Engagements

Part of Prime Minister – in the House of Commons on 26 April 2023.

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Photo of Bell Ribeiro-Addy Bell Ribeiro-Addy Labour, Streatham

This month marks 23 years since the passing of the late, great Bernie Grant, a former Member of this House and the founder of the reparations movement in the UK. In the last Prime Minister’s questions before his death, he asked for an apology to the people of African descent, living and dead, for our country’s role in slavery and colonialism, but since then Prime Ministers and Heads of State have only ever expressed sorrow or deep regret—not sentiments befitting one of the greatest atrocities in human history—and there has been no acknowledgment of the wealth amassed or of the fact that our country took out its largest ever loan to pay off the slave owners and not the enslaved. Will the Prime Minister do what Bernie Grant asked all those years ago, and what I and countless others have asked since, by offering a full and meaningful apology for our country’s role in slavery and colonialism, and committing to reparatory justice?