Questions people ask us
These are the questions we hear most, and our short answers. Each answer has a source, so you can check it yourself.
Wasn't that a long time ago?
Some of it was, but the debt raised to pay the slave-owners was carried in the national debt until 2015. The money that flowed out is still flowing today, through debt, tax havens and supply chains.
Sources:Full Fact: the Slavery Abolition Act loan; Our case library
My ancestors were poor too. Why should I answer for them?
You don't have to answer for anyone, and yes, most of our ancestors were poor. They paid as well: taxpayers carried the debt raised for the owners' compensation, and slavery money bought Highland estates that evicted thousands. This is about the few who profited.
Sources:Community Land Scotland; Full Fact: the Slavery Abolition Act loan
Didn't the empires abolish slavery?
They did, and then Britain, France and the Netherlands paid the owners. The people they had enslaved got nothing.
Weren't Africans involved in the slave trade too?
Some African rulers and merchants took part. European demand, money and guns built the system, and European parliaments and courts made it law.
Sources:Strayer, Ways of the World (Macmillan); MPRA: the gun-slave cycle
Who would pay? Me?
Not you. The fortunes and institutions that profited would. In a YouGov poll in Britain, three in four people backed taxing fortunes over £10 million.
Who would get it?
The communities harmed first, through things everyone can see: clinics, schools, clean water, debt relief and climate protection.
Sources:Law and Political Economy Project: reconsidering reparations; Ipsos: schools and Britain's part in the slave trade
Won't corrupt governments pocket it?
A fair worry, which is why the proposal sends money to communities through an independent, transparent body, not to governments.
Isn't this divisive?
The division already exists, and it is the problem. The few do best when the rest of us are split.
Didn't the empire bring railways and roads?
It built railways in India, paid for with Indian taxpayers' money and with guaranteed returns for British investors. They were built to carry goods to the ports.
Sources:Chatham House: Britain must pay
Can we afford it?
The first steps cost little: an apology, telling the full history, changing debt law. Those who profited pay for the rest.
Shouldn't we look forward, not back?
Yes, and repair is how we do it. It builds what was taken, from clinics to fairer debt rules, and it starts with an honest account of what happened.
Sources:Law and Political Economy Project: reconsidering reparations
What about China? Doesn't it do the same today?
In part, yes: Chinese firms are among the dominant players in Congo's cobalt and run Indonesia's nickel smelting. We want the system changed for everyone, starting with the levers the rich countries hold: their laws, their courts and their tax havens.
Sources:Kitco: Glencore on Congo cobalt exports; Debt Justice