TORY leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick has told the former colonies to say thank you for the British empire.

Believed to be trailing his rival Kemi Badenoch in the battle for Conservative members’ votes, Mr Jenrick sought to score culture war points by denouncing growing demands that Britain pay reparations for slavery and colonialism.

Writing in the Daily Mail, Mr Jenrick boasted that he was not “ashamed of our history … it may not feel like it, but many of our former colonies — amid the complex realities of empire — owe us a debt of gratitude for the inheritance we left them.”

Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy slammed the comments as “deeply offensive and an obnoxious distortion of history.”

She said: “Enslavement and colonialism were not ‘gifts’ but imposed systems that brutally exploited people, extracted wealth, and dismantled societies, all for the benefit of Britain.

“To suggest that former colonies should be ‘grateful’ for such unimaginable harm disregards the legacy of these injustices and the long-term impact they still have.”

The winner of the Tory leadership contest is to be announced on Saturday.