BELL RIBEIRO-ADDY is the Labour Party member for Streatham in south London and also chair of Westminster’s all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for Afrikan Reparations.

Ribeiro-Addy is joined in the group by fellow Labour members Apsana Begum, Dawn Butler, Marsha De Cordova and Clive Lewis, Kate Osamor, Nadia Whittome, plus Sir Peter Bottomley from the Tories, Caroline Lucas from the Greens, Anne McLaughlin from the Scottish National Party and independents Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn and Claudia Webbe.

The APPG is following in the footsteps of the late legendary former MP for Tottenham, Bernie Grant, in not just fighting for reparations but for the return of arts and cultural artefacts, such as the bronzes looted by British colonialists from the Kingdom of Benin.

“This work has been going on since well before I was born,” Ribeiro-Addy acknowledges.

“I am proud to be part of those continuing the work of Bernie Grant who fought so hard for many years to put these issues on the agenda.

“But many other individuals and groups have also been working on these issues for many years.”

She added: “There are a lot of individuals and campaigning organisations who are involved and I think there is space for everybody in this fight for justice.”

The APPG is set to hold a major conference on reparations over the weekend of October 21-22 in central London, which will be co-chaired by Dr Julius Garvey, academic, activist, and son of Jamaican national hero Marcus Garvey, alongside Britain’s first black woman MP, Abbott.

Ribeiro-Addy said: “We are bringing activists and policymakers together to look across the board at the next steps.”

She told me that it was really important for people to look beyond reparations as being only about direct financial compensation.

“We will be looking at the compensation for enslavement and colonialism but we will also consider environmental reparations and education, among other things that can help to tackle the institutional racism that faces people of African descent in Britain and across the diaspora.”

The former shadow minister for immigration under Corbyn said it was important to remember why slavery was abolished so that the discussion continued from a factual basis rather than continuing a mythology.

“William Wilberforce and others played an important role in helping to see the end of the transatlantic slave trade — but it wasn’t the decisive factor.

“People rose up in rebellion against enslavement which contributed towards the British reaching the conclusion that it was a system that had become economically unviable and so they had to look for another model,” she said.

“The facts are that countries like Jamaica and Barbados are in hock to the IMF and other bodies as they struggle to make their way after the legacy of slavery and colonialism.

“So one of the things that needs to be looked at is whether a writing off of the debt owed by these nations to the already rich former colonial powers needs to be part of the equation of reparations.”

But what are the prospects for making any headway with reparations?

In April, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak dismissed a request from Ribeiro-Addy in Parliament to issue a full apology for slavery.

Ribeiro-Addy said: “We are obviously not going to see an apology from the Tories. For them, this is all part of their culture wars and issues about so-called ‘wokeness.’

“They seem more concerned about stopping people from even voting rather than doing the right thing.”

And what about the Labour Party?

“The previous leader of the party had a clear policy of supporting reparations and worked with Bernie Grant on the issue for many years.

“There is no current policy on this from the current leadership.”

Ribeiro-Addy said that she was heartened by work on reparations in other parts of the world, such as in California in the United States, one of the biggest economies in the world.

The Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, set up a far-reaching commission in 2021 that included the descendants of slaves who were lawyers, educators, elected officials and civil rights leaders.

Although the panel did not make a firm recommendation for the payment of reparations, it did calculate the potential cost to California was likely to be more than $800 billion — more than 2.5 times the state’s $300bn annual budget.

But an advisory group in San Francisco did recommend that “qualifying” black adults should receive a $5 million lump-sum payment, guaranteed annual income of at least $97,000 and personal debt forgiveness.

Was this the sort of approach Ribeiro-Addy was prepared to support?

She said: “That’s the sort of information that we need to gather, but we have to remember that the outcomes might be different depending on where you are in the diaspora.

But the momentum towards reparations is gathering a head of steam.

The Caribbean Reparations Commission set up by Caricom, the economic bloc covering the 40 million people living in the Caribbean region, launched its own Reparations Commission in 2013.

The commission set out a 10-point plan to persuade former colonial powers to deliver reparatory justice.

The plan calls for a formal apology, funding for repatriations where people want it, an indigenous peoples’ development programme, the creation of cultural institutions and the return of cultural heritage, assistance to remedy the public health crisis among descendants, education programmes, historical and cultural exchanges, psychological rehabilitation.

The commission also wants to see steps taken to transfer technology to former colonies to aid in development and debt cancellation and financial compensation.

All of these issues will be under discussion at the reparations conference later this month.

The title of the conference,“Charting a Pathway Towards Reparatory Justice,” reflects the long journey that has already been trodden and, perhaps, the lengthy journey ahead.

The leadership of Ribeiro-Addy, who has proved herself to be a committed and determined socialist and anti-racist fighter, will be important as the battle for reparations for the descendants of the brutal transatlantic slave trade comes to a head.

To register for the conference go to www.mstar.link/RepCon23.