Don’t listen to the critics: reparations for slavery will right historical wrongs

A new report meticulously analyses the true cost of the transatlantic slave trade, showing how past and present are bound together

Delving into a deeply unsettling chapter of history and seeking to reshape the discourse, a groundbreaking report, Reparations for Transatlantic Chattel Slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean, has calculated that Britain owes a staggering sum of 18.6tn.

Other nations with a legacy of slaveholding, such as the US, Portugal, Spain and France, also stand accused of owing trillions. The total economic toll is thought to be as high as $131tn (103tn). The revelation lays bare the enduring ramifications of the transatlantic slave trade and the struggle for reparative justice on a global scale.