Sir Lenny, 67, said that paying the reparations would lead to a ‘nationwide sigh of relief’ for something that had ‘gone unspoken’ for so long
Sir Lenny Henry has called on Britain to pay almost £19 TRILLION in slavery reparations. With the UK’s GDP standing at just over £3.6 trillion, that’s the total market value of all goods and services for at least the next five years.
To give an indication as to just how much that is, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is currently looking to plug a £30bn hole in her budget.
About £18.6 trillion would fill the £30bn hole more than 630-times over. Sir Lenny, 67, said that paying the reparations would lead to a ‘nationwide sigh of relief’ for something that had ‘gone unspoken’ for so long.
He made reference to the Brattle Report of 2023, which calculated that Britain owes £18.6 trillion in reparations ‘for its role in transatlantic chattel slavery, primarily for the enslavement period in the Americas and Caribbean’.
The report puts a number to the damages caused by slavery, including trauma, loss of heritage and modern day disparities in life expectancy, employment and income.
The £18.6 trillion figure was landed upon after totting up the wealth ‘extracted’ from slaves, and the economic consequences for the nations colonised by Britain.
Sir Lenny – whose parents came to the UK from Jamaica – said the British government only finished paying off its debts from compensating to slave owners in 2015 – and now was the time that slaves and their ancestors are compensated.
He said: “Once you start to break it down, it goes beyond getting a cash refund for slavery. It becomes about social engineering, and – it’s going to sound really touchy-feely – but it becomes about healing, and about spiritual healing, rather than just cash. It’s hundreds of years of being oppressed and downtrodden.”
He said that people were ‘scared’ to discuss the financial implications of reparations, adding: “It’s so huge they’re frightened, because actual reparations would cost trillions of pounds.”
He said he reckoned there would be a ‘nationwide sigh of relief’ if reparations were paid, but said it could take a long time.
Sir Lenny said: “These things take time. Look how long it took to abolish slavery – and to pay for slave owners’ loss of work and earnings. This is to try and push the dial so that the conversation might lead to something. That might take another 100 years, another 150 years.”
- The Big Payback: The Case for Reparations for Slavery and How They Would Work by Lenny Henry and Marcus Ryder will be published on October 9.
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