St. John’s, Antigua – In a sharply worded public rebuke captured in newly released footage, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda has pushed back forcefully against recent remarks from a senior leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, who argued that the British government should no longer issue formal apologies for the UK’s historic role in the transatlantic slave trade.
The Antiguan head of government framed the Tory leader’s stance as not just factually flawed, but morally disconnected from the lived and intergenerational harms that the centuries-long slave trade inflicted on Caribbean nations, including Antigua and Barbuda, where hundreds of thousands of enslaved African people were forced to work on colonial sugar plantations under British rule. He emphasized that refusing to acknowledge and apologize for this chapter of history undermines ongoing efforts to build equitable, honest bilateral relations between the UK and its former colonial territories.
The comments arrive at a moment of intensifying global debate over historical accountability for colonial-era atrocities, with multiple Caribbean nations advancing formal demands for reparative justice, public acknowledgment of state-sponsored enslavement, and targeted investments to redress systemic economic and social gaps created by centuries of exploitation. Critics of the Conservative leadership’s position have noted that successive UK governments have stopped short of issuing a full, unreserved formal apology for the transatlantic slave trade, despite repeated calls from Commonwealth nations, human rights groups, and descendant communities across the African diaspora.