Early Day Motion and the House of Commons
As Bernie Grant asserted in ‘Reparations or Bust!’, he had a unique role to play in fighting for Reparations as a Member of Parliament. One of the methods he deployed to utilise this position was to table an Early Day Motion welcoming the Abuja Proclamation. He did this on 10th May 1993, just a couple of weeks after the Abuja Conference was held. This motion received 63 public signatures, and the support of 90 MPs. As is the case with most Early Day Motions, it was not picked up for discussion in the House of Commons, but served instead as a useful means of publicising the call for Reparations, and increasing public awareness on what Reparations actually referred to. It provided a platform for Grant and other Reparationists to discuss the issue in the media and within their communities.
In his role as MP, Bernie Grant continuously pushed for the British Government to acknowledge Britain’s role in the capture, kidnap and enslavement of Africans, African colonisation and ensuing racism. In his last address at Prime Minister’s Question Time in the House of Commons on 24th November 1999 , Bernie Grant asked then-Prime Minister Tony Blair to apologise on behalf to people of African descent, both living and dead, for Britain’s role in the slave trade. Blair fell short of offering an apology, and to date the British Government has never apologised for African enslavement and colonisation.
