The U.K. prime minister however rejected calls for Britain to pay financial reparations.
U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he was “open” to calls for the British state to formally apologize for its role in the transatlantic slave trade.
Burnham offered a “structured dialogue with those affected” by the slave trade in an opinion piece for the Guardian, published ahead of a summit of Commonwealth countries starting Sunday.
“Having these difficult conversations to safeguard the Commonwealth for the future is the right thing to do. It is also the patriotic thing to do,” Burnham wrote.
However, he rejected demands from Caribbean countries for Britain to pay financial reparations for the slave trade, saying that they would be the wrong solution.
“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,” the prime minister argued.
Barbados PM Mia Mottley announced in June a manifesto by Caribbean leaders setting out the “moral, ethical and legal case” for reparations from former colonial powers.
Burnham will attend the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua and Barbuda, which runs through Wednesday. It will be his first foreign trip with King Charles.
It will be a crucial test for the prime minister, who will try to avoid a fight over slavery reparations that marred his predecessor Keir Starmer’s visit at the last summit in 2024.