Miliband defends Burnham slavery apology plan as reparations ruled out

Channel 4 reported that Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband had defended Prime Minister Andy Burnham's plan to consider a formal apology for Britain's role in the slave trade. It said Miliband stressed that the UK would not offer financial reparations and that the government's new approach would not cost the British taxpayer anything.

On 2 November, GB News reported that Burnham and his wife had arrived in Antigua for a Commonwealth summit and that he would join the King at a meeting where reparations campaigners had promised widespread protests. Sky News had reported earlier that King Charles was on a royal tour of the Caribbean and that Burnham was flying out later for the Commonwealth leaders' meeting.

GB News reported that Burnham was willing to discuss a formal apology while ruling out direct financial compensation. It also reported suggestions that he was open to increasing financial assistance for African and Caribbean countries, including investment in healthcare and education.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch warned that an apology could open the door to demands for reparations, GB News reported. On Sky News, Tom Tugendhat, the shadow foreign secretary, said Tony Blair had apologised for Britain's role in slavery 25 years ago and that there should not be a rolling apology from every prime minister. He said debt relief at the Millennium was in some ways a form of reparations and argued that a reparations debate would dominate a two-day Commonwealth summit.

GB News also broadcast a monologue from presenter Jacob Rees-Mogg arguing that British taxpayers owe nothing for 18th-century slavery. He said Britain banned the slave trade in 1807 and abolished slavery across the British Empire in 1834, and that Britain had led the world in ending the trade. In an interview on the same programme, Arley Gill, chairman of the Grenada National Reparations Committee, disputed that account. He said chattel slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas was distinct because black people were treated as property, and cited a 1632 Barbados law as a precedent.

On its late programme, GB News reported that Burnham had previously said living British people should not be held legally liable for crimes committed by their ancestors. It also reported that Burnham had said sorry while the King had expressed sorrow but not said sorry. It said no reparations had been agreed, but there could be more schools and hospitals.