During his recent trip to Samoa, King Charles amplified calls for Britain to reckon with its colonial past through reparations to former colonies. Yet, as millions in the UK and across the Commonwealth struggle with surging living costs, housing insecurity, and severe cuts to essential services, this push seems, at best, misguided. It asks today’s citizens—already buckling under financial strain—to fund symbolic gestures for actions committed by people long dead.
Far from “making things right,” this reparation agenda drains resources from urgent domestic issues, where funding could help address health sector shortages, the housing crisis, and the mounting struggles of those who can barely afford to keep the lights, put food on the table, or stay alive. Over the past decade, violent crime rates have surged by more than a third, exceeding 1,200 incidents per 100,000 people. Weapons offenses, rapes, public disorder, and particularly knife crime—which has skyrocketed by over 20 per cent in England and Wales—paint the grimmest of pictures.
The decline in police numbers only exacerbates these challenges. Instead of funnelling funds into token gestures, money should be used to stop criminals from running riot. Prioritising real, tangible solutions can make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.
Yet, rather perversely, today’s Brits are expected to carry an endless guilt for the actions of long-vanished ancestors, all while their streets are being overtaken, or .