last point is also critical, it wasn’t just economic progress, it was broadly liberal progress too.
However, it seems our view is dying out, or is perhaps already extinguished.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Osborne, yes. Cameron, I think not.
Impossible to imagine a British PM now suggesting, as Cameron did, that he was proud of the Empire. But that was only 2013.
The last 10 years have really been a roller coaster.
I think it's strange that as the world moves back towards the pre-1945 view that the strong do as they will, the weak as they must, our own leaders are in complete denial about it.
That’s the point I made yesterday about our increasingly Hobbesian world.
I don’t wish for Britain to surrender its long-standing support for international institutions, but there seems to be gross lack of realpolitik and, at the end of the day, simple self-belief.
The Empire to me a key battle-line, because it is an essential part of British experience 1600-1960. It’s impossible to imagine the UK without it.
And therefore a total repudiation and condemnation of it really calls into question whether the UK itself has any legitimacy.
However cruel, selfish, and exploitative it was, the Industrial Revolution, which was kick-started in the UK, has been a huge blessing to humanity.
It’s hard to imagine just how dreadful the standard of living was in 1800, for the 90% of the world’s inhabitants then, who lived in absolute poverty. The richest country in the world, the UK, had a standard of living worse than modern Haiti.
Industrialisation and trade liberated the world from all that.
However cruel and bigoted the 19th century may seem, from 2024, it was an era of constant social progress.
This is also my view. The last point is also critical, it wasn’t just economic progress, it was broadly liberal progress too.
However, it seems our view is dying out, or is perhaps already extinguished.
Well, my current university, Buckingham is a holdout.
It does seem a peculiarly British (and North East US thing). The Spanish and French certainly don't have this sense of guilt. Spain's socialist government sent a very harsh response to the Mexican President who wanted an apology for Cortes.
"When he reached the New World, Cortes burnt his ships. His men were thus well motivated."
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
You don't walk out. You just say "No. You must be joking!" and sit there. You certainly don't sign a declaration that opens the door. You refuse to sign. Simple.
That's pretty much the same as walking out. Basically, you leave without a communique. I suspect that is what a lot of previous UK governments would have done. This one chose not to grandstand. Unlike others on here, I don't see that as an act of treason. We decide whether the door opens. It's all in our hands.
They all leave without a communique. It's not us walking out. They all walk out. Not agreeing to reparations is not grandstanding. It's resisting blackmail and I'm sure would have the support of the vast majority in the UK. No doubt there will be a poll soon.
You can agree to "discussions" all day everyday - it or they are meaningless. They will likely drag on for years without producing anything - yes, you can argue it's a waste of people's valauable time but that's all it will be.
There may be something on debt relief (not that we are in a position to agree that in isolation) but otherwise it'll be platitudes.
It's 1994 and Trump is using the urinals at his Bedminster golf club. He suddenly finds that standing in the stall next to him is Arnold Palmer. He glances down and can't help but notice Arnie 's tattoo on his old boy. "Wendy" questions Trump, "I thought your wife was called Winnie?" No chuckles Palmer "when erect the tattoo reads Welcome to Pennsylvania, have nice day". Palmer mentions to Trump that he has noticed Trump also has a private tattoo. "V A N" questions Palmer "what does your tattoo say when fully unfurled?" "Ivana" beams Trump proudly.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
West Africa was probably the region most damaged by slavery. Its working age population, and that of the Central African hinterland, was emptied out many times over. By European traders to the West and Arab traders to the East.
And its still being emptied with people traffickers being the modern slave traders.
The Nigerian nurses at the local hospital being another aspect of human resources taken from their homeland to benefit richer countries.
A few years back I was told it was racist to want to train 100%+ of the NHS staff requirement in the U.K.
Have times changed?
Can you recall who here expressed or supported such a claim?
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Osborne, yes. Cameron, I think not.
Impossible to imagine a British PM now suggesting, as Cameron did, that he was proud of the Empire. But that was only 2013.
The last 10 years have really been a roller coaster.
I think it's strange that as the world moves back towards the pre-1945 view that the strong do as they will, the weak as they must, our own leaders are in complete denial about it.
That’s the point I made yesterday about our increasingly Hobbesian world.
I don’t wish for Britain to surrender its long-standing support for international institutions, but there seems to be gross lack of realpolitik and, at the end of the day, simple self-belief.
