Have you seen the new Cotton Capital series in The Guardian, which came out of their investigation into their founders’ ties to slavery and an apology and restitution for the same?
It’s a laudable effort and it feels to me like the UK is just beginning to take some baby steps in reckoning with its role in the slave trade.
I think the attitude has always been “that’s an American problem, we banned slavery in the empire sixty years before the US Civil War, and slavery has always been illegal in England.”
Which of course completely ignores that from 1619-1776 slavery in the US was happening in British colonies (not to mention the slavery in the Caribbean and elsewhere), and most of the generated wealth went straight back to England, where it funded the Industrial Revolution, and built beautiful towns like Bath.
We have a lot to answer for, and it feels like only now are some on the left really beginning to realise that. Like I said baby steps, but in the right direction.
Mike Assenti