Ahead of what was aptly described as the Commonwealth’s November 1-4, 2026 ‘Reparations Summit’ in Antigua and Barbuda, it was clear the UK government and Buckingham Palace were at odds on whether ‘Reparations’ should have been on the agenda.
Marlborough House (the Commonwealth’s headquarters in London) had ensured the topic wasn’t on the agenda for the 28th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and both the Palace and Downing Street (the Prime Minister’s official residence) had issued repeated statements indicating King Charles III would not offer an ‘Apology’ for Britain’s role in the trans-Atlantic trafficking of Africans through 200 years of Chattel Slavery.
But there was a catch: the King had read the tea leaves and knew the time had come for addressing the age-old demand for Britain to fess-up about its role in what the United Nations (UN) has labelled ‘The Gravest Crime Against Humanity’.
Besides, Britain has paid Reparations to the heirs and successors of the enslavers, while refusing to also compensate the descendants of the millions of victims that have forever been demanding equal justice.
A change in the royal attitude emerged with Queen Elizabeth II, who, on her dying bed in 2021, dispatched Prince Charles to the Caribbean to personally convey her royal statement of sorrow about her family’s and Britain’s role in the grave crime, which he directly delivered in his mother’s message to the ceremony marking Barbados’ transition to a Republic on November 30, 2021.
Charles would himself be confronted with the call by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on Britain (and Europe) for ‘Reparations for Slavery and Native Genocide’ at his first CHOGM in Kigali, Rwanda in 2022 and would say at the very-next in Apia, Samoa (in 2024) that ‘The time has come for a conversation on Reparations.’
Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers welcomed the King’s Samoa statement and sought to include it in the Final Communique.
But despite the best efforts of CARICOM and African Union (AU) member-states — representing the nations most affected by Britain and Europe’s trafficking of human bodies — the British delegation successfully manoeuvred to have the prescribed statement bracketed and excluded.
However, Charles held-on to his quest for starting the promised conversation, especially as the world was aware that the UK Treasury has taken 188 years to pay the £20 million agreed to as Reparations to the heirs of the enslavers — from 1837 to 2015.
Prime Minister David Cameron (under whose watch the payments finally ended) visited Jamaica in 2015 and called on CARICOM Heads of Government to basically forget that past and ‘move on’ — despite knowing his own family had owned over-500 enslaved Africans.
His successors at 10 Downing street (Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer) all ignored CARICOM’s 2013 call for an Apology and sidestepped the Ten-Point plan (TPP) for Reparatory Justice tabled in the public domain by the majority former British colonies.
But reality stepped-in in 2026 with Andy Burnham’s accession to the prime ministerial throne.
The new UK PM was caught in the crossfire of the British political directorate opposing any discussion on Reparations and the fact that King Charles was showing no sign of backing down on his promise to start a ‘conversation’.
With CHOGM 2026 approaching and to be hosted in the region most-affected by ‘the gravest crime against humanity’ and with CARICOM and the AU having joined hands, hearts and minds in Ghana in June to jointly pursue the TPP as a ‘Manifesto for the Coming Enlightenment’, PM Burnham opted to join King Charles by ‘personally’ promising to also start a conversation about ‘an Apology’ for Britain’s crime, but ruling out any Reparations ‘payment’.
However, within hours, CARICOM’s Chairman, Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre, let PM Burnham know he couldn’t divorce an Apology from Reparations – a position also taken by Barbados PM Mia Mittley as Chair of CARICOM’s Prime Ministerial Subcommittee on reparations (PMSC) and Vice Chancellor of the University of the West indies (UWI) Sir Hilary Beckles, as Chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC).
The King and the Prime Minister would both keep their promises to start the ‘conversation’, but minus the Apology CARICOM has consistently demanded.
Nonetheless, the St. John’s summit ended with the Final Communique including more than what was excluded in Apia, with an included paragraph on ‘Reparatory Justice’ that reads:
‘Recalling paragraphs 21 and 22 of the Samoa Communiqué of 2024 in Apia, we agreed the time had come for meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation towards forging a common future based on equity. We note the developments made since then, including the adoption of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/80/250 ‘Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime against Humanity’, as well as other initiatives undertaken by the African Union (AU) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and other partners to advance the reparatory justice agenda and restitution of cultural heritage. We welcome the agreement of the Government of the United Kingdom to engage in a structured, time-bound, inclusive and good-faith dialogue with affected parties addressing the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans and its historical harms.’
The paragraph doesn’t deliver the Apology or commit Britain to payments for Reparations, but as the politics of diplomacy goes, CARICOM and the AU succeeded in getting The Commonwealth, with King Charles as its head and Britain as a member-state, to start that conversation that Charles III promised, ‘in a structured, time-bound, inclusive and good-faith dialogue…’
Thus, the UK has agreed to come to the table, to end its opposition to and start the talking about negotiating how-best to address delivery of the outstanding debt still owed to the descendants of the victims of ‘The Greatest Crime Against Humanity’.
More can always have been wished-for, but this is the best the CHOGM leaders agreed, which opens all the windows of opportunity for the better!