Pastor Attacks Badenoch's Stance Against Slavery Apology

Social commentator Pastor Claude O. Skelton-Cline has condemned UK Opposition Leader Kemi Badenoch for rejecting calls for Britain to apologise for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, calling her a new voice defending the nation's refusal to offer reparative justice.

On October 31, Badenoch posted on X ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting held in Antigua and Barbuda from November 1 to 4. She argued that Britain deserves credit for leading efforts to end slavery rather than apologising for it. She also questioned whether Caribbean nations would demand apologies from African kingdoms and merchants involved in the trade, and contended that contemporary British taxpayers should not bear responsibility for historical wrongs that occurred "generations before any of us were born".

Speaking on the radio programme Honestly Speaking on November 3, Skelton-Cline characterised Badenoch's position as an attempt to discourage Prime Minister Andy Burnham and King Charles III from pursuing an apology. He called her stance "unbelievable" and described it as evidence of "minds being politically molested".

Skelton-Cline highlighted the contradiction in Britain's approach: the country completed reparation payments to former slave owners and their descendants only in 2015, yet resists compensating descendants of enslaved people. He said Badenoch had confused genuine learning with "indoctrination" and accused her of abandoning her own heritage to gain acceptance in what he termed a "white supremacist culture".

"This is a black woman from Nigeria," Skelton-Cline said. "You see how messed up our minds are. So that the sitting Prime Minister and brother King Charles, who are open to having a conversation and discussion, in hopes that they can come up with a language for an apology, and Kemi is here trying to be more British than they are."

The Caribbean Community established the CARICOM Reparations Commission in 2013 to advance reparatory justice for native genocide and the transatlantic slave trade. Decolonisation was formally added to the revised CARICOM Ten-Point Plan for Reparatory Justice, which identifies the Virgin Islands, an Associate Member of CARICOM, as territory that must be returned to or decolonised by the UK.

During a July 2026 visit to the UK, Sir Hilary Beckles, Chair of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, objected to the constitutional arrangement affecting the Virgin Islands, noting that residents cannot make fundamental decisions without approval from the British governor and Downing Street.