Reform UK pledges visa ban on nationals of countries seeking slavery reparations

Reform UK has announced it would cease issuing visas to individuals from any nation that continues to demand compensation from the British government for its historical role in the transatlantic slave trade, the party’s home affairs spokesperson said Monday.

Zia Yusuf told the Daily Telegraph that calls for reparations are “insulting” and vowed that Britain would no longer serve as an “ATM for ethnic grievances of the past.”

“The bank is closed and the door is locked for anyone who wants to use history as a weapon to drain our treasury,” Yusuf said, adding that approximately 3.8 million visas had been issued over the last two decades to citizens of countries pursuing reparations.

The announcement follows a landmark United Nations vote last month that described the transatlantic slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and called for reparations as “a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs.” The non-binding resolution, proposed by Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama, was backed by the African Union and the Caribbean Community (Caricom). The UK and EU members abstained, while the United States voted against.

For four centuries, seven European nations—including Britain—enslaved and transported more than 15 million Africans across the Atlantic. Historians have linked wealth generated from enslavement to the acceleration of western industrialisation.

Yusuf argued that Britain’s early abolition of the slave trade should be recognised. “These countries ignore the fact that Britain made huge sacrifices to be the first major power to outlaw slavery and enforce this prohibition,” he said.

Reform UK has previously pledged to scrap international aid for countries demanding reparations. In 2023, a report by former International Court of Justice judge Patrick Robinson concluded the UK alone should pay $24 trillion (£18.8 trillion) in reparations to 14 countries.

However, Caricom’s Reparations Commission (CRC) has pushed back against what it calls misleading claims that its aim is to “break the British Treasury.” Speaking during the commission’s first official visit to London last year, CRC chair Professor Sir Hilary Beckles said the goal was a mutually beneficial restorative justice programme.

“Every week we open the newspapers and hear the most terrible things about these reparations people from the Caribbean,” Beckles said. “They have consistently tried to discredit what is an ongoing moral and ethical argument for justice.”