Speaking at a parliamentary debate on promoting financial security in the Caribbean, Lewis said the issue of reparations could not be dismissed as an obsession among a small group of “so-called woke extremists”.
He pointed to the recent announcements by the Trevelyans, an aristocratic British family, who made history by travelling to the Caribbean to publicly apologise for the ownership of more than 1,000 enslaved Africans and committed to paying reparations.
“They did what no British government has ever done before. They apologised for their ancestors’ part in the exploitation of the 1,000 slaves they owned on six plantations,” he said. “They acknowledge the financial and cultural advantage this has generated for them and urge the British government, as I will today, to enter into meaningful negotiations with the government of the Caribbeans in order to make appropriate reparations.”
Lewis added the announcements by the Trevelyan family had “opened the door of this debate just a little wider”.
Lewis went on to liken the relationship between the UK and the Commonwealth to an abusive relationship in which one partner has endured “400 years of the most hideous abuse, one who now seeks not charity, but restitution”.
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