The Empire to me a key battle-line, because it is an essential part of British experience 1600-1960. It’s impossible to imagine the UK without it.
And therefore a total repudiation and condemnation of it really calls into question whether the UK itself has any legitimacy.
Exactly, which is no doubt the agenda some secretly harbour.
Destroying the sense of the nation state makes it easier to be subsumed into a United States of Europe.
When can we start opening up negotiations for reparations from the Danes for the Viking invasion?
Didn’t we have a discussion recently about the Harrowing of the North?
Danegeld is fascinating - English silver was one of the reasons why William of Normandy wanted to invade and conquer England. He was able to use English silver to fund his wars in France and pay off his army.
Under the Normans, Danegeld was based on land value taxation based on the amount of land required to support a family.
Strange how nearly 1000 years later we are back to arguing the merits of land value taxation - clearly Duke William was a Liberal Democrat in his own way - might give Ed Davey some ideas - the Harrowing of the Tories might be a popular policy (not with the Tories obviously).
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The other leaders have seen Starmer coming and know he's weak as piss.
The first, American, was developed on the back of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but bequeathed the Declaration of Independence and the Slave Trade Acts of 1807 and 1833.
The second was India, which was essentially farmed for tax. There’s an unresolved debate about whether British “deindustrialised India”, or - via railways and irrigation - left a much better off country. It seems difficult to imagine the fact of the “world’s largest democracy” without the imperial legacy.
The third were the settler colonies - including NZ - where development invariably took place on the sometimes dubious seizure of native lands. Yet (and this colours my opinion of colonialism overall) I think we should surely celebrate the success of these countries in establishing largely happy, liberal, and economically successful polities. Rather indeed a New Zealand than a Haiti.
Sometimes dubious?
In the NZ case, land was usually fairly acquired* In some egregious cases, it was seized or stolen.
*If one can accept that indigenous land can ever be sold.
Some egregious cases?
Maori adopted firearms, Christianity* and land deals with great enthusiasm from early settlers.
The cycle was often:
1) buy guns
2) raid neighbouring tribe
3) sell the other tribes land to the settlers
4) buy more guns.
*so much so that in the land wars the British Imperial forces would attack Maori Pa's on a Sunday, as the Maori would retreat rather than fight on the Sabbath. A bit cheeky of us.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
West Africa was probably the region most damaged by slavery. Its working age population, and that of the Central African hinterland, was emptied out many times over. By European traders to the West and Arab traders to the East.
You forgot the African traders in the middle.
Yes, the slave trade and the industrial capitalism of Great Britain shared the same origins for their wealth. This is the extraction and alienation of labour from the value that it produced, with the rich accumulating the products of that labour. Certainly the African middlemen benefitted, as did British ship owners, insurers, financiers and factory owners making chains in the Black Country. More benefit came to Britsh merchants due to to the terms of trade, and more harm to the African slaves than the coal-miners of Wigan.
It would be more just to see economic reparations based on class than race, but when there is even the mildest hint of that in next week's budget the PB Blimps go apoplectic.
Industrialisation has floated almost every boat, over 200 years.
The pre-industrial world was an even more extractive, profit-seeking, and cruel, place than the world of today.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Such as its clear now that the current inhabitants of the former British West Indies are among the great beneficiaries of the legacy of slavery.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
West Africa was probably the region most damaged by slavery. Its working age population, and that of the Central African hinterland, was emptied out many times over. By European traders to the West and Arab traders to the East.
And its still being emptied with people traffickers being the modern slave traders.
The Nigerian nurses at the local hospital being another aspect of human resources taken from their homeland to benefit richer countries.
A few years back I was told it was racist to want to train 100%+ of the NHS staff requirement in the U.K.
Have times changed?
Can you recall who here expressed or supported such a claim?
It wasn’t here - I was told in political discussion that it was morally equivalent to wanting a higher birth rate to end immigration.
Trump says he wants to eliminate federal income tax. He should be taken seriously on this. Based on past experience, his view of how states should fund themselves could become the mainstream consensus before long.
Torture in the Mau Mau Uprising was against British law and cultural norms. It was deservedly a case for compensation.
Though I note no compensation has been provided by the Mau Mau to Britain for its various atrocities.
