Judge who signed Chagos ruling calls for UK to pay £18 trillion in slavery reparations

27 comments

1. ***The Telegraph reports:***

   An international judge who ruled against the UK on the Chagos Islands has since also called for Britain to pay more than [£18 trillion in reparations for slavery](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/07/foreign-office-opens-talks-on-paying-slavery-reparations/).

   Patrick Robinson, a Jamaican judge who previously served on the International Court of Justice (ICJ), was one of the judges who ruled in 2019 that the UK should hand over the islands “as rapidly as possible”.

   The ICJ’s ruling has since become one of the main arguments in favour of Britain [giving away the Chagos Islands to Mauritius](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/02/15/starmer-chagos-deal-under-fire-mastermind-interrogated/) in a multi-billion pound deal over 99 years.

   The deal, which has been criticised by the Conservatives and some members of Donald Trump’s team, was pursued by Sir Keir Starmer and Lord Hermer, his Attorney General, after they took office last year.

   Mr Robinson, one of the judges who signed the ruling, is also a [leading advocate for Britain to pay slavery reparations](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/10/24/commonwealth-leaders-reparations-defy-keir-starmer/) to African and Caribbean countries and co-authored a UN report in 2023 that called for the UK to give away more than £18trillion.

   At the time, he said the sum was an “underestimation” of the damage caused by Britain during the slave trade, backing calls for historical reparations.

   “Once a state has committed a wrongful act, it’s obliged to pay reparations,” he told the BBC.

   **Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/26/judge-chagos-ruling-calls-uk-pay-18-trillion-reparations/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/26/judge-chagos-ruling-calls-uk-pay-18-trillion-reparations/)

2. NO

3. Our annual GDP £2.57tn.

   Right…..

4. And then they can pay it right back to the UK for helping defeat Adolf Hitler and all that incurred.

5. That is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever read.

6. As my mother used to say, ‘Wish in one hand, shit in the other and see which fills up first.’

7. Someone need to visit the loony bin.

8. Go after the sellers first, otherwise it’s racist.

9. This guy’s a joke. So he basically wants to see the fall of the country and see it’s inhabitants into ruin. Inhabitants who had nothing to do with slavery or on the whole probably working pretty much in to same shit conditions as slaves at the time. How is this guy being impartial.

10. I really don’t get the argument for reparations.

    Yes Great Britain did some evil things but every nation on earth is guilty of doing something bad against another one.

    No one pays reparations for any of those things so it makes zero sense to demand it gets paid for certain acts.

11. it speaks to the banality of the madness of our times when this headline does nothing at all to shock or surprise me. yet more propagandist liberalist drivel alongside other recent topical gems such as “is gardening racist” and “why we must decolonise mathematics”

12. To who?

    Here is an interesting fact, Jamaicans aren’t native to Jamaica, it belongs to the Arawak and other South American tribes, so they should be paid reparations by Jamaica

13. He’s got his head up his arse

14. Let’s start by donating 100% of his wages

15. Well let’s wait to see the geographical areas of the Ottoman empire pay back some reparations. Throw in some of the African nations that sold their prisoners/rivals/locals to the traders.

    Let’s get everyone involved!

    Sorry Portugal, you’re screwed.

16. People who never profited from slavery paying reparations to people who never suffered slavery.

    It’s absolutely mental.

    Can I get reparations for the Barbary slave trade?

    The Vikings?

    The Romans?

17. We need to address those who sold the slaves too, it would be unfair to also not seek compensation from those who initially kidnapped and sold people into slavery

18. I’m not some weird reform monger but this shit pushes me towards them and I hate them.

    Perhaps charge some of those trillions to the African tribes and nations who sold their own people and others into chattel.

19. Would he like his “go fuck yourself” in upper or lower case denominations.

20. Lol UK tax payer finished paying for that in 2015. Dude needs to do his homework

21. 3% of britain owned slaves and invested in slavery , those 3% are mostly the landed gentry who still exist today …

22. The UK ended slavery. No good deed goes unpunished. It makes me want to read Kipling.

23. Is it possible for someone to have his opinions, and not be a complete and utter fool? I mean IQ sub-80 type of fool. He could just be bitter and hateful, but I think he’d need to be a fool as well.

    There should be no diplomatic response to the likes of him, it calls for an undiplomatic, Donald Trump style response.

24. Get it from the people who actually owned slaves.

25. He can call for whatever he wants, doesn’t mean it’ll happen.

26. If a payment was made, who will benefit. Couple of politicians and their friends and family. The poor in that country will still be poor.
    And in ways that money will end up back in the UK being spend on property and other expensive designer items.

27. I think the Italians should pay reparations for killing Jesus!!! 🤦‍♀️

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