Campaigners, lawyers and parliamentarians gather in London for “From Resolution to Repair”, with Ghana’s foreign minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, among those due to speak. Follow our live coverage.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, chair of the APPG for Afrikan Reparations, at the UK Reparations Conference at Friends House in London. Still from the conference stream.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations is holding its annual UK Reparations Conference in London today under the title “From Resolution to Repair”, with campaigners, lawyers, academics and parliamentarians from the UK, Africa and the Caribbean due to speak.
It follows March’s UN General Assembly resolution recognising the transatlantic slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity”, adopted by 123 votes to three with 52 abstentions. The UK abstained.
JAM is following the main hall from the conference stream. Our live updates are below.
Who is due to speak
Welcome. Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, chair of the APPG; Rita Remi-Judah of the Quakers Reparations Working Group; Jacqui McKenzie, partner at Leigh Day; and Eleanor Shearer of Common Wealth.
Special address. Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Opening plenary. Onyekachi Wambu of AFFORD; Esther Xosei of Stop The Maangamizi; Ralph Gonsalves, the former prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines; Nana Kobina Nketsia V, paramount chief of the Essikado Traditional Area in Ghana’s Western Region; Diane Abbott MP; and Lord Marvin Rees, the former mayor of Bristol.
Breakout sessions, from 11:55. The legal session, “Building a Legal Mandate for Repair”, includes the barrister Harj Narulla, Prof Justin Hansford of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center and Dr Panashe Chigumadzi, the African Union’s rapporteur for the Committee of Experts on Reparations. A session on ancestral remains and institutional repair includes Prof Dan Hicks of the University of Oxford and Peter Herbert of the Society of Black Lawyers. Others cover climate debt, community organising, healing and solidarity, a proposed commission of enquiry on reparations, faith institutions and aid, racism, the arts and media, and education.
Closing plenary. Prof Verene Shepherd, vice-chair of the CARICOM Reparations Commission and of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; Kenniss Henry of N’COBRA; and Jasmine Mickens of the Global Africa Reparations & Restitution Fund. A drinks reception at SOAS follows.
Times in the printed programme may slip during the day.
How to watch
The main hall is streamed on Zoom, and the organisers publish the links on the conference’s watch page. They say several sessions will be recorded and put on YouTube later.
Background
According to the programme, the conference follows a joint 19-point reparations plan adopted by the African Union and CARICOM in June, and a finding in August by the UN anti-racism committee that the harms of the transatlantic slave trade “continue to manifest”. The government announced on 16 September a review of its 2005 guidance on human remains in museums.
On Thursday, Lord Boateng told a Chatham House event on reparative justice that the British Museum is “the largest depository of stolen goods known to man”. Read our report.
Live coverage
Latest updates
Last updated Sat 17 Oct, 11:56
Follow the UK Reparations Conference 2026, “From Resolution to Repair”, as speakers address the main hall in London. Updates are taken from the conference stream.
Update
Jacqui McKenzie at the podium
Jacqui McKenzie, a partner at Leigh Day, addresses the conference at Friends House. Photo: Uzo Iwobi.
Jacqui McKenzie, in a zebra-print jacket, speaking at a podium marked Friends House.By Euen Herbert-Small
Update
Abbott: “We fought for our freedom”
Diane Abbott MP told the conference that people too often talk about the slave trade “as if we all just sat there waiting for those benevolent white people to free us”.
“But it wasn’t like that,” Abbott said. “In Jamaica at least the slaves rose up. They rose up and challenged them, and that was all across the slave holding world. So we were prepared to fight for our freedom.”
Abbott urged delegates never to fall into the idea “that it took benevolent slave holders to free us”. “We fought for our freedom, we obtained our freedom,” Abbott said. “And we have to continue to fight today for recompense”, Abbott said, for “the cruelty of slavery”.
Diane Abbott MP, in a dark jacket and a yellow lanyard, speaking at the UK Reparations Conference.By Euen Herbert-Small
Update
Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley addresses the conference by video
Mia Mottley, Barbados’s prime minister, addresses delegates by video. Still from the conference stream.
Mia Mottley, wearing glasses, a red top and a pearl necklace, speaking to camera in front of a lamp.By Euen Herbert-Small
Update
Ghana’s foreign minister addresses the conference by video
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Ghana’s foreign minister, addresses delegates by video. Still from the conference stream.
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa in an orange smock seated at a desk with his hands clasped, between the flags of Ghana, the United Nations and the African Union.By Euen Herbert-Small
Update
McKenzie: UK diaspora must organise to negotiate in its own right
Jacqui McKenzie, a partner at Leigh Day, told delegates that the UK’s African diaspora needs to organise and be structured “so that it can be a representative voice and bring legal actions and negotiations”, or seek talks “in its own right”.
McKenzie said an elder statesman respected for work on reparations had remarked, during a discussion of Jamaica’s petition and CARICOM’s plans, that “this work is that of CARICOM”. That, McKenzie said, was when the realisation came that the diaspora must come up with its own plans.
After two years of discussions, McKenzie said, “hopefully we’re about to make some progress”. CARICOM and the African Union will negotiate deals with Europe, McKenzie said, but how that plays out is “to be seen”, and whether it amounts to reparations is “also left to be seen”.
By Euen Herbert-Small
Update
Mottley: “We must face the history honestly”
Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley, who was not in the printed programme, addressed the conference by video and set out three priorities: “We must face the history honestly. We must agree what repair means in people’s lives. We must organise to deliver it.”
She said Britain agreed in 1833 to provide £20 million in compensation to enslavers, while “the people whose labour had been stolen received no compensation under that settlement”. “So when we’re told that reparations are too complicated, I ask a simple question,” she said. “How was it possible to find the money and make arrangements to compensate those who owned human beings?”
Mottley said Barbados’s colonial parliament passed the slave code of 1661, which “gave legal protection to a system that treated human beings as property”. That history, she said, places “a particular responsibility on us to tell the truth and to use the power of the state to restore dignity”.
Welcoming March’s UN General Assembly resolution, she said recognition matters but “our task now is to translate it into action”. She thanked the APPG for keeping the issue before the British Parliament and the British people, and saluted Sir Hilary Beckles and the CARICOM Reparations Commission.
By Euen Herbert-Small
Update
Ghana’s foreign minister sends message of support
Ghana’s foreign minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, addressed the conference by video, telling delegates that Ghana is “cheering you on” and is “solidly with you”.
He said pessimists had predicted that, with European countries opposed, there would be no engagement and nothing would change. “We are making a lot of gains,” he said, adding that “our determination is one that is unquenchable”. He promised to attend the next conference in person.
The UK and the EU’s 27 members abstained in March’s UN vote on the Ghana-led resolution. Argentina, Israel and the United States voted against.
By Euen Herbert-Small
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