Reform UK would stop visas for people from countries seeking slavery reparations
Reform UK has said it would stop issuing visas to any person from a country which continues to demand compensation from the UK for its role in the transatlanctic trade in enslaved people.
Reform UK has said it would stop issuing visas to any person from a country which continues to demand compensation from the UK for its role in the transatlanctic trade in enslaved people.
Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesperson, told the Daily Telegraph that the call for reparations was “insulting”.
He claimed 3.8 million visas had been issued to people from countries calling for reparations over the last two decades.
For four centuries, seven European nations including the UK enslaved and trafficked more than 15 million Africans across the Atlantic. Historians have linked wealth from enslavement to mass industrialisation in the west.
Last month, the UN voted to describe the transatlantic slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and called for reparations as “a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs”.
The landmark resolution was backed by the African Union (AU) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom). It had been proposed by Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama, who said: “Let it be recorded that when history beckoned, we did what was right for the memory of millions who suffered the indignity of slavery.”
The UK and members of the EU abstained from the vote, while the US voted against the resolution, which was not legally binding.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, Yusuf said: “A growing number of countries are demanding reparations from Britain. These countries ignore the fact that Britain made huge sacrifices to be the first major power to outlaw slavery and enforce this prohibition.”
He said the “bank is closed and the door is locked” for anyone who wanted to “use history as a weapon to drain our treasury”.
“The United Kingdom is not an ATM for ethnic grievances of the past, and we will no longer tolerate being ridiculed on the world stage,” he continued. “While countries like Jamaica, Nigeria and Ghana ramp up their demands for reparations, the Westminster establishment has rewarded them. Enough is enough.”
Reform UK has previously pledged to scrap international aid for countries demanding reparations.
In 2023, a report on reparations for the transatlantic slave trade, written and compiled by Patrick Robinson, a former judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), concluded the UK alone should pay $24tn (£18.8tn) as reparations for transatlantic slavery in 14 countries.