I think we are nearly at the point in this discussion where the slaves and independence fighters of Empire should doff their caps to us in gratitude to us for enslaving them and stealing their lands.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Osborne, yes. Cameron, I think not.
Impossible to imagine a British PM now suggesting, as Cameron did, that he was proud of the Empire. But that was only 2013.
The last 10 years have really been a roller coaster.
I think it's strange that as the world moves back towards the pre-1945 view that the strong do as they will, the weak as they must, our own leaders are in complete denial about it.
That’s the point I made yesterday about our increasingly Hobbesian world.
I don’t wish for Britain to surrender its long-standing support for international institutions, but there seems to be gross lack of realpolitik and, at the end of the day, simple self-belief.
The Empire to me a key battle-line, because it is an essential part of British experience 1600-1960. It’s impossible to imagine the UK without it.
And therefore a total repudiation and condemnation of it really calls into question whether the UK itself has any legitimacy.
Exactly, which is no doubt the agenda some secretly harbour.
Destroying the sense of the nation state makes it easier to be subsumed into a United States of Europe.
Absolute lunatic comment.
The end goal of the repudiation that I talk about is the end of Western order itself, to be replaced presumably by some breed of indigenous, socialist republics.
To the extent this aids any realistic geopolitical goal, it is China’s.
Trump says he wants to eliminate federal income tax. He should be taken seriously on this. Based on past experience, his view of how states should fund themselves could become the mainstream consensus before long.
Has a summit ever got new as badly for the UK as this commonwealth one. No doubt someone will find an example from history or antiquity but consider.
Virtually ignored by India and South Africa in favour of BRICS. Starmer ignored then cajoled and shaken down on reparations.
Charles must be feeling a bit ill about it all.
One of the Thatcher era ones was a fiasco over Apartheid sanctions/UK sporting links, led to a boycott of the Commonwealth Games by a majority of the Commonwealth.
Edit - One of the Queen's aides criticised Thatcher off the record to the Sunday Times and all hell broke loose.
Trump says he wants to eliminate federal income tax. He should be taken seriously on this. Based on past experience, his view of how states should fund themselves could become the mainstream consensus before long.
To take the politics out of it for a moment: it's like watching Police Interceptors. "Which of several drunk idiots can be the most inarticulate? Whose syntax can be most mangled?"
And it started so well with a thought provoking piece by MaxPB.
Not yet. But we are only just over halfway. Have they got the stamina?
Well assuming Leon sleeps, and because of the time zone difference, he'll be off up the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire shortly. It might get a lot calmer.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
You don't walk out. You just say "No. You must be joking!" and sit there. You certainly don't sign a declaration that opens the door. You refuse to sign. Simple.
That's pretty much the same as walking out. Basically, you leave without a communique. I suspect that is what a lot of previous UK governments would have done. This one chose not to grandstand. Unlike others on here, I don't see that as an act of treason. We decide whether the door opens. It's all in our hands.
If you welcome turning it into a political question domestically, then you shouldn't complain if the debate goes in a direction you don't like.
I would be very surprised if it becomes a big issue domestically. All the government will say is there will be no reparations. Some on the right will accuse the government of treason and wanting to dismantle the nation state and they will look ridiculous and the world will turn.
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Its a further forty years since the colonial era.
A further forty years from when the former colonies becoming responsible for their own outcomes.
Yes but general awareness (here) of the scope and legacy of slavery was far less then than now.
Howard Jacobson was right, that Edward Said managed to turn perpetual grievance into an academic discipline.
Was that in a letter to the Times or something? I don't support £££ reparations (never happening anyway) but what I don't get is the defensiveness about the whole topic of slavery and colonialism. It's as if the country would collapse in a quivering heap unless we just go, "talk to the hand" whenever it's broached. That's not confidence. It's the opposite.
Torture in the Mau Mau Uprising was against British law and cultural norms. It was deservedly a case for compensation.
Though I note no compensation has been provided by the Mau Mau to Britain for its various atrocities.
I think we are nearly at the point in this discussion where the slaves and independence fighters of Empire should doff their caps to us in gratitude to us for enslaving them and stealing their lands.
My comment was somewhat in jest as there is no successor state to the Mau Mau.
