It would be a shame if Britain were forced to leave the Commonwealth, given the great work it has done over the decades – especially under the guardianship of the late Queen. But our departure is swiftly going to emerge as an option if grasping Caribbean governments continue with their threat to ambush Keir Starmer at the Commonwealth summit in Samoa and press for reparations for slavery. This is an issue which is not going to go away among Commonwealth countries, given that all three of the candidates to replace Baroness Scotland as the organisation’s Secretary General appear to be in favour of pressing for billions of pounds in ‘reparatory justice’.
So far, Starmer has been blunt in his rejection of the demands, saying that he would rather talk about the problems facing the world now than try to put right things which happened 200 years ago. It may well be that he is holding his foreign secretary at bay over the issue, given that David Lammy has previously spoken in favour.
If the government of the Bahamas feels short of cash, it could always raise its taxes
But the Prime Minister needs to go further and make the case for the utter intellectual feebleness of the campaign for slavery reparations.
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