Britain has been urged to give up six overseas territories and cough up reparations in a fresh demand for “decolonisation”.
A delegation of representatives from 15 Caribbean countries has travelled to Britain to push for a number of measures to tackle “extractive colonialism”.
The list of demands has been drawn up by the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and is set to be handed over to MPs.
In the comprehensive manifesto, the group says that not only should ex-colonial powers be forced to hand out reparations to affected countries, but overseas territories should be given up too.
Caricom’s “key demand” calls for Britain to relinquish its control over the Caribbean territories of Turks and Caicos, Anguilla, Montserrat, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands.
The organisation’s “Reparations Commission” claims that this process of “decolonisation” will free those living in former colonies from being treated as “second-class inhabitants” in their homelands.
Caricom’s working paper on reparations outlines its support for “the notion that the process of decolonisation of the still existing European and North American colonial territories is an important component of the reparations cause”.
It says: “Colonised territories are economically constrained by imposed constitutional arrangements.
Caricom’s working document has been supported by a number of governments in the Caribbean – including Jamaica
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“Structural economic decolonisation and political autonomy should be based upon and infused with the principle and praxis of reparative justice.”
The working document has been supported by a number of governments in the Caribbean.
A push for Britain to fork out financial compensation to former colonies is nothing new – with a set of demands produced by activists back in 2014.
However, the giving up of overseas territories is the latest addition to the expanding list of demands, which comes amid a fresh bid by Caribbean and African nations to be handed compensation.
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Sir Hilary Beckles has called on King Charles to back efforts to facilitate decolonisation
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In March, a resolution tabled by Ghana on behalf of the African Union called for Britain to begin “good-faith dialogue on reparatory justice, including a full and formal apology, measures of restitution, compensation”.
The vote passed in the UN General Assembly with 124 votes to three, with the UK abstaining alongside 51 other countries.
Campaigners have claimed packages could be worth trillions of pounds – while the resolution condemned the historical slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity”.
And now, Caricom Reparations Commission chariman Sir Hilary Beckles has called on King Charles to back efforts to facilitate decolonisation to “break the chains of imperial governance”.
He told The Telegraph: “We are still here, from being the first part of the world to be colonised. The world has been maybe 90 per cent decolonised.
A push for Britain to fork out financial compensation to ex-colonies is nothing new – with a set of demands produced by activists back in 2014
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“But the Caribbean remains the most colonised part of the world, and this has to stop.”
He added: “We cannot abide the fact that maybe 20 percent of the population in the Caribbean are still living in colonies.”
Caricom’s demands were delivered to MPs on Tuesday evening during an event hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations.
The group is led by Labour backbencher Bell Ribeiro-Addy – who previously said that Britain has a “moral and legal duty to address past injustices like slavery and colonialism”.
She also called on the UK to “embrace reparations as a means of tackling the root causes of climate breakdown and structural inequality, rectifying our colonial legacy, and building a fairer, more equal world”.