One might argue though that Israel - certainly today’s Likudified Israel - is the successor state to the Irgun terrorists who murdered various Brits in the 1940s.
I’m sure David Lammy will take it up with Netanyahu when they next meet.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
You don't walk out. You just say "No. You must be joking!" and sit there. You certainly don't sign a declaration that opens the door. You refuse to sign. Simple.
That's pretty much the same as walking out. Basically, you leave without a communique. I suspect that is what a lot of previous UK governments would have done. This one chose not to grandstand. Unlike others on here, I don't see that as an act of treason. We decide whether the door opens. It's all in our hands.
They all leave without a communique. It's not us walking out. They all walk out. Not agreeing to reparations is not grandstanding. It's resisting blackmail and I'm sure would have the support of the vast majority in the UK. No doubt there will be a poll soon.
As much as you may wish it otherwise, the UK government has not agreed to reparations.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
You don't walk out. You just say "No. You must be joking!" and sit there. You certainly don't sign a declaration that opens the door. You refuse to sign. Simple.
That's pretty much the same as walking out. Basically, you leave without a communique. I suspect that is what a lot of previous UK governments would have done. This one chose not to grandstand. Unlike others on here, I don't see that as an act of treason. We decide whether the door opens. It's all in our hands.
If you welcome turning it into a political question domestically, then you shouldn't complain if the debate goes in a direction you don't like.
I would be very surprised if it becomes a big issue domestically. All the government will say is there will be no reparations. Some on the right will accuse the government of treason and wanting to dismantle the nation state and they will look ridiculous and the world will turn.
The government has already failed to say this in an unequivocal enough fashion. It's now on the agenda, like it or not.
To take the politics out of it for a moment: it's like watching Police Interceptors. "Which of several drunk idiots can be the most inarticulate? Whose syntax can be most mangled?"
Having seen - online and a couple times in person - the way people think they can behave around MPs….
One time was just outside Parliament where a protestor grabbed an MPs jacket and tried to pull them down. Prime for the “take the attackers hand in both of yours, rotate until it stops, brace, then rotate some more”.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
You don't walk out. You just say "No. You must be joking!" and sit there. You certainly don't sign a declaration that opens the door. You refuse to sign. Simple.
That's pretty much the same as walking out. Basically, you leave without a communique. I suspect that is what a lot of previous UK governments would have done. This one chose not to grandstand. Unlike others on here, I don't see that as an act of treason. We decide whether the door opens. It's all in our hands.
If you welcome turning it into a political question domestically, then you shouldn't complain if the debate goes in a direction you don't like.
I would be very surprised if it becomes a big issue domestically. All the government will say is there will be no reparations. Some on the right will accuse the government of treason and wanting to dismantle the nation state and they will look ridiculous and the world will turn.
The government has already failed to say this in an unequivocal enough fashion. It's now on the agenda, like it or not.
If the right wants to focus on the UK potentially paying reparations for the next few years I will welcome that as they will make themselves look even more cut off from reality than they do already.
Trump says he wants to eliminate federal income tax. He should be taken seriously on this. Based on past experience, his view of how states should fund themselves could become the mainstream consensus before long.
A bit tough on the poorer states that vote Republican, and good for the wealthy States that vote Democrat.
How do you work that out? If the burden of taxation shifts from income tax to tariffs on imports, would the wealthy coastal states not pay the most?
The tariff would be paid by the importer, so distributed amongst the consumer population, but the richer states like California or New York would pay less income tax. There would be a net loss to poorer states like West Virginia or Alabama.
Trump says he wants to eliminate federal income tax. He should be taken seriously on this. Based on past experience, his view of how states should fund themselves could become the mainstream consensus before long.
A bit tough on the poorer states that vote Republican, and good for the wealthy States that vote Democrat.
How do you work that out? If the burden of taxation shifts from income tax to tariffs on imports, would the wealthy coastal states not pay the most?
The tariff would be paid by the importer, so distributed amongst the consumer population, but the richer states like California or New York would pay less income tax. There would be a net loss to poorer states like West Virginia or Alabama.
Do people in California and New York not consume more foreign goods than people in Alabama?
Trump says he wants to eliminate federal income tax. He should be taken seriously on this. Based on past experience, his view of how states should fund themselves could become the mainstream consensus before long.
A bit tough on the poorer states that vote Republican, and good for the wealthy States that vote Democrat.
