Sir Keir Starmer has ruled out paying reparations for Britain’s role in the slave trade in the run-up to a major Commonwealth summit.
Downing Street insisted the issue was “not on the agenda” for the meeting of nations in Samoa later this month.
Asked what the Prime Minister’s view on paying reparations is, his official spokesman said on Monday: “We do not pay reparations.”
All three candidates vying to become the next secretary-general of the 56-nation Commonwealth headed by the King have supported reparations for transatlantic slavery and colonialism.
The leadership vote between Shirley Botchwey of Ghana, Joshua Setipa of Lesotho and Mamadou Tangara of Gambia will take place at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting (Chogm) from October 21.
Number 10’s resistance to reparations is in line with the position of the former Tory government, which repeatedly rejected calls for payouts.
In recently resurfaced footage, Foreign Secretary David Lammy supported the case for measures to compensate for Britain’s role in the slave trade while he was a backbench Labour MP in the wake of the Windrush scandal.
“I’m afraid as Caribbean people we are not going to forget our history – we don’t just want to hear an apology, we want reparation,” Mr Lammy can be heard saying in the clip from 2018.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle defended his Cabinet colleague against questions about the apparent inconsistency of his remarks, telling LBC: “That was David Lammy long before he became Foreign Secretary. Now he speaks on behalf of the Labour Government and this is a new Labour Government.
“We are focused on the future and when we move forward as a country we are thinking globally as well.”
