Princess Antoinette Fernandez, a woman with a royal name if ever there was one, is the daughter of Her Royal Highness Abiola Dosunmu, the queen mother of Lagos in West Africa.
asserted
Fernandez → be → Africa
Through no fault of her own, she is descended from the Obas or kings of Lagos – now the commercial capital of Nigeria – who built their vast wealth on the proceeds of slavery.
asserted
who → descend → slavery
With breath-taking hypocrisy, Princess Antoinette is also the Green Party's spokesman for slavery reparations.
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Antoinette → take → reparations
She campaigns for Britain to make a formal apology for its involvement in the transatlantic slave trade and to pay unimaginable sums in compensation.
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Britain → campaign → compensation
The money being demanded from the UK is beyond the realms of fantasy.
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money → demand → fantasy
A report compiled for the University of the West Indies by the Brattle Group, a US consultancy, came up with the figure of £19.7 trillion.
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report → compile → trillion
The fact that the woman leading the charge for the Greens is the descendant of African slavers herself underlies the sickening opportunism of it all.
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woman → lead → it
Yet Andy Burnham, describing Britain in the Guardian last week as 'a country that participated in the trade in human lives', appears willing to pander to these outrageous claims.
uncertain
that → describe → claims
He said he was 'open… to calls for a formal apology'.
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he → say → apology
Apologising to countries that indulged in slavery themselves would be morally obscene.
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that → apologise → slavery
Apologising to countries that still practise slavery would be even worse.
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that → apologise → slavery
Yet Nigeria, along with India, Pakistan and Bangladesh (all members of the Commonwealth) account for about a third of the world's 50 million enslaved people today.
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Nigeria → account → people
The money being demanded from the UK for slavery reparations is beyond the realms of fantasy, writes Professor Doug Stokes.
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Stokes → demand → fantasy
He is seen greeting the guards of honour in Nassau, The Bahamas
That figure, according to the Global Estimates of Modern Slavery report, includes 28 million in forced labour and 22 million women in forced marriages.
These countries signed a declaration this year describing slavery as the worst sin imaginable.
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countries → see → sin
At the same time, they are perpetuating the misery of slavery for far more people than were transported to the Americas – about 9.3 million, according to the Brattle Report.
uncertain
they → perpetuate → Report
In sheer weight of numbers, though, it is far exceeded by the numbers currently enslaved by countries demanding reparations from Britain.
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it → exceed → Britain
Mr Burnham is gripped by what I call the 'atonement complex'.
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I → grip → what
He appears to believe that our country's prosperity was built on the back of slavery.
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prosperity → appear → slavery
But that notion doesn't match the complex reality.
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notion → match → reality
It's true that a comparatively small number of British businessmen, such as the Bristol merchant Edward Colston (whose statue ended up in the harbour in 2020), did profit hugely.
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statue → end → 2020
The nation as a whole did not.
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nation → do → whole
Reparations campaigners argue that the UK was made rich by slavery, that the wealth is still here, and that the white majority are collectively guilty and must pay.
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majority → argue → slavery
But the evidence for this aggressive pretence does not exist.
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evidence → exist → pretence
Analysis shows that, at most, the country experienced about a decade's-worth of extra growth in terms of income per head, a fillip largely confined to regions such as the PM's beloved Manchester, thanks to its cotton mills.
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country → show → mills
Our comparative prosperity was rooted in the innovation and industry of the whole population over centuries.
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prosperity → root → centuries
Families who did benefit directly from slavery, such as the Bertrams in Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, owed their wealth to the sugar plantations.
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who → benefit → plantations
Sugar did little for the factories that were the real engine of our prosperity: as the economic historian Joel Mokyr remarked, without slavery Britain 'would have had to drink bitter tea, but it still would have had an Industrial Revolution'.
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it → do → Revolution
Other economists have pointed out that, if the slave trade really was the basis for Western wealth, Portugal ought to be the richest country in Europe.
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Portugal → point → Europe
Its ships transported nearly two-thirds more Africans than British vessels.
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ships → transport → vessels
It should also be said that, horrific though the voyages across the Atlantic certainly were and hideous the conditions of the slaves who survived to work their lives away in the Americas, the Africa they were leaving was no Garden of Eden.
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they → say → Eden
The continent was characterised by tribal warfare and genocide, as well as endemic slavery.
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continent → characterise → warfare
African states such as Dahomey and Sokoto thrived on the trade, and the Ottoman Empire ran one of the world's longest-running slaveholding operations into the 20th century.
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Empire → thrive → century
Ending slavery cost Britain far more than it profited from the trade.
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it → end → trade
The demands for reparations amount to nothing more than an attempt at blackmail, writes Professor Doug Stokes
Britain differed from them all in the most crucial of ways.
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Britain → amount → ways
Slavery was never legal on these islands, and we led the fight to end the trade, outlawing it in 1807.
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we → lead → 1807
The following year, the Royal Navy formed the West Africa Squadron, tasked with forcing other nations to accept abolition.
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Navy → form → abolition
The cost of this is put at 1.8 per cent of national income for 60 years.
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cost → put → years
This figure can be debated, but it has been called the most expensive moral action in history.
asserted
it → debate → history
About 1,600 ships were intercepted during those years and more than 150,000 Africans were liberated.
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Africans → intercept → years
But the men who sailed the ships paid a terrible price.
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who → sail → price
…and 15 more, not listed.
The Aporia