How do you work that out? If the burden of taxation shifts from income tax to tariffs on imports, would the wealthy coastal states not pay the most?
The tariff would be paid by the importer, so distributed amongst the consumer population, but the richer states like California or New York would pay less income tax. There would be a net loss to poorer states like West Virginia or Alabama.
Good news for Florida and Texas but many other red states would clearly be in trouble.
Trump says he wants to eliminate federal income tax. He should be taken seriously on this. Based on past experience, his view of how states should fund themselves could become the mainstream consensus before long.
A bit tough on the poorer states that vote Republican, and good for the wealthy States that vote Democrat.
How do you work that out? If the burden of taxation shifts from income tax to tariffs on imports, would the wealthy coastal states not pay the most?
The tariff would be paid by the importer, so distributed amongst the consumer population, but the richer states like California or New York would pay less income tax. There would be a net loss to poorer states like West Virginia or Alabama.
Do people in California and New York not consume more foreign goods than people in Alamaba?
Depends on the goods. The price of clothing would probably be a big issue in a state like Alabama.
It’s obvious from the reporting that the UK suffered a diplomatic defeat at the Commonwealth.
Reparations were not even on the agenda, so the UK has been “hijacked”. And despite Starmer’s pleading, it is not obvious at all the money is not to be discussed.
Starmer said none of the discussions at the summit had concerned money.
“Well, no figure,” Frederick Mitchell, the foreign minister of the Bahamas told BBC Radio’s Today programme on Saturday. “We’ll see what happens going forward.”
He said he hoped a report on the issue would follow, which nations would discuss in the future. Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout. “I have no doubt …. that the arc of history always goes in the right direction,” he said.
The Commonwealth no longer does our bidding, and why should it? After all KC3 is Head of State for a number of the countries pursuing reparations too. Sure we could have thrown our toys out of the pram and refused to sign the declaration, but that pretty much would bang in the final nail in its coffin.
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I don’t think the Commonwealth should do the UK’s bidding. That would be bizarre.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
The last government created a precedent, it seems:
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
You don't walk out. You just say "No. You must be joking!" and sit there. You certainly don't sign a declaration that opens the door. You refuse to sign. Simple.
That's pretty much the same as walking out. Basically, you leave without a communique. I suspect that is what a lot of previous UK governments would have done. This one chose not to grandstand. Unlike others on here, I don't see that as an act of treason. We decide whether the door opens. It's all in our hands.
If you welcome turning it into a political question domestically, then you shouldn't complain if the debate goes in a direction you don't like.
I would be very surprised if it becomes a big issue domestically. All the government will say is there will be no reparations. Some on the right will accuse the government of treason and wanting to dismantle the nation state and they will look ridiculous and the world will turn.
The government has already failed to say this in an unequivocal enough fashion. It's now on the agenda, like it or not.
If the right wants to focus on the UK potentially paying reparations for the next few years I will welcome that as they will make themselves look even more cut off from reality than they do already.
What about a tariff on imports from the Caribbean to pay for reparations for the Caribbean?
I just want to point out that when the Chagos Surrender happened and I went ape-shit on here, there was a lot of scoffing and “oh who cares it’s a tiny atoll you’ve never heard of before”
I responded that
1. I had definitely heard of it
2. The surrender was totally unnecessary and a strategic error of enormous proportions
And
3. One of the many reasons it was such a strategic error was that it would encourage all our enemies to take a run at us, perceiving us as weak and spineless with a stupid cowardly leader willing to yield to anything
Et voila
Indeed, there's no way that reparations or anything as stupid as that would be on the agenda had we not just paid billions to Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off our hands. The Carribbean sense weakness and Starmer appointing reparations supporters like Lammy such high roles is another reason they know they can go for it and win. Starmer is a cuck.
Starmer should just have said “nah. Fuck off, I’m not signing that, it commits us to reparations”
But of course he’s incapable of showing backbone because he doesn’t have one, and deep down he agrees that Britain is evil and should pay
And that's the difference between him and Blair. Blair would have just laughed the whole discussion off and told the commonwealth nations to get back in their box because he fundamentally loved this country. Starmer very clearly doesn't, he sees us as part of the evil colonialist axis as so many lefties were indoctrinated to believe when they went to university by Marxist professors.
