Ahead of a meeting with Commonwealth leaders, Andy Burnham wrote that Britain needed to ‘acknowledge its complicated history’
On the slave trade apology, Badenoch repeats what she wrote on X yesterday, dismissing the discussion as “naval gazing”.
She also claims that “We have apologised. Tony Blair apologised twice.”
I assume she’s referring to Blair’s statements in 2006 and 2007, around the 200th anniversary of the British abolition of the slave trade, where the then PM expressed “deep sorrow and regret”, calling the slave trade trade “profoundly shameful” and a “crime against humanity”.
When will the demands stop? What about if they ask for it next year? How many apologies are needed? Everyone knows the transatlantic slave trade was wrong. Britain played a huge role in stopping it.
The problem with this endless talk about apologies is that it is a distraction. It then means that people start focusing on things that happen hundreds of years ago, instead of solving today’s problems.
I’m not interested in magical thinking, i do not want to indulge in Andy Burnham’s fantasies about redoing the referendum, because he doesn’t have a plan for what to do today. He keeps talking about things what will happen after the next election. Where is this plan for now? We had a budget that did not do very much last week.
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