TORY LEADERSHIP CANDIDATE Robert Jenrick said that former British colonies owe a “debt of gratitude” and should be thanking Britain for the legacy of empire – not asking for slavery reparations. 

A number of former British colonies in the Commonwealth have banded together to request financial reparations for suffering at the hands of the British, particularly as a result of the slave trade. 

Over the weekend, Commonwealth leaders agreed that the “time has come” for a conversation about reparations for the slave trade.

Keir Starmer was among 56 heads of government who signed a document at the Commonwealth summit that acknowledged calls for “discussions on reparatory justice” for the “abhorrent” transatlantic slave trade.

Writing in the Daily Mail, Jenrick pushed back at the Labour government, stating that Prime Minister Keir Starmer “spent the weekend doing what he does best: capitulating to those determined to tear our country down.”

Jenrick is one of the final two Tory leadership candidates, with both he and Kemi Badenoch vying for the spot of top Tory.

Jenrick claimed that Labour were “cooking up ways” to send British money overseas, as he denounced the slashing of winter payments for pensioners. 

A report published last year by the University of West Indies concluded the UK owed more than £18 trillion in reparations for its role in slavery in 14 Caribbean countries.

The report was backed by Patrick Robinson, a judge who sits on the International Court of Justice. Starmer had previously said that the UK would not be paying reparations, and would not issue an apology over Britain’s role in the slave trade while at the Commonwealth summit in Samoa.

Jenrick said that this “weakness” points to a “confusion” in society: “the bizarre, unpatriotic belief that we should be embarrassed about our history”, which he claimed was a result of “universities overrun by Leftists peddling pseudo-Marxist gibberish to impressionable undergraduates.”

The Tory leadership candidate cited theologian Nigel Biggar, who wrote: “the Empire committed crimes on a terrible scale, including slavery, the displacement of peoples, and military aggression.”

Jenrick then went on to say that alongside honesty about the crimes of colonialism, “we should be proud of its achievements”.

“The British Empire broke the long chain of violent tyranny as we came to introduce – gradually and imperfectly – Christian values.”

Speaking on slavery in West Africa, Jenrick said that although the British initially continued the slave trade, “confronted by its cruelty – we ended it”, despite suffering the great cost of an estimated 1.8 per cent of Britain’s GDP between 1808 and 1867.

He said that countries across the Commonwealth retained British institutions and recognise that the British governance system is the best in the world – which is why former British colonies have performed better than French ones, he added.

“I’m not ashamed of our history. It may not feel like it, but many of our former colonies – amid the complex realities of Empire – owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them,” he finished his op-ed.