Burnham 'Open' to Formal Apology for Slave Trade Ahead of Caribbean Commonwealth Summit

In a piece written for The Guardian, Prime Minister Andy Burnham set out his position on one of the most contested questions in Britain's relationship with the Commonwealth: whether the state should formally apologise for the transatlantic slave trade. He said he was open to it. He also said, just as plainly, that he would not pay for it.

Burnham is due to attend the Commonwealth heads of government meeting, known as Chogm, in the Caribbean next week. Ahead of that trip, he expressed what he called his personal "sorrow and regret" for the suffering the trade caused. He described it as a "brutal and barbaric violation" in which people were treated as property and worked to their deaths. He wrote that he wanted to recognise the pain of so many millions, and the way the trade still shapes the world today.

The timing is not incidental. Caribbean nations have renewed their calls for Britain to apologise for its part in selling enslaved people for profit, and to pay reparations, as the King toured the region. Burnham's article is a response to that pressure, delivered before he arrives in the room where it will be felt most directly.

What he offered is a process rather than a pronouncement. The government, he wrote, is proposing a "structured dialogue" with those affected by the slave trade. Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state would form an important part of that process, and he said he is open to such calls. He stopped short of committing to one.

On reparations, he was firmer, and in line with his predecessors. He wrote that some have called for financial reparations and that he does not believe that is the right answer. His reasoning was that British people today cannot be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, that took place in a different age, under different laws, and in which they had no personal part.

In place of payments, Burnham said he would seek to launch a drive on debt-servicing, aimed at helping countries repay over a longer period and at better rates. Three people will join him at the summit to help with that work: Chancellor John Healey, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and former prime minister Gordon Brown. He also said the UK would support countries in moving to renewable energy, in getting smaller nations heard on the world stage, and in work to educate women and girls and to tackle poverty and inequality.

He framed the whole approach as a matter of national character. Having these difficult conversations to safeguard the Commonwealth's future, he wrote, is the right thing to do and also the patriotic thing, because the Britain he believes in is confident, decent and brave. He pointed to Britain's role in leading the world in abolishing slavery and said the country can show leadership again.

What to watch at Chogm is whether the dialogue and the debt-servicing drive translate into anything concrete, and whether the openness to an apology hardens into one.