Labour Business Secretary slams reparations as ‘not reasonable’ as King faces mounting calls to apologise

“In terms of the kind of economic claims being put forward, I just don’t see how that is a legitimate request to put to, say, my constituents about what they themselves have done,” he said.

Mr Reynolds acknowledged that the UK’s global role was viewed by some as “a mixed record,” but maintained it was not “legitimate to make that request of the UK in terms of current generations.”

He continued to tell Sky News that he could not recall the matter being discussed within Andy Burnham’s Cabinet.

His remarks come as King Charles arrives in the Caribbean today for a nine-day tour that will take him to the Bahamas, Guyana, and Antigua and Barbuda, where he will preside over the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

The trip unfolds against a backdrop of intensifying demands from Caribbean nations for both a formal apology and financial redress for Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.

Caricom, the 23-member Caribbean bloc, announced last month that it would press for reparations to feature on the Chogm agenda. Its Secretary-General Carla Barnett declared that “reparations is fundamentally about justice” and “about recognition, accountability and transformation.”

Jamaica has already taken the unprecedented step of petitioning the King to refer questions about transatlantic chattel slavery to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, with a hearing scheduled for next March.

Mr Reynolds’s stance aligns with the broader government position. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who is expected to attend Chogm alongside Prime Minister Andy Burnham, recently told Politico: “I don’t think reparations are the answer, and I’ve had those discussions already with some of our Commonwealth colleagues.”

The UK’s established policy acknowledges the slave trade as abhorrent and recognises its enduring impact, but rules out financial compensation for acts that were not in breach of international law at the time they occurred.

In March, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution describing the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity.” Britain and EU member states were among 52 nations that abstained from the vote, which included provisions calling for reparatory justice.

Protest organisers are preparing demonstrations to greet the King during his tour. In Antigua, reparations activists have pledged to use electronic billboards to spread messages about the monarchy’s role in the slave trade.

Dorbrene O’Marde, who leads Antigua’s national reparations commission, confirmed that “without doubt, some form of physical demonstrations are going to take place,” driven by fury over the absence of any formal royal apology.

In the Bahamas, Rastafarian leader High Priest Richmond McKinney is coordinating a protest, declaring: “You say you regret slavery, but your regret is not good enough. We want a full apology from you.”

Commonwealth Secretary-General Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey has added her voice to the pressure, stating that an apology from the King “wouldn’t hurt” and that “the time has come” for a reparations discussion.

Buckingham Palace has said the tour programme will “not shy away” from what the King has called “the darkest days of our past,” while noting that Charles has worked for many years to “acknowledge the wrongs of the past and to find creative ways to right inequalities that endure.”

However, the King is following ministerial guidance and will not deliver a formal apology or offer reparations.

Cultural historian Patrick Vernon, the UK representative of the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council, warned that the trip represents “the biggest crossroads for the Commonwealth since its creation.” He cautioned that failure to meet the expectations of Commonwealth leaders would raise fundamental questions about the organisation’s purpose.

Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations, urged against continued “platitudes,” warning: “I’m sure he would not want to be the monarch under which it crumbles.”