Could anyone imagine Margaret Thatcher, or even John Major signing it!
I don’t believe he’ll ever commit the UK to paying billions.
What he will do is offer some abject, and completely insincere, apology for slavery, before agreeing to pay symbolic reparations to governments who’ll stick the money in their offshore accounts.
That will set a precedent for anyone with a grudge against the UK to come calling.
One can imagine Cameron taking a similar line if he were PM now. Times have changed since the Thatcher era.
Osborne, yes. Cameron, I think not.
Impossible to imagine a British PM now suggesting, as Cameron did, that he was proud of the Empire. But that was only 2013.
The last 10 years have really been a roller coaster.
I think it's strange that as the world moves back towards the pre-1945 view that the strong do as they will, the weak as they must, our own leaders are in complete denial about it.
That’s the point I made yesterday about our increasingly Hobbesian world.
I don’t wish for Britain to surrender its long-standing support for international institutions, but there seems to be gross lack of realpolitik and, at the end of the day, simple self-belief.
The Empire to me a key battle-line, because it is an essential part of British experience 1600-1960. It’s impossible to imagine the UK without it.
And therefore a total repudiation and condemnation of it really calls into question whether the UK itself has any legitimacy.
Exactly, which is no doubt the agenda some secretly harbour.
Destroying the sense of the nation state makes it easier to be subsumed into a United States of Europe.
Absolute lunatic comment.
The end goal of the repudiation that I talk about is the end of Western order itself, to be replaced presumably by some breed of indigenous, socialist republics.
To the extent this aids any realistic geopolitical goal, it is China’s.
I think you're right about the overall view, I'm giving the Starmer view on why this is desirable. His destruction of the UK as a nation state of which we can be proud of is to ensure when we get asked again we will definitely say yes and it paves the way for European nations to be replaced by a United States of Europe.
Comments
As for the UK itself, it ought to aim to be the dominant economic, scientific, cultural and naval power in Europe, with London positioned as the global agora.
It was about 1900 that more than half the US work force no longer worked on farms.
Barbados and Bahamas are better places than Benin and Burkina Faso.
I would probably argue though the institutions left by the British in the extractive economies of the Caribbean don’t especially enable the likes of Jamaica to prosper in the modern world.
Relatedly, witness the educational performance of African Black British versus Caribbean Black British in UK schools.
+++fucking cold out here+++you bastards+++
+++please send clean socks+++
We cannot praise the democratic institutions and rule of law that we bequeathed to the Commonwealth, then refuse to respond to those governments. Either we left them something valid, or we did not.
I simply note the UK’s diplomatic defeat on this issue.
I can remember Bernie Grant praising it and here's another example:
In her 1970 autobiography, Unbought and Unbossed, she wrote: "Years later I would know what an important gift my parents had given me by seeing to it that I had my early education in the strict, traditional, British-style schools of Barbados. If I speak and write easily now, that early education is the main reason."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Chisholm
Does the value of Barbados get offset against the reparations?
More to the point, they can’t actually force us to pay…
I first met that reference in an Alistair Cooke book called "The Great and the Good".
Group of politicians: you must pay reparations because of our moral values. You don’t have a choice.
Electorate : We don’t want to
Group of politicians: then you are scum
The joke is that a portion of the political class has now, for generations, proclaimed the absolute power of democracy and contempt for elites. Meaning the old elites. The Old10K.
The plebs *heard* that they are sovereign. And “‘Must' is not a word to use to princes.”
So we have a political class that believes that it decides on right and wrong, and the electorate must solemnly assent to their virtue.
And an electorate that agrees with Mirabeau - “When the people complain, the people are always right.”
"Mitchell also mentioned the UK government’s decision in 2013 to recognise the torture of Kenyans by British colonial forces during the Mau Mau uprising, which resulted in a £20m payout."
When you are in a minority you are not going to get your way. I guess the issue is whether you then walk out or just play along knowing you cannot be forced to do anything you do not want to do.
It would be more just to see economic reparations based on class than race, but when there is even the mildest hint of that in next week's budget the PB Blimps go apoplectic.
As I said yesterday, the fact is much of the developing world now has a new benefactor showering money and investment on it, no strings attached (well, strings attached but different ones).
