Slavery and Reparations

The incoming Archbishop of Canterbury has been urged to scrap plans to spend £100m over the Church of England’s historical links to slavery.

In a letter seen by the Sunday Times, a group of Conservative MPs and peers has urged Dame Sarah Mullally to stop the Church from spending the money.

They claim the funds can only legally be spent on churches and the payment of clergy wages.

In a statement, the Church Commissioners said that arrangements for the fund were being “developed transparently – in line with charity law”.

Detailing “historical atrocities,” a years-long reparations study in Detroit has a lengthy list of expensive recommendations but doesn’t put a final price tag on how much it would cost.

The Detroit Reparations Task Force produced a 558 page report with programs to compensate residents who are descendants of slaves and those affected by “unjust” city policies. The report comes a full year after it was originally due after a series of missed deadlines.

Given Lenny Henry wants the British state to pay £18tn in slavery reparations, perhaps we should be thankful that the Church of England wants to cough up “only” £100m as part of its Project Spire, the Church Commissioners’ proposal to invest in “communities affected by historic transatlantic chattel slavery”.

Not only does the Church want to spend this money, but a parliamentary response to a question asked by the Conservative MP Neil O’Brien this week highlighted how its leaders are jumping through a series of legal hoops to do so, including applying to register a new charity they propose to call The Fund of Healing, Repair and Justice.

Britain’s campaign against slavery was expensive in both lives and money

There was a time when the better off flaunted their status by buying mansions, driving fancy cars, and wearing top hats. Today privilege is commonly assumed to be shameful. Western elites now prefer to sport superior moral status by championing fashionable “progressive” causes. These are “luxury beliefs” because they cost the elites nothing, while costing others a lot. One such cause is that of “decolonisation”, which defames Britain’s four-hundred years of colonial endeavour as a simple litany of racism, exploitation, and oppression – of which slavery is the epitome.

Governor Newsom Virtue-Signals on the Taxpayer’s Dime

California governor Gavin Newsom has announced he plans to give $233,000 in reparations to each black Californian, at a cost of half a trillion dollars. This taxpayer-funded largess comes on the heels of California’s projected $25 billion budget deficit, with state revenue now 41% below expectations due in part to lost tax-revenues from rich residents––who pay half of state income taxes–– fleeing California’s 13.3%, the nation’s highest rate, on incomes over a million dollars.

The Hill reports that Democrat lawmakers have “reintroduced a resolution to offer reparations to descendants of enslaved Africans and people of African descent” to the tune of $14 trillion.

However, Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution clearly states, “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”  And Article I, Section 10 says, “No State shall … pass any Bill of Attainder, [or]  ex post facto Law.”  Apparently, the founders thought it important to ban such legislation at both the federal and state levels.

The governing body of London’s Square Mile is looking to commission research into its historical associations with the transatlantic slave trade.

The City of London Corporation has said the proposed work detailing its connections with the trade in enslaved African people “will enable us to understand and own our past”.

The plans have been drawn up ahead of the publication by Lancaster University of its own research into the slave trade, expected in 2026.

Commonwealth leaders concluded last week’s summit in Samoa by announcing that Britain should commit to reparations for its role in the transatlantic slave trade.

UK prime minister Keir Starmer had tried to refocus the summit around ‘future-facing’ challenges such as climate change. His chancellor, Rachel Reeves, was more blunt. She told the BBC last week that ‘We’re not going to be paying out the reparations that some countries are speaking about’. Yet in the end, it was to no avail. A day later, the 56 heads of government, including Starmer, signed a letter agreeing that ‘the time has come’ for a ‘meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation’ about Britain paying reparations.

The Republican Party was founded in Wisconsin, a free state, in 1854, as an abolitionist party.

That’s right, the party was incepted with the idea of abolishing slavery and emancipating slaves.

Freedom is in its DNA.

Britain has lost a key battle over reparations as Commonwealth leaders used the group’s summit in Samoa to demand talks on compensation.

The call for “discussions” was included in the gathering’s final communique despite a 48-hour rearguard from UK negotiators.

This comes as a major blow to Sir Keir Starmer, who immediately ruled out paying any kind of cash compensation for Britain’s role in the slave trade.

The communique, signed by all 56 Commonwealth nations, noted “calls for discussions on reparatory justice with regard to the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans and chattel enslavement”.

That means Canada has endorsed reparations because of course Trudeau would.