David Vance SubstackRead More
Did you see that (alleged) comedian Sir Lenny Henry has called for reparations in his new book The Big Payback. He argues that the UK owes £18 trillion in compensatory payments to address the “lasting impacts” of the transatlantic slave trade.
This is equivalent to about seven times the UK’s GDP of £2.7 trillion. Henry specifies that these funds should go to all the Caribbean nations affected by slavery, as well as directly to individual black British citizens, whom he describes as all “personally deserving money for the effects of slavery.”
How stunning and brave of Sir Lenny – but we don’t owe so much as one penny to any of these Caribbean nations. let alone the entire British black population.
It was the UK that ENDED the Transatlantic slave and at a massive cost to the UK exchequer and to British lives! We paid £20 million in compensation to slave owners after the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 to end slavery in the empire, a sum that equated to 40% of the national budget and was so large it took British taxpayers until 2015 to pay off the inherited debt. So a debt of honour is owed to us, not the other way around.
As for paying reparations to every black person living in our nation, why? They have all voluntarily chosen to come here and we have generously welcomed them. That’s it. Trying to guilt trip us using the race card is true pathetic and Sir Lenny should be ashamed of himself. He has been generously rewarded by the British State, including being granted a knighthood. But that’s not enough, he wants to transfer the wealth of the British white population to the black population.
You now what that makes him? Yes, a racist.
