Andy Burnham, yesterday, misunderstands the nature of slavery in the former English Empire with:

“I do not think that British people today can be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, that happened in a different age under different laws and in which they played no personal part.”

Nobody, Andy, you know that, thinks ‘the British people’ can be held liable.

What percentage of the UK population benefited so significantly from the Atlantic slave trade to the extent they today have such wealth from it that they might be expected to contribute to compensation?

The Register of British Slave-Traders identifies about 13,000 investors across roughly 250 years. Set against a cumulative population of 20–30 million people who lived in Britain during that era, this is around 0.05%. Lead researcher William Pettigrew has described them as “a tiny minority” of the population, even while noting their outsized influence.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/register-of-british-slave-traders-reveals-english-investors-and-their-influence-on-the-nation

In the light of the above, why don’t we, Scots, do something decent here?

Scotland’s elite built their wealth on slavery and THEY can easily do something about it now – HMRC have it all on record

The two pieces above on ‘Scotland’ and its role in slavery, the first accurately worded, the second not so, remind me of an earlier debate prompted Anas Sarwar, defended by Prof Tom Devine. Here’s how it went in August 2022:

Sarwar’s support for Pakistan’s independence, considered hypocritical by many including me, was dismissed by Devine as ‘no comparison‘ because Scotland was not ‘subjected to imperial authority‘ and because ‘Scots‘ (sic) took part in the Empire with ‘relish and enthusiastic commitment.‘

He’s wrong. Like even the best of historians, he seems to have forgotten that ‘Scots‘ embraces a far wider spectrum than those few thousands from some Scottish elite groups who did, as he puts it, take part enthusiastically. The millions who remained in Scotland, along with thousands of ordinary soldiers who died in India were the tragic victims of an Empire which had been growing across the British Isles for centuries before their subjection to it – England. It was always called ‘England.’ Ask any Pakistani today and they’ll call it that too.

Surely no credible academic could consider the Union with England anything other than a hostile takeover resulting in monumental suffering, poverty, ill-health, clearance, death in war and mass emigration, for all but a few.

Doesn’t this map of British forts in Scotland in 1746 speak, with articulation, of imperial authority?

Were there this many British forts, per square mile, in 18th Century India?

Also, didn’t many of India/Pakistan’s elites take part in the Empire with ‘relish and enthusiastic commitment?’

So, what to do? The ill-gotten gains are easily traceable. HMRC can bill the elites (20%?) and pass the money to the governments in the numerous countries which British elites drained of their wealth.

I’ve checked – all of my ancestors going back to 1640 were coalminers, labourers on the land and cannon-fodder in the Black Watch. As late as the 1960s, we lived in miners rows and slum cottages with outside lavvies. This is nothing to do with us.