Politics
'King Charles' careful words on slavery derailed by PM Andy Burnham'
Key Points
The King has spent years choosing his words on slavery with enormous care. With a single statement, his latest Prime Minister has just made his task almost impossible. Andy Burnham’s declaration that he is “open” to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state goes further than any of his predecessors, or the sovereign, have ever gone.
The King has spent years choosing his words on slavery with enormous care.
With a single statement, his latest Prime Minister has just made his task almost impossible. Andy Burnham’s declaration that he is “open” to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state goes further than any of his predecessors, or the sovereign, have ever gone.
It lands midway through a nine-day Caribbean tour already dominated by demands for the monarch to say sorry for the Crown’s role in the trade, and days before both men arrive in Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth summit.
It appears that the PM’s statement was anything but co-ordinated with Buckingham Palace, which sources suggest was simply “informed in a timely manner”.
That phrase tells its own story.
For years the Palace position has rested on a straightforward constitutional principle. Apologies and reparations are matters for the government, and the King cannot get ahead of his ministers.
As respected historian Sir Anthony Seldon put it, Charles can be empathetic and say good words, but an apology is the Prime Minister’s call, not his. That shield still technically stands and yet, with Burnham’s move, leaves the King painfully open.
The optics have now shifted dramatically and if Downing Street is now setting a path towards an apology while the monarch continues to offer only sorrow, the institution risks looking like the last holdout.
The pressure on the King is now palpable and coming from all directions. Campaigners, activists, other heads of state and on the other side, the leader of the opposition, who many Brits locked in a cost of living crisis with now end, will agree with.
Kemi Badenoch has dismissed the whole idea as a “navel-gazing distraction”, meaning any royal move towards an apology would instantly be dragged into a party political row the King is constitutionally bound to stay out of.
As Seldon states, if it wasn’t already fraught with difficulty, this is shaping up to be the King’s most perilous tour of the reign so far. The Palace likes to say a constitutional monarchy allows the King to transcend politics. On this issue, the Prime Minister has just made that a great deal harder.