King Charles to face 'awkward' £200 billion demand at summit over historic injustices

Barbados PM Mia Mottley has called for the UK to pay £200 billion in reparations for the transatlantic slave trade - a call that will likely be made at the upcoming Commonwealth summit in Samoa

A major Commonwealth leaders' gathering scheduled for later this month is poised for tension, with King Charles partly representing the British Government. The summit in Samoa may prove challenging for the monarch as a coalition of 15 nations are set to demand £200 billion in reparations for Britain's historical wrongdoings.

The demand for justice from the Caribbean for a staggering £200bn comes after prolonged campaigning for the UK Government to recognise the consequences of the transatlantic slave trade, which involved the forcible removal of over two million people from their homes to labor as slaves in British colonies.

However, the demanded reparations are dwarfed by even larger figures cited elsewhere, reports the Mirror. Barbados' PM Mia Mottley told the UN: "The numbers have been looked at and studied by many persons and the figures suggest a minimum of $5 trillion dollars.."

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Mia Mottley went on to explain: "4.9 to be precise, is what it would be if we were to be similarly compensated across the board today."

Barbados joins the ranks of the 15 states forming CARICOM, demanding that Britain address the legacies of a slave trade that spanned nearly 250 years and enriched numerous British traders and the government itself.

Nadine White of the Independent reports that Barbados was the first of the slave colonies to take root, sanctioning a 1661 law that defined African people as property. Over the ensuing centuries before abolition, Britain and the crown amassed vast wealth by coercing slaves to labour on Caribbean plantations, producing sugar and tobacco for trade back in Britain.

Nearly 400 years since the inception of transatlantic slavery, the Prime Minister of Barbados has taken a firm stance, having allegedly urged King Charles for reparations exceeding £200bn during a recent meeting at Buckingham Palace earlier this month, as relayed by Mottley herself.

Reverend Dr Michael Banner, Dean of Trinity College Cambridge, has postulated that Britain's gains from the slave trade amount to approximately £205bn, whilst others posit considerably higher figures. Last year, an adjudicator at the International Court of Justice estimated reparations due to 14 nations at a staggering £18 trillion.

Despite these calls for compensation, it is anticipated that both King Charles and Sir Keir Starmer will dismiss such demands at the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government summit, scheduled for October 21 to 26. When queried on Monday about the possibility of the UK Government issuing reparations for slavery, Starmer responded: "We do not pay reparations."

While Britain was at the forefront of abolishing slavery and enforcing the end of the transatlantic slave trade, it's worth noting that reparations have been paid in the past. When this abhorrent act was abolished in the 19th century, Britain chose to compensate those who had owned slaves - shelling out £300 million in today's money, equivalent to five per cent of the GDP, to former slave owners.

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