LONDON: Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Saturday he was “open” to the UK issuing a formal apology for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, but ruled out financial reparations.
Writing in The Guardian days before attending a Commonwealth leaders summit in the Caribbean, and as King Charles III tours the region, the British premier argued that “we need to face up to the past”. With London under pressure to formally apologise for its pivotal part in the trade and compensate Caribbean nations, he pledged to have “difficult conversations to safeguard the Commonwealth for the future”.
Burnham said he wanted to “express my sorrow and regret for the pain and suffering of so many millions and to recognise the way it still shapes our world today”, but insisted reparations were not “the right answer”.
“I do not think that British people today can be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, that happened in a different age under different laws and in which they played no personal part,” he wrote in the op-ed. The transatlantic slave trade was a “brutal and barbaric violation” of enslaved people’s rights, the UK leader added, offering a “structured dialogue with those affected”.
“Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process and I am open to them.” Burnham also revealed he planned to launch a new debt restructuring drive for the poorest Commonwealth countries, led by former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown.
He vowed to work with “global partners” to help those countries repay “over a longer time period and with better rates”.
Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2026
