Women2Win Scotland 💜🤍💚

Slavery was an evil in which people from every continent and region participated. We should be honest about the whole history, not select the parts that are politically convenient today, especially given Britain's leading role in ending the transatlantic slave trade. If Caribbean countries are asking Britain for a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, will they also be asking the same of the descendants of African kingdoms, rulers and merchants who captured, sold and profited from the trade? On demands for reparations, whether through cash or debt relief, we have been down this track before. Twenty-five years ago, Jubilee 2000, Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History argued that cancelling the debts of poorer countries would give them a fresh start. More than $100 billion of debt was eventually written off, but many of those countries have since built up even bigger debts. Labour are already spending too much on Britain's welfare state, now is not the time for Andy Burnham to be providing global welfare. There is no reason British taxpayers today should be held financially responsible for things that happened generations before any of us were born. And I have even less patience for political elites in commonwealth countries who don’t know how to make their own citizens prosperous now looking for another opportunity to blame Britain. As Prime Minister, Andy Burnham should be Britain’s greatest defender. Instead, he is writing articles saying we need to confront our history (as if we haven't done enough of that) and considering another formal historical apology. Tony Blair already expressed Britain’s deep sorrow and regret for our role in the slave trade nearly twenty years ago. There is no need to do so again. This is all another navel-gazing distraction. The Commonwealth should be looking forward, not endlessly backwards. That means economic partnerships to make us all richer and deeper military and security cooperation against common threats. If every Commonwealth summit becomes an exercise in presenting Britain with demands for cash then we need to start asking if it is worth the effort.

I’m in Edinburgh and being asked a lot of questions about ITV’s Reform expose. The reported comments show yet again why we’re not doing deals with Reform. We want Reform voters back, not Reform politicians. Reform voters are being let down by the people who claim to represent them. Many of these people were the ones who let them down in the Conservative Party. We are now under new management. These people caused a lot of problems and is why I say Nigel Farage has been doing my spring cleaning. These problems will keep coming for Reform. Just as Farage is being investigated, so is Robert Jenrick, and so is Richard Tice. These problems will never end because of the kind of people they are - they don’t care about high standards of conduct. That is why I am showing those voters who want to defeat Labour but left the Conservative Party that it’s time to come home. We are under new management, and you deserve better than this.