Some government officials have long suggested that conversations around the U.K. prime minister’s attendance at CHOGM are guided closely by the monarch’s wishes. Burnham and