Reform UK’s ugly response to slavery reparations claims | Letters

Readers respond to Reform UK’s threat to deny visas to citizens of countries seeking compensation for slavery It is not necessary to agree with the slavery reparations movement in order to see through the crude and threadbare logic of Zia Yusuf’s tirade against it ( Reform UK would stop visas for people from countries seeking slavery reparations, 7 April ). Britain’s prominent role in ending the slave trade and subsequently slavery neither absolves its involvement in those enterprises nor erases their effects. Endless reiteration of it does, however, encourage a sentimental attachment to a single, insular version of history. Similarly, to claim that advocates for reparations are using history “as a weapon to drain our treasury” is a wilful misrepresentation, designed to jolt the indignant reflexes of Reform UK supporters too lazy to engage with extensive argument. Continue reading...

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