Britain must acknowledge its role in slavery

Yesterday’s Observer Editorial, was entitled: “The Observer’s view on Britain’s role in the slave trade”. It begins: “Nearly two centuries after slavery was abolished, this country has still not fully acknowledged the shameful part it played. We must delay no longer.”
Compared with the US experience, our British slaves were thousands of miles away, meaning the terrible cost of the wealth they generated, and which we still benefit from, has been all too easily forgotten. But the legacy is still there to be recognised, here in Britain, abroad in our former colonies where the scars are deep, and globally. Devoid of the historical context of our role in slavery “our international responsibilities cannot be understood … They are derived not just from the deep injustice of the structural inequalities that divide global north from global south but from the fact that in the past Britain has helped create those very inequalities.”
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