The Tribune

After King Charles’ visit to Australia last week, the royal retinue moved on a few days ago to Samoa in the Pacific for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting known as CHOGM. As noted in my last column, the King was due to preside over the summit as head of this voluntary association of 56 countries. The CHOGM two-day meeting is held biennially by different member states.

The royal tour of Australia was, by usual standards, pared down because, we were told, there were doubts about whether the 75-year-old King, who is receiving treatment for cancer, would be fit enough to handle the rigours of a full-blown tour followed by the demands of CHOGM. But, happily, both visits turned out to be a success. According to subsequent reports, the King enjoyed them and it has become clear that he was even energised by both – indeed, so much so that a Buckingham Palace statement issued following his return to London at the weekend said that the visits to Australia and Samoa had proved to be ‘a perfect tonic’ and he expected to return to his ‘normal’ schedule of overseas trips next year.

The purpose of CHOGMs is to shape Commonwealth policies and priorities on shared goals like democracy and peace, trade and development, and climate change and the environment. The values and principles of the association are expressed in the Commonwealth Charter.

Today is not the time or place to analyse in detail the outcome of the Samoa summit, the dominant theme of which was “resilience” and climate change and a focus on challenges and opportunities, in particular on driving economic growth. But I should like to offer comment on the issue that has dominated publicity surrounding it; namely, reparations for the transatlantic slave trade.

For some Commonwealth countries, the demand for reparations is an attempt to address what is widely seen as a serious historical injustice. The demand is also regarded as an acknowledgement of the long lasting effects of slavery. These have been directed towards Britain; but, of course, other countries like France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands, among others, are also involved.

The UK has faced growing calls from Commonwealth leaders to apologise and pay reparations for the slave trade. A CARICOM plan calls on European countries to make full and formal apologies and, among other things, also provide funding for health and education and help improve access to technology. Although the issue was not on the formal CHOGM agenda this time – recent agendas have included trade, climate change and security – discussion of it was inevitable because it is a matter of concern for many people.

Since Britain has repeatedly rejected demands for reparations or an apology for the nation’s historical involvement in the slave trade, No 10 Downing Street announced in advance that there would be no UK apology at Samoa about slavery and it ruled out financial reparations which, according to a UN judge, could amount to trillions of dollars. This is a bipartisan stance politically, with former prime minister Rishi Sunak saying on the record when he was in office that “trying to unpick our history is not the right way forward”.

The new UK prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, was reported to have said that during a positive two days at the summit he had told other leaders that he regarded slavery as abhorrent and recognised the strength of feeling about reparations. But the British “position is very, very clear”, and, in the separate words of a Downing Street spokesperson, “it is not changing”. Moreover, the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week told the BBC the UK would not pay reparations for slavery. However, as far as I can see, “reparatory justice” in other forms like enhanced technical cooperation and direct aid have not been ruled out.

It is interesting that at Samoa a way around the potential impasse was found. Diplomacy takes various forms and it was surely wise to recognise the issue at this CHOGM even if effective British official action is unlikely and, in practice, the issue could well be simply kicked into the long grass ad infinitum – notwithstanding the fact that individual families and institutions have already taken their own particular measures.

In the final communique signed by Commonwealth leaders, the calls for a discussion of reparations were formally acknowledged. The document said that it was agreed that the time had come for a meaningful, truthful and “respectful” conversation about the issue. Thus, it is now firmly on the table and the conversation will continue at the UK-Caribbean forum in London next March and at the next CHOGM in two years’ time. So the door has been left open for discussion, but it is too early to tell whether that might lead to anything.

Realistically, it is hard to see the UK government ever paying financial reparations; and, if it meant increasing taxes in order to do so, any government would find itself under huge pressure domestically – if not quickly out on its ear!

Judging from the UK press, the public view in Britain is summed up by the general contention that the present generation should not be held responsible or accountable for the past sins of their ancestors. Some people suggest that at least an apology would go some way to assuaging the sense of injustice. But, as some commentators put it, those living now should not be made to feel guilty or apologise for something that they had nothing to do with since it happened hundreds of years ago.

