Singling Britain out for reparation demands perpetrates a historical scam
It is hard to know where to begin on the subject of slavery reparations, or “reparatory justice” as it is now euphemistically called.
The simple approach would be to dismiss it as a transparent attempt to extort a vast amount of money from a Britain seen as gullible. The absurd amount of money being demanded – equal to several years’ total GDP – shows that those making the claim are not really serious. They are presumably hoping that a future British government might feel it gets off lightly by only paying out a few hundred million.
Those demanding reparations – mainly certain Caribbean governments and Sir Hilary Beckles, their spokesman, the vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies, and the chairman of the Caricom Reparations Commission – base their case on vague and contentious assertions (including continuing ‘psychological trauma’), and a historical narrative that is not merely one-sided but caricatural.
The reparations campaign has the further bonus of excusing Caribbean politicians for incompetence and corruption by blaming everything on Britain. This annoys those reformers in the Caribbean who want good and honest government.
The basis of reparations is simple justice. If damage is done, those responsible for the damage should repair it, to restore the situation as it was before. This is both impossible and undesirable.
Although one of the Caricom commission demands is for a repatriation programme to Africa, this seems unlikely to have many takers, considering the superior economic, social and educational levels in Caribbean countries compared with their African “homeland”. Barbados, from where Beckles hails, has, according to the IMF, over 25 times the average income of Nigeria, despite what he calls the “colonial mess” left in the Caribbean.
As both the perpetrators and the victims of slavery are long dead, the reparations demand is broadened out into two main areas. First, that Britain’s wealth today is based on 18th century slavery, and that the contrasting poverty of some other countries stems from that same exploitation.
Second, that the distant descendants of slaves still suffer psychological consequences and continue to be damaged by systemic racism, said to have been created by the slave trade.
Such assertions are not, in principle, impossible. An American study suggests that the Norman Conquest might still be a cause of inequality in England, in so far as people with French-sounding names are better off than those with English-sounding names. As of post-Conquest serfdom, there could be lingering consequences of the slave system.
However, those demanding reparations are not interested in a careful and honest assessment. Their preference is for untestable dogmatic assertions, and angrily dismiss evidence that does not support their claims.
First, the idea that the wealth of Britain and the developed world was and somehow still is derived from slavery has long been discounted by serious economic analysis. But even if it were true, the whole world, including today’s descendants of slaves, benefitted from the huge rise in living standards that began in the 18th century. Second, the accusation that Britain is systemically racist has been repeatedly disproved, including by a comparative EU study that showed Britain as Europe’s least racist country.
Pitfalls of reparations are seen in the Church of England’s ill-judged attempt to lead the way and push others into following. The Church Commission earmarked £100 million for reparations, and wants other institutions to make it up to a billion. The Commission at first stated that it possessed a large ‘pool of capital’ earned from the slave trade and hence ‘tainted’ and suitable for reparations.
It later emerged that no such “pool of capital” from slavery existed. But the decision had already been made and would be highly embarrassing to reverse.
As for the “victims” to be compensated, they appear to be drawn primarily from the black middle class, who include the descendants of slaves, of slave owners, of slave traders, and of people with no connection with slavery at all. To call this policy incoherent is generous. But it will undoubtedly be used to put moral pressure on other institutions.
Those demanding reparations invariably call on Britain to “face up to its past” and apologise. William Pitt the Younger, as Prime Minister, did apologise in Parliament as long ago as 1792, calling for “atonement for our long and cruel injustice” towards Africans.
Atonement was not just words but actions: abolishing the slave trade and then slavery, constantly pressing other governments and indigenous rulers to end slave trading, sending the navy to intercept slave ships round the globe, and exerting constant diplomatic and even military efforts to curtail the huge slave trade to the Muslim world. This was ‘facing up to our past’ : a long and cruel injustice followed by a long and unique atonement.
If there really were a solid case for reparatory justice, most of the world would be liable, including the successors of the many African rulers who made the slave trade possible, and the states that have long persisted in it, some until our own day.
Slavery may have been a crime against humanity, but it was one in which much of humanity was complicit. Britain was the pioneer abolitionist. To make it the principal target of reparation demands today is cynical opportunism. The Government should say so.
Robert Tombs is professor emeritus of history at the University of Cambridge
