Greene King and Lloyd’s are wrong to pay slave trade reparations

Brewers Greene King is to make a ‘substantial investment to benefit the BAME community’ to make up for the compensation paid to its founder after slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833. Lloyds of London has made a similar announcement.

The underlying assumption is that everyone classified today as black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) descended from a victim of slavery. No such assumption can be made by anyone whose mind is open to the facts of the historical record. At the very least, the truth is more nuanced, and in full daylight we can see that portraying all BAME people as victims can only be sustained by ignoring vast swathes of evidence from numerous academic studies.

Some people of African descent will find that their ancestors were on the wrong side of history. Some of today’s well-educated, middle-class campaigners are the offspring of parents or grandparents who came here from African countries.