Kemi Badenoch rejects calls for Britain to apologise over slave trade

Kemi Badenoch, leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, has rejected calls for the country to issue a formal apology for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, arguing that African kingdoms and merchants also participated in the trade.

Badenoch made her position known in a statement posted on X on Saturday, responding to British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who had expressed openness to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the country.

In an opinion article published in The Guardian on Friday, Burnham described the slave trade as a “brutal and barbaric violation” of enslaved people. Badenoch said Britain should acknowledge the full history of slavery rather than focus on aspects she described as politically convenient.

“Slavery was an evil in which people from every continent and region participated,” she said, questioning whether Caribbean countries demanding an apology from Britain would also seek similar apologies from descendants of African kingdoms, rulers and merchants who captured, sold and profited from the trade.

On reparations, including financial payments and debt relief, Badenoch recalled campaigns such as Jubilee 2000, Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History, which led to more than $100 billion in debt being written off for poorer countries. However, she noted that many of those countries had since accumulated even larger debts.

She argued that British taxpayers should not be held financially responsible for events that occurred generations ago, adding that the Labour government already spends too much on the country’s welfare system.

“There is no reason British taxpayers today should be held financially responsible for things that happened generations before any of us were born,” she said.

Badenoch also criticised Burnham for considering another formal apology, arguing that former Prime Minister Tony Blair had already expressed Britain’s “deep sorrow and regret” over its role in the slave trade nearly 20 years ago. Describing the renewed debate as “another navel-gazing distraction”, she urged Commonwealth countries to prioritise economic partnerships and security cooperation.