John Oxley is a consultant, writer, and broadcaster. His SubStack is Joxley Writes.
Historic apologies have become part of the repertoire of modern politics.
Like many of our new habits, it started with Tony Blair, and his apology for the Irish Famine.
Since then, the statements of national sorrow have become more commonplace. Gordon Brown apologised to Alan Turing for his conviction, David Cameron to the victims of Bloody Sunday and their families. Others have peppered the following years with the British state issuing, through its Prime Ministers, admissions of guilt for past wrongs.
The request for a state apology has also become a regular campaigning tactic.
Groups affected by past crimes now vocally seek them. Contrition is an attractive campaigning goal. Those personally responsible are hard to punish. Often they are very old, or even dead. Even when they are alive, the legal and evidential challenges of holding them to account are tricky – see the struggles to bring historic prosecutions in Northern Ireland. The state saying sorry has a lower bar. For government, it has a different advantage: it’s free to do.
Now, endless philosophical conversations could be had about the nature of guilt and the value of such apologies. Those issuing them have little to do with the wrongs that were committed. Guilt is imputed to the state, or somehow passed on from office holder to office holder. It seems even stranger when the beneficiaries themselves are dead. There obviously should be some accountability if the state wrongs you, but when it is denied for so long, an apology seems slightly meaningless. Indeed, with many of the campaigns, the “sorry” is a first step towards some sort of financial recompense.
This week, debate over demands for perhaps the biggest apology for Britain’s past has returned. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting has brought greater focus on the potential for an apology over Britain’s colonial role and its contribution to the slave trade. As things stand, it seems likely we will say sorry. That will mean something, and will cost us little, but it doesn’t address the more contentious issue – reparations. Both sides have well-rehearsed arguments. Many of Britain’s past actions damaged these countries. Some were undoubtedly evil. But their impact is hard to quantify, and the connection to the modern day is tenuous. Multi-billion-pound payments from today’s taxpayers will be politically unjustifiable.
Yet we should not pretend that this is a debate about the past. Apologies rarely are, and it’s never the case when it comes to something you didn’t personally do to people who didn’t personally suffer. They are about the relationship as it stands today, and the benefits each side sees in it. For African and Caribbean nations pressing the claim, history is a form of leverage. It is invoked in negotiations over debt, development and standing in the world. For Britain, our response is not just about goodwill with countries we have wronged in the past, but our influence and prestige in the world today.
In an increasingly fractured world, this matters. The Commonwealth’s 56 nations are home to nearly 2.7 billion people, more than sixty percent of them under 30. They are growing richer, more powerful and more important. These countries are markets for British businesses, but also have key geo-strategic roles. Some provide important resources and minerals. Others sit across sea lanes and choke points. They also wield diplomatic heft – perhaps not individually, but as a bloc, Commonwealth countries are about a third of the UN General Assembly and have vital votes in a range of international bodies.
We should also be under no illusions that our rivals are seeking to influence them, including by exploiting our history. Russia has sought to weaponise history in its fight for influence. Despite waging its own war of conquest in Ukraine – and at times exploiting Africans to fight it for them – Russian outlets push anti-colonial narratives as ways of delegitimising the West. At a diplomatic level, the Kremlin encourages claims for reparations. Just last week, the Third Russia-Africa Summit saw the Kremlin agree to support legal claims for compensation for the colonial era. In return, African signatories supported Russia’s position on sanctions and frozen assets.
These debates sit within broader plays for influence in Africa. Russia has sent mercenaries to the region’s conflicts, in support of governments and movements which reject Western influence. The Africa Corps, the state-controlled successor to Wagner, now props up juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. China offers money, often asking few questions about how it is spent. Funds have flowed in to support infrastructure projects, without the qualms about climate and human rights that come with Western funding. Governments get more resources and a freer hand partnering with our opponents than with us.
The question of reparations sits awkwardly with this realpolitik. Cheques for historic wrongs would be unpopular with British voters, and there is no guarantee that they would buy loyalty abroad. It is easier to weaponise the past than it is to assuage the damage. A flat refusal, however, hands our rivals the exact story they want to tell – that Britain and other former colonial powers offer words and political interference, without more tangible benefits.
Britain’s relationship with the rest of the world will always be coloured by our past. Our involvement in slavery and empire gives many nations a rightful reason to feel aggrieved. The impact of that, however, is more about the present than about who did what in the past. Former colonies’ demands may have historical justification, but they are grounded in the present. The countries are seeking debt relief, investment, and a louder voice in global institutions. These claims are as much about their position today as a reckoning for what happened generations ago.
It can be tempting on the right to see this as a shakedown, with poorer governments taking advantage of our historical relationship to move vast sums from our treasury to theirs. That seems like a lazy reading. States pressing for reparations are doing what sovereign states have always done, using whatever leverage they have to advance their own interests. In a fragmenting world, with our rivals rising and expanding their influence, we should expect to have to bargain.
Britain will probably say sorry. Burnham has signalled he is open to it, and the pressure from Commonwealth leaders is unlikely to let up. But, as with our domestic apologies, that is unlikely to dent the clamour for something more substantive. At home, compensation campaigns weigh the wrongs done to the claimants against the cost to taxpayers. Overseas, the position is complicated by the demands of diplomacy and geopolitics.
This is not purely about the past. Claims for reparations sit within a broader pattern of international intrigue and influence. We must not fool ourselves that magnanimous payments will win us friends. Nor should we be naïve about why these claims are pressed. An apology is one thing – and an attractive one because it is free. But both sides of the table know what free things are worth. We should probably apologise but not overestimate its impact. Apologies serve a political purpose, but they rarely end debates.