War criminal and careerist politician Suella Braverman recently tweeted that Jamaica’s petition to King Charles for slavery reparations “has no basis in law” and the “British Empire did so much good for the world”.
The Reform MP added that:
“If the government is seriously thinking about this then former colonies should pay the British back for the considerable investment, effort and contribution that this country made which laid the foundations for many flourishing democracies today.”
The British Empire did so much good for the world.
Of course slavery was abhorrent but to expect the British people of the 21st century to pay for actions that took place in the 18th century has no basis in law.
If the government is seriously thinking about this then former… https://t.co/JWwDtdMEPj
— Suella Braverman (@SuellaBraverman) July 3, 2026
If Braverman got her way, who would receive the reparations? The descendants of the 46,000 slave owners – the same ones who were compensated by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, granting them £20 million in total (worth £2.1 billion today)?
In fact, freedom from slavery has always come at a hefty price – for the slaves. The Haitians found this out after their heroic and revolutionary struggle for freedom, 1790s-1800s.
In 1825, the French forced (under the threat of invasion) a humiliating indemnity of 150 million francs on Haiti – equivalent to $560 million today – for the loss of slaves and highly-profitable plantations.
I suspect, meanwhile, that when Braverman talks about “investments” benefitting the colonies, she cannot be talking about slavery – the profits of which were used to boost the “flourishing” of trade, industry, and finance in Western Europe, at the dawn of capitalism.
Instead, Braverman is presumably talking about the colossal amounts of capital that imperialist countries have exported to the colonies and ex-colonies since the late 19th Century – a ‘development’ that has come with so many strings attached.
Braverman’s understanding of her own system is clearly quite limited. For every pound that is “invested” into the ex-colonies, so much more already flows back in the form of profits, interest payments, uneven trade deals, and so on.
To quote one study from 2017, in a single year (2012) the imperialist-dominated world received inflows such as aid, investment, and remittances worth just over $2 trillion – and sent back $5 trillion!
Since then – as the debt burden, global protectionism, and cuts to aid have only increased – the situation for the ex-colonies has only gotten worse.
The fact is that the same countries which were physically enchained yesterday remain shackled to their former imperialist masters today. For the same reason, reparations under capitalism are a utopian idea.
We already see how, for instance, aid ends up – topped up – back in the pockets of those who provide it; or how the vicious debt cycle started anew after the G7 debt jubilee agreement of 2005.
Even then, the ruling class won’t part ways with a single penny for reparations – despite the trillions that sit in the big banks of London, Paris, New York, and Tokyo, and that were created by the working class of the world.
To achieve genuine reparation and justice for the horrors of chattel slavery and imperialism, a cash transfer from one capitalist class to another is never going to be enough. We must overthrow the whole imperialist system in one country after another.
On such a basis, all the existing demands for reparations would look pitiful compared to what could be achieved with an internationally planned economy.
