'We've had enough of apologising': Kemi Badenoch warns Burnham is piling pressure on the King over a slavery apology
Andy Burnham proposed a "structured dialogue" with affected countries on any formal apology, while firmly ruling out financial reparations ahead of the Commonwealth summit.King Charles III and Queen Camilla, whose constitutional role bars the King from referencing Andy Burnham's policy shift on a formal apology in his CHOGM address.Kemi Badenoch, Conservative Party leader, with her husband Hamish Badenoch. Barbados PM Mia Mottley seized on Burnham's openness to a formal apology as opening the door to the reparations he had rejected.Suella Braverman, Reform's spokesperson, warned that Andy Burnham's apology pivot was "virtue signalling" and "dangerous," comparing it to "how the Chagos disaster started.
Burnham blindsided his own palace officials by declaring he was "open" to a formal slavery apology just days before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua, despite journalists travelling with King Charles being assured as recently as Thursday that government policy was "absolutely no apology". Badenoch accused the PM of "not thinking about the repercussions of his actions" and putting the monarchy in an impossible constitutional position ahead of the Caribbean summit.
Barbados PM Mia Mottley immediately seized on Burnham's words as "breaking new ground" and pushed for the apology to advance to reparations.
Reform's Suella Braverman warned the move echoes the Chagos disaster: 'This is exactly how it started, with a conversation that ended up costing £30 billion.'
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy, head of the all-party group on Afrikan Reparations, said any apology must be a prelude to 'concrete steps' — piling pressure from Burnham's own benches.
