Sorry, not sorry, for the Slave trade!
The David Vance BriefingRead More
Yes, I know, many of us feel a deep need to offer an apology on behalf of Britain to the world. Not for slavery, of course, but for having such an utterly sanctimonious clown as Andy Burnham representing us.
The media reports that Mayor Burnham is “open” to calls for a formal British apology for the transatlantic slave trade. He wrote that the trade was a “brutal, barbaric violation” of people “denied their humanity,” and for extra lolz he expressed his PERSONAL “sorrow and regret” for the pain and suffering of so many millions. However, he stopped short of accepting financial reparations.
This is just one vast virtue signal from Burnham and those who write his scripts back at TikTok central. The UK has NOTHING to apologise for, as all sane people recognise. In fact, these grifting Caribbean nations trying to shake some cash from us should be on their knees thanking us for ending the transatlantic slave trade. It took UK funding and Royal Navy resolve to stop that trade in human beings. If not for us, the slave trade would have carried on for some time.
There is also the fact that it was Britain that abolished the slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself in 1833. There is no one alive today who has suffered from the slave trade, so who exactly is Burnham apologising to?
Let’s recall that the Royal Navy set up the West Africa Squadron in 1808. It then spent the best part of 60 years patrolling the African coast, seizing more than 1,600 ships and freeing 150,000 people. When do we get recognition and gratitude for this humanitarian effort? Where is the thanks from the Caribbean?
Of course, there wouldn’t have been ANY transatlantic slave trade were it not for the enthusiasm of African chiefs to sell their own people as commodities to white slavers. I accept that two wrongs don’t make a right, BUT the African slave traders seem to have been airbrushed out of history, and that should not be allowed to stand.
Labour leaders love issuing these kinds of pointless historical apologies. I can remember when Tony Blair issued a de facto apology for the Irish famine back in 1997, so the fact that Burnham is considering another such vapid apology does not surprise me in the least.
All of this focus on a slave trade which ended almost 200 years ago conveniently ignores the fact that there is currently a buoyant slave trade in the Muslim world. Perhaps Mayor Burnham has a few words on that awkward topic to share with us?
As others point out, slavery has always been a feature of human culture. It goes back to the dawn of time. How many Brits should demand reparations from those pesky Romans or those marauding Vikings? Can we have cash now please?
Historical revisionism is such a crock. Of course we all understand that slavery is wrong and that there was great brutality involved in the transatlantic trade. But we also understand that it was complex and many parties were involved. Britain, uniquely, ended it back in the 1800’s and so we have paid our debts.
There is nothing owed to these Caribbean grifters.
