I thought it was relevant for you, I was replying to your post of "If some line between beneficiary and victim could be traced to today then i'd support attempts to compensate", but maybe I misunderstood.
Keir Starmer Labour Leader
- Thread starter Damien
- Start date
If your great, great, great grandfather worked tens of thousands of hours of unpaid labour for the british crown would it not be reasonable to compensate his descendants for that work? Right a historic wrong? Would they not have benefitted from his assets through the generations?
It seems a fairly straightforward link. The Monarchy is inherited, why not their debts?
If you cant establish any link, then you can say as much, say you tried and draw a line under it. Maybe all you can establish is a victim and some symbolic gesture and acknowledgement is not nothing (?)
I don't think so personally. I respect that you do, it's just an honest answer to an honest question.
I don't have to go back to great great in my case, both my grandfathers were killed by another country, resulting in my own father having to leave education early, which no doubt affected my family wealth and my own, but I don't expect compensation from that country either. I guess you will dismiss that comparison as whataboutism.
I'll go for anecdote. I dont now the details but your family should have been supported, maybe it came in one way or another. I'm probably the same as you but i get others feel differently and i wouldn't want to deny them if they were inclined to seek compensation.
Strange point to make.
If implemented, it would obviously not be taken from people struggling to eat, it could easily be means tested. Not taken from people in poverty.
I don't understand your point? Can you expand?
Easy to have that opinion when you are the ancestor who has benefitted rather than the ancestor who has been stolen from.
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I was being flippant. Apologies. The arguments against reparations for slavery and empire are usually couched in terms of how it would be unfair for future generations to be held accountable for the actions of past generations that they are not responsible for.
But the national debt involves current and future generations paying off the debts of past generations. We had to pay the US back for their WW2 war loans, even though those repayments were paid for by the taxes of people who were not alive in WW2. And a common argument against excess government spending and deficits is that future generations will have to pay our bill.
It seems to be that some kinds of historical debts we accept as needing repayment, and some we have decided we don't.
Calling debts “national” that, unlike WWII debts, were incurred when around 5% of the population had the right to vote, seems a stretch.
It is the rhetoric that is important.
WW1 debts had to be repaid, and that was before universal suffrage, when less than 20% of the population could vote.
We borrowed £20m to compensate slaveowners for their loss of property when we partially ended slavery in the British Empire in 1833 and 1834 and we treated that as a 'national' debt. That was only paid off (finally) in 2015.
Some debts are valued. Some are not.
But you are referring to the subsequent repayment of monetary debts incurred and recognised at the time of issuance. In the case of reparations, the obligation is not easy to quantify and would be recognised only 200 years plus after it was incurred.
Beyond that conceptual distinction though (and even the moral issues), I worry that, if you want to boost a MAGA-type white supremacist movement in the UK, reparations would be the perfect gift.
But the argument is everyone in Britain, even people on food banks, has benefitted, in part, from the wealth bound up in our institutions. Morally, they also have an obligation to pay something, don't they? I mean, this is a shared moral responsibility or it isn't, isn't that the point?
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The state would pay, not individual people. You know this.
Nonsense. Individual people pay state expenses, whether directly or in the form of interest on debts (eg any reparation payments) via their taxes.
Yes... Most people in need of food banks will be net recipients.
Yes, but the fact that the exploitation and plunder of colonialism wasn't recognised as a debt in the same way as, well, borrowing from the Bank of England shouldn't mean it is treated any differently.
The cause may seem idealistic. And again, you are right, the culture wars shows that the way Britain's past is taught (and which bits are taught) also fuels nationalism.
So I cannot separate a debate about colonial reparations from the general aims of decolonisation in education and many other areas.
The UK has promoted the story of the good empire for generations. That myth informs everything from aid payments to the structure of UK citizenship and its deprival today.
The call for reparations will require this country to admit the truth of its empire, and not the Nigel Biggar fantasy world that dominates. If the discussion of reparations starts that wider debate, it will have made an important start.
Ahh yes, I understand, good point.
We, as a country, would need to accept responsibility, that is step 1. Step 2 is to find the fairest way to implement the payment. As we do with any national debt.
The "taking from people on food banks" argument is moot. As another poster has pointed out to you.
More the basic point that you would need to explain to them why people descended from slaves 200 years ago are more worthy of say 100 billion or 500 billion of support than they are.
And then quickly change the subject before they bring up the money we've given the 'Royal' family during that same 200 years because of who they descended from.
Can’t wait to see TKS ripped a new arse by Kemi Badenoch at PMQ’s.
Oh yeah, starmer must be quaking over someone opposing the 22bn rise in the NHS budget.
You wildly overrate Kemi Notgoodenough.
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You'll probably be waiting a very long time. Shouting out words the people in front of you like to hear is easy.
I don't know how any one can defend Reaves and Starmer.
Starmer is a nasty dangerous socialist who will destroy this country and the working class are already suffering due to the budget.
Starmer is a nasty dangerous socialist who will destroy this country and the working class are already suffering due to the budget.
James Melville?
I swear most people in the UK don’t even know what socialism is.
Really? She views some cultures as superior to others and her surname is literally "Bad Enoch". No need to overcomplicate things.
They haven't even passed the legislation yet.
Also the working people of this country did suffer a little bit under the 14 years of Tory rule.
Or how it causes the working class to suffer.
Not my invention!
It's just become a catch-all term to describe anything that deviates from right-wing thought. Similar to how Marxism is now used to suit certain narratives. You have politicians calling free market capitalists Marxists when they do something that undermines them.
Ah yes that’s another.
Every prime minister has been a free market capitalist, problem is people seem to be blind to the side effects of it , it’s really bizarre as inequality is one of the biggest issues with the system.
The morality of the situation is my argument for reparations, I dont believe it will be done due to political and economic reasons.
Conversely, I also don't believe, morally, anyone in the UK, the 6th largest economy in the World, should have to rely on food banks. Especially with the massive wealth disparity we have in this country. The state should support those in genuine need. Most are the working poor, so employers need also to support their employees better. This should be regulated. The super wealthy indiviudals and companies should be taxed correctly.
We won't agree on this point. But you are thinking too tightly, within the confines of the status quo.
They are not socialists.
Socialist 
Amen. Colonialism and slavery have long shadows.
We won't agree. I think it's a utopian idea that would fall apart very quickly on implementation, possibly horribly so. There's no moral virtue in that.
Indeed but the guilt is not ours to bear.