Notwithstanding all that, I, for one, believe that it also ought to be remembered that Britain led the moral abhorrence of the practice of slavery - which has existed in one form or another throughout human history - by being the first country to abolish it.

Can BRICS develop a new world order?

More than two years ago in this column I wrote about the BRICS summit in Johannesburg. This was a top level meeting of an emerging new group comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Its objective is to challenge Western dominance of the world by creating a counterweight to it and ending the world’s reliance on the US dollar for international trade and as a global reserve currency.

The BRICS view appears to be that new global leadership is needed in a world divided by geopolitical tensions. As such, the group is seen by its members as an alternative to Western-led international organisations and to, for example, the G7, the informal grouping of the world’s democratic advanced economies consisting of Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, the UK, the US and the European Union. It seems that China, in particular, has been at the forefront of targeting what it regards as US hegemony. The original BRICS grouping of five countries had a combined population of 3.2 billion or 40 per cent of the world’s roughly 8 billion people. It has now expanded its membership to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates so that it is claimed that the group has a larger combined GDP than the G7 or even the EU.

All this is by way of background because BRICS is now in the news again for different reasons.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has recently held a successful summit meeting of the group in the city of Kazan in Russia attended by more than twenty leaders, including Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan. Putin himself did not attend the Johannesburg summit because of the arrest warrant for him issued by the International Criminal Court so that he had to address that meeting by video link.

In organising the Kazan meeting, which turned out to be a major diplomatic event with his return to the world stage, Putin doubtless aimed to demonstrate that Western attempts to isolate Russia over its Ukraine offensive had failed.

He claims that “Russia now represents the global majority that can make up a substantial element of a coming new global order”. The Kazan summit was the biggest conference in Russia since the Ukraine invasion triggered Western sanctions and international condemnation. Putin apparently regards this as a milestone in creating a multi-polar world order with BRICS strengthening its power and authority as an alternative to Western power and influence and progressively developing a BRICS-led international payments system. He has praised BRICS’ role as a counterbalance to what he calls the West’s “perverse methods”. What is more, Putin has hailed Moscow’s “profound ties” - in particular with India and China - in what he describes as a “chaotic world” and claims that relations between China and Russia, in particular, are the foundation of global stability.

Meanwhile, the Iranian president is on record as saying “BRICS can be a way out of American totalitarianism and create a path of multilateralism… and can be a solution to deal with the dominance of the dollar”.

Such views of the world are, of course, fundamentally opposed to those of Western countries and the basic divisions remain stark. In light of this, it is unsurprising to many that the Ukrainians and others have criticised the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, for attending the Kazan summit, hosted by a leader labelled a war criminal, after the UN chief had declined Ukraine’s earlier invitation to the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland which was attended by some ninety nations. To many, the attendance of the UN Secretary-General at the Kazan summit and his meeting with Putin were wholly inappropriate.

There will doubtless be more about all this to come since the hypocrisy and doublethink is for many almost beyond belief. But it is now being said by some that the BRICS summit was a master stroke by Putin who wanted to show that he is far from being the international pariah that he has been portrayed as after invading Ukraine illegally in 2022. Now, many see him as a pivotal member of a dynamic group that aims to reshape the future world order. There are nonetheless many imponderables – and it will be interesting to learn how the West reacts.

US election day finally here

With just a week to go until polling day in the US - and news at the time of writing of a snap election in Japan – one has been struck once again by how long the process of a presidential election takes in the US. By contrast, it is, of course, the case that other shorter systems have been developed around the world according to the needs of different countries which clearly vary.

It is also a reminder of the old adage that elections make a fundamental contribution to democratic governance and that, while democracy may have its faults, it is far preferable to an autocratic system. Meanwhile, it is always said that the long- drawn-out process of electing an American president every four years is itself a powerful indicator of the exercise of democracy and the process of removing him prematurely is fraught with difficulty.

Be that as it may, I do wonder whether there are not inherent advantages in the Westminster System with its six-week electioneering period. Sitting prime ministers are then kept on their toes because they know only too well the perils of being held accountable for the actions of their governments and that a successful vote of no confidence at any time during their five-year period of office can bring everything – politically speaking - crashing down around them.