Reform UK would ban visas for countries seeking slavery reparations from Britain

Reform UK has announced it would stop issuing visas to nationals from any country that formally demands slavery reparations from Britain if the party wins the next general election – a policy that could bar millions of people from Caribbean and African nations from entering the UK, and which critics have condemned as punishing individuals for their governments’ diplomatic positions.

Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesperson, made the announcement to the Daily Telegraph, describing demands for reparations as “insulting” and declaring the “bank is closed and the door is locked” for any country seeking to “use history as a weapon to drain our treasury.”

The policy represents a significant escalation in Reform’s immigration positioning and arrives in the wake of a landmark UN resolution that described the transatlantic slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and called for reparations from former colonial powers.

What Reform is proposing

The policy as outlined by Yusuf is sweeping in scope. Any country that formally demands compensation from the UK for its role in the transatlantic slave trade would be subject to a complete suspension of visa issuance, meaning citizens of those countries would be unable to obtain visas to visit, work or study in Britain.

Several African and Caribbean nations, including Nigeria, Jamaica, Kenya, Haiti, Guyana, Barbados and the Bahamas, have made formal requests for reparations. Under Reform’s proposed policy, nationals of all these countries would be ineligible for UK visas.

Yusuf framed the policy in explicitly confrontational terms. “A growing number of countries are demanding reparations from Britain,” he said. “These countries ignore the fact that Britain made huge sacrifices to be the first major power to outlaw slavery and enforce this prohibition.”

He added: “The United Kingdom is not an ATM for ethnic grievances of the past, and we will no longer tolerate being ridiculed on the world stage.” He described the call for reparations as “insulting” and said that while Labour and Conservative governments had “rewarded” reparations-seeking countries with visas and foreign aid, Reform would take a different approach: “Enough is enough.”

Yusuf claimed that Tory and Labour governments had issued 3.8 million visas to nationals from reparations-demanding countries and sent them £6.6 billion in foreign aid over the past two decades.

The context: the UN resolution and the scale of the demand

The Reform announcement comes weeks after a significant diplomatic development at the United Nations. The General Assembly voted to formally describe the transatlantic slave trade as the “gravest crime against humanity” and called on former colonial powers to pay reparations – a resolution backed by the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

The UK, alongside EU member states, abstained from the vote. The United States voted against. The resolution was non-binding but carried substantial symbolic and political weight, representing the most significant multilateral statement on reparations in recent history.

The scale of the potential liability is staggering. A 2023 report by Patrick Robinson, a former judge of the International Court of Justice, calculated that the UK alone should pay $24 trillion – approximately £18.8 trillion – as reparations to 14 countries. That figure, extraordinary as it is, reflects the accumulated economic damage historians have linked to four centuries of enslaved labour across the Atlantic.

For four centuries, seven European countries including the UK enslaved and trafficked more than 15 million Africans. Historians have documented the degree to which wealth generated through enslaved labour funded the industrialisation of Western Europe – and the degree to which the countries whose people were enslaved were impoverished by the same process.

The African Union’s position, set out ahead of the UN vote, calls for “good faith dialogue on reparatory justice, including a full and formal apology, measures of restitution and compensation.” Ghana’s president John Dramani Mahama, who proposed the UN resolution, said: “Let it be recorded that when history beckoned, we did what was right for the memory of millions who suffered the indignity of slavery.”

The practical implications

The practical implications of Reform’s proposed policy are considerable. Nigeria is one of the UK’s most significant sources of overseas students and skilled workers. Jamaica has deep cultural and family ties with large communities settled in Britain for generations. The Caribbean nations as a whole have contributed enormously to British public life – to the NHS, to the armed forces, to the economy and to the culture.

A visa ban affecting nationals from all countries formally pursuing reparations would not merely be a diplomatic signal. It would affect the lives of real people with legitimate reasons to travel, work, study or visit family in Britain – many of whom have no personal involvement in, or even awareness of, their government’s diplomatic position on reparations.

The policy also raises significant legal questions. The UK is party to various international agreements and human rights frameworks that govern the basis on which visa applications can be refused. A blanket ban based on a person’s nationality and their government’s diplomatic stance would almost certainly face legal challenge.

The broader picture: Reform’s escalating immigration stance

The reparations visa ban is the latest in a series of increasingly aggressive immigration policy announcements from Yusuf since he was appointed home affairs spokesperson in February. His earlier announcement included “visa freezes” for countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria if they refused to accept deportees, alongside pledges to initiate an “emergency programme” to “track down, detain and deport all illegal migrants” upon winning the next election.

Reform has also pledged to scrap international aid for countries demanding reparations – a policy now extended to include visa sanctions.

The announcements represent an attempt by the party to maintain momentum in immigration politics ahead of May’s local elections, even as Reform’s overall polling lead has narrowed and the Greens have closed to within striking distance.

The historical argument

Yusuf’s central defence of the policy rests on Britain’s role in abolishing the slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself in 1833 – and the considerable resources the Royal Navy deployed to enforce that prohibition through the West Africa Squadron, which intercepted slave ships for decades after abolition.

That argument is not without merit as a partial account of history. Britain did lead international abolition efforts and did spend significant resources on enforcement.

But historians have consistently argued that it is an incomplete account. The same British government that abolished slavery paid £20 million in compensation – not to the enslaved, but to the slave owners – a sum that was not fully repaid until 2015. The people who were enslaved received nothing. The economic structures built on their labour underpinned British industrialisation for generations. The countries from which they were taken were destabilised, depopulated and impoverished.

The question of whether Britain’s abolitionist record cancels its centuries of participation is not merely a political judgment – it is a historical one that serious scholars continue to contest.

What the policy signals

Whatever its merits or weaknesses as policy, the announcement tells us something clear about Reform’s political strategy. In a period when the party’s polling lead has narrowed and its flagship council in Kent is being described as a “horror show,” Yusuf’s succession of hardline immigration announcements is designed to reinforce Reform’s identity as the party that says what others won’t.

The reparations framing is particularly calculated. By combining the immigration debate with the reparations question, Reform positions itself as defending British national pride against what it characterises as an assault on the country’s reputation and finances. The language – “ATM for ethnic grievances,” “ridiculed on the world stage,” “the bank is closed” – is designed to be inflammatory in precisely the way that generates coverage and crystallises identity.

Whether it constitutes workable policy – or would survive contact with international law, trade agreements, and the practical realities of UK-Commonwealth relations – is a different question entirely.