So this is a bidding game. In this case instead of being called something like “belt and road” or “Wagner” it’s labelled “reparations”.
Britain either plays or doesn’t. France has already been strategically defeated on this, so we’re not the first.
The Nigerian nurses at the local hospital being another aspect of human resources taken from their homeland to benefit richer countries.
David Lloyd George’s childhood cottage is to be “decolonised” with the help of funding from the Welsh Government.
The Liberal prime minister’s modest birthplace in rural Wales has been converted into a museum, which has been swept into plans to make his homeland “anti-racist”.
The point-scoring and hyperbole on both sides of this argument is mad.
The first, American, was developed on the back of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but bequeathed the Declaration of Independence and the Slave Trade Acts of 1807 and 1833.
The second was India, which was essentially farmed for tax. There’s an unresolved debate about whether British “deindustrialised India”, or - via railways and irrigation - left a much better off country. It seems difficult to imagine the fact of the “world’s largest democracy” without the imperial legacy.
The third were the settler colonies - including NZ - where development invariably took place on the sometimes dubious seizure of native lands. Yet (and this colours my opinion of colonialism overall) I think we should surely celebrate the success of these countries in establishing largely happy, liberal, and economically successful polities. Rather indeed a New Zealand than a Haiti.
Have times changed?
The pre-industrial world was an even more extractive, profit-seeking, and cruel, place than the world of today.
The inhabitants of the West Indies are the descendants of the slaves transported westwards. Would they now be better or worse off if they were the descendants of slaves who remained in Africa or those who were transported northwards or eastwards ?
Likewise the descendants of those indentured workers transported to the American colonies or convicts sent to penal servitude in Australia would be the ultimate beneficiaries.
Dare I suggest that it’s a lot cheaper for the NHS to fund training courses for nurses and doctors in the 3rd world, than it is to fund them in the UK, especially in times of a massive shortage of these skills.
Though I note no compensation has been provided by the Mau Mau to Britain for its various atrocities.
(Yes, that surprised me, too, when I first read it years ago, but the numbers seem to support him.)
In some egregious cases, it was seized or stolen.
*If one can accept that indigenous land can ever be sold.
Not agreeing to reparations is not grandstanding. It's resisting blackmail and I'm sure would have the support of the vast majority in the UK. No doubt there will be a poll soon.
Possibly apocryphal of course!
There may be something on debt relief (not that we are in a position to agree that in isolation) but otherwise it'll be platitudes.
Under the Normans, Danegeld was based on land value taxation based on the amount of land required to support a family.
Strange how nearly 1000 years later we are back to arguing the merits of land value taxation - clearly Duke William was a Liberal Democrat in his own way - might give Ed Davey some ideas - the Harrowing of the Tories might be a popular policy (not with the Tories obviously).
The cycle was often:
1) buy guns
2) raid neighbouring tribe
3) sell the other tribes land to the settlers
4) buy more guns.
*so much so that in the land wars the British Imperial forces would attack Maori Pa's on a Sunday, as the Maori would retreat rather than fight on the Sabbath. A bit cheeky of us.
This story is now featuring in the Metro and labour have commented
https://x.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1850186155523703281?t=IY7USDFxch4xTQOTKcLWOQ&s=19
Virtually ignored by India and South Africa in favour of BRICS.
Starmer ignored then cajoled and shaken down on reparations.
Charles must be feeling a bit ill about it all.
https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/1850010955020918924
The end goal of the repudiation that I talk about is the end of Western order itself, to be replaced presumably by some breed of indigenous, socialist republics.
To the extent this aids any realistic geopolitical goal, it is China’s.
Edit - One of the Queen's aides criticised Thatcher off the record to the Sunday Times and all hell broke loose.
I see he even referenced the so-called torpedo scandal yesterday.
We are informed, solemnly, that it is a police matter.
One might argue though that Israel - certainly today’s Likudified Israel - is the successor state to the Irgun terrorists who murdered various Brits in the 1940s.
I’m sure David Lammy will take it up with Netanyahu when they next meet.
One time was just outside Parliament where a protestor grabbed an MPs jacket and tried to pull them down. Prime for the “take the attackers hand in both of yours, rotate until it stops, brace, then rotate some more”.
I see and note the pile on from the usual suspects in an attempt to close down a story of public interest
There’s something in that to upset *everyone*