Reparations for enslaved Africans

On 14 August 2021, Pavilion Labour’s GC considered issues from the slave trade still unaddressed and uncompensated for by the UK Government and others. The resolution adopted without any dissent follows below:

ATONEMENT AND REPARATIONS FOR THE UK’S TRANSATLANTIC TRAFFIC IN ENSLAVED AFRICANS

This Labour Party notes that:

  1. The Oxford Dictionary defines Reparations as “the action of making amends for a wrong one has done, by providing payment or other assistance to those who have been wronged”. The aim is to “restore the victim to the original situation before the gross violations of international human rights law and serious violations of international humanitarian law occurred”.
  2. The UK government agreed at the UN World Conference Against Racism 2001 “that slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and should always have been so, especially the transatlantic slave trade and are among the major sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, and that Africans and people of African descent, Asians and people of Asian descent and indigenous peoples were victims of these acts and continue to be victims of their consequences”, Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA), Declaration 13.
  3. The UK government recognised “the necessity for special measures or positive actions for the victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in order to promote their full integration into society. Those measures for effective action, including social measures, should aim at correcting the conditions that impair the enjoyment of rights and the introduction of special measures to encourage equal participation of all racial and cultural, linguistic and religious groups in all sectors of society and to bring all onto an equal footing. Those measures should include measures to achieve appropriate representation in educational institutions, housing, political parties, parliaments and employment, especially in the judiciary, police, army and other civil services”, DDPA, Declaration 108.
  4. The United Kingdom (UK) played a major role in the Transatlantic Traffic in Enslaved Africans (TTEA) which saw at least 15 million Africans forcibly trafficked to the Western Hemisphere with many thousands losing their lives during the crossing from Africa to the Americas on British Ships. A great deal of the wealth of the UK was founded on this vile crime against humanity and the legacies of chattel enslavement are still visible in our society today. The Industrial Revolution would have been impossible without the wealth generated by enslaved labour. The insurance and banking industries were developed to compensate enslavers who would throw enslaved people overboard rather than provide sufficient food and drink for the journey from Africa. The money from enslavement paid for UK roads, the railways, quaysides, warehouses, factories, trading houses, universities, opulent town houses and rural stately homes. Cities such as London, Bristol, Glasgow and Liverpool grew from the ‘trade’. Royal Crescent, Brighton was built from the profits of an enslaver. The national curriculum fails to educate our nation’s children and young people about the history of enslavement and its legacies. It is institutions such as the Black Cultural Archives in London and the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool which teach people about the history of the TTEA and its legacy, not statues of enslavers.
  5. Whilst the UK abolished enslavement in 1833, it did so only after 200 years of profiting from it. The government paid £20 million, the equivalent of £17 billion today, to ‘compensate’ enslavers. Those who were enslaved received no compensation but were forced to work for nothing for a further 5 years in ‘apprenticeships’. We live in a world where the beneficiaries of the enslavement of African people, including many institutions and families in the UK, continue to benefit but have not made Reparations, while the descendants of the victims continue to suffer racism, discrimination and inequality ingrained in education, housing, health, employment and the criminal justice system. The £20 million was not paid off until 2015 meaning that we have all paid for this through taxation.
  6. The legacy of enslavement manifests itself both in overt acts of violent racism, such as the murder of George Floyd at the hands of American police, African deaths in police, prison, psychiatric custody and immigration detention in the UK and in institutional failings to provide sufficient support and care for BAME communities, such as the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on BAME people in the UK. The legacies are documented, eg in the Race Disparity Audit; The Lammy Review of the criminal justice system; Race in the workplace (The McGregor-Smith Review); Prof Kevin Fenton COVID-19 report and the Parker Review of UK Boards. These were mostly commissioned because of civil society Shadow Reports to the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination; Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent and Special Rapporteurs.

This Labour Party further notes that:

  1. In 1993 Bernie Grant, MP tabled Early Day Motion (EDM) #1987 in the House of Commons welcoming the Abuja Proclamation, after the first Pan-African Conference on Reparations sponsored by the Organisation of African Unity, urging all countries who were enriched by enslavement to review the case for Reparations for “Africa and to Africans in the Diaspora”. Other Labour Party MPs have supported the Reparations movement over many years.
  2. Global Afrikan Congress (GAC), an international Reparations organisation, was formed by Afrikan people working together at the UN World Conference Against Racism 2001. The UK Chapter, Global Afrikan Congressuk (GACuk), holds an annual Reparations Lobby of Parliament and hosts an annual Reparations Conference with RMT trade union. MPs who have attended the Lobbies have suggested establishing an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Reparations to promote better understanding of the impact in the UK and the rest of the world in order to achieve Reparations.
  3. The United Nations ‘Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to A Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law’ provides a framework for a comprehensive reparatory justice process but UK civil society organisations that have pursued legal action for Reparations have not been successful.
  4. An African civil society 12 Point Action Plan for Reparations is being developed from a Caribbean Pan African Network (CPAN) collaboration with representatives of the African Union, GAC and Africans from the continent and the Diaspora. The CARICOM Reparations Commission campaigns on the moral, ethical and legal case for the payment of Reparations by the governments of all former colonial powers and relevant institutions of those countries to the nations and people of the Caribbean. It has a 10 Point Action Plan for Reparations.
  5. We are nearing the end of the UN International Decade for People of African Descent (IDPAD) 2015 to 2024, proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 68/237, with a UK government refusing to act on the themes of recognition, justice and development.
  6. The work of IDPAD Coalition UK and GACuk in defining ‘Afriphobia – prejudice, discrimination, fear, hatred or bigotry towards people of African Heritage and things African’.

This Labour Party resolves:

  1. To demand a sound commitment from the Labour Party to challenge all forms of racism within and outside of the Party, including Afriphobia.
  2. To insist that African people be part of building a framework within which to define and identify institutional racism affecting African people and that the Labour Party will fully support and encourage this.
  3. To demand the Labour Party publicly affirm its commitment to UN resolution 68/237 Proclamation of the International Decade for People of African Descent and set out its plans for demonstrating its resolve to have the resolution implemented by the British government.
  4. To demand that the Labour Party leads in education curriculum reform, working towards mainstreaming the excluded African history that has been hidden and denied at all levels of education, identifying and teaching constructively about the history and contribution of those subjugated by enslavement and colonial rule.
  5. To call on the Labour Party to support the establishment of an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Reparations.
  6. To publicise the GACuk call for civil society to lobby their MPs for an APPG on Reparations.

Proposed by Pavilion Labour BAME Branch
Adopted nem con by Brighton Pavilion CLP’s General Committee
Date 14 August 2021