Sunak refuses to apologise for UK role in historical slavery when challenged

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Rishi Sunak said he was committed to ensuring the UK is an “inclusive and tolerant” society, and said trying to “unpick our history is not the right way forward”. “There has been no acknowledgement of the wealth that has been amassed or the fact that our country took out the largest loan it ever has to pay off the slave owners, and not the enslaved.” She asked: “Will he do what Bernie Grant asked all those years ago, what I have asked, and what countless others have asked since, and offer a full and meaningful apology for our country’s role in slavery and colonialism, and commit to reparatory justice?” Mr Sunak said: “No. “That’s something that we on this side of the House are committed to doing and will continue to deliver, but trying to unpick our history is not the right way forward, and it’s not something that we will focus our energies on.” A Labour spokesman said Ms Ribeiro-Addy’s call for reparations was not party policy. The spokesman said “she is right to highlight the appalling history of the slave trade” but “on the specific point of reparations, the point that she was making is not Labour Party policy”.