Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Thursday he is open to a formal apology by the British state for its role in the transatlantic slave trade. The shift from the position of previous governments was reported by BBC News and The Guardian.
Burnham made the comments in a Guardian article published ahead of next week's Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Antigua and Barbuda. Caribbean leaders have renewed demands for an apology and reparations. King Charles III is also touring the region.
"The transatlantic slave trade was a brutal and barbaric violation of those people," Burnham wrote. "They were denied their humanity. They were separated from their families. They were treated as property and worked to their deaths."
"I want 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," he added.
He said the government would offer 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. I am open to them."
Burnham rejected financial reparations. He wrote that British people today cannot be held responsible for historical wrongs committed in a different era under different laws, in which they had no personal involvement. A government source told the BBC the move was "morally the right thing to do." Downing Street sees strengthening the Commonwealth as a strategic priority as China and Russia expand influence in Africa and the Caribbean, BBC News reported.
Caribbean leaders responded cautiously. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley thanked Burnham for "breaking new ground" but said their views on reparations differ. Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne welcomed the debt-restructuring initiative Burnham also announced. The initiative will be led by former prime minister Gordon Brown and is expected to involve the IMF. The former prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, told The Guardian an apology alone was insufficient without reparations on the table.
The British government has never formally apologised for slavery. Parliament abolished the trade in 1833, compensating plantation owners rather than the enslaved. The UK finished repaying that debt only in 2015.