I agree with Sir Kier Starmer! I am going for a lie-down.

The Atlantic Slave Trade was driven by economic reasons, as Europeans needed laborers to produce goods like sugar, tobacco, and cotton. European slaving companies would offer tribal leaders guns, alcohol, and manufactured goods in exchange for slaves.

Historians estimate that around 90% of Africans who were sold into slavery in the New World were enslaved by fellow Africans. Some African nations that were involved in the slave trade include the Bono State, Ashanti, and Yoruba

So will the African and Arab nations also be apologising and offering reparations?

I think that cancelling debts is an excellent idea. So many developing countries cannot move forward as the struggle to repay loans.

I would like to see some very positive help for the Windrush generation who have been very badly treated over the past decade or so. That would seem to me to be a practical way of acknowledging past wrongs.

Allowing debt relief is NOT a non-cash option! It's money we should have coming to us that now will not come to us. That is cash.

But to be honest I’m not bothered either way, it won’t be coming to me so whatever decision KS makes (and the King) is fine by me.

Nannytopsy

The Atlantic Slave Trade was driven by economic reasons, as Europeans needed laborers to produce goods like sugar, tobacco, and cotton. European slaving companies would offer tribal leaders guns, alcohol, and manufactured goods in exchange for slaves.

Historians estimate that around 90% of Africans who were sold into slavery in the New World were enslaved by fellow Africans. Some African nations that were involved in the slave trade include the Bono State, Ashanti, and Yoruba

That doesn't make it any better, you know.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Let’s not too too hasty in our praise of Sir Keir….

“Sir Keir Starmer is preparing to give ground on reparations amid demands from Commonwealth nations for payments of up to £18 trillion.

The Prime Minister has rejected calls for financial reparations, but is reportedly considering non-cash options such as providing debt relief.”

Thoughts are swirling. - no money on the table but cancel debts accrued by Commonwealth countries.

I suppose that’s what King Charles is mulling over too.

Debt relief is a world wide problem and frequently discussed by the IMF

Many developing countries which suffered from slavery owe large sums to Western countries

The cancellation or reduction of that debt could lift a massive economic burden from a developing country at little political cost for a donor country.

The IMF has been trying to find ways of reducing developing countries debt but not by cash pay/off handouts from those Western countries.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Allowing debt relief is NOT a non-cash option! It's money we should have coming to us that now will not come to us. That is cash.

But to be honest I’m not bothered either way, it won’t be coming to me so whatever decision KS makes (and the King) is fine by me.

The country isn't a business. It has no need to 'make money'. If any of the former slave societies are indebted to us then we are just perpetuating the wrongs we have done by keeping them impoverished.

Thanks, Wyllow

Starmer’s lack of judgement is all too obvious.
Take Lammy (please) he is now and always has been an embarrassment.