King stops short of a slavery apology and hails the Royal Navy's 'leading role' in ending the trade
King Charles III, whose remarks drew no commitment to reparations, with Buckingham Palace insisting he would not be responsible for delivering any apology.Andy Burnham fell while playing cricket at the Commonwealth summit in Antigua, where he has ruled out reparations but launched structured talks on a formal slavery apology.King Charles III at Nelson's Dockyard, Antigua and Barbuda, where he learned about efforts to protect the islands' natural and built heritage, as Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown joined efforts to build towards a formal slavery apology.Andy Burnham, Prime Minister, met King Charles at the Commonwealth Business Forum at the Sticky Wicket, as former Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby branded the £40m taxpayer-funded allocation for Caribbean green energy and infrastructure a 'moral evil'.On board HMS Wellington, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Britain should "stop apologising" for its role in the slave trade, as Burnham warned a formal UK apology is now expected next year when Britain holds the G20 presidency.Queen Camilla met women advocating for others across the Commonwealth, including survivors of abuse, as Andy Burnham separately opened formal slavery apology talks at the Antigua summit.
King Charles told Commonwealth leaders at the summit in Antigua that the transatlantic slave trade "fills my heart with horror and my soul with the most profound personal sorrow" but pointedly refused to issue a formal apology, saying "we cannot change the actions of those who came before us."
Charles drew surprise by praising the Royal Navy's "leading role" in enforcing abolition — the same navy that had spent over a century protecting slave-trading vessels.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham, attending the summit, refused to guarantee no extra taxpayer money would flow to Commonwealth states, saying only that he opposed direct reparations.
Caribbean reparations campaigner Dorbrene O'Marde hit back, saying a man whose "heart is filled with horror" must be "moved beyond words" and that Charles had "again failed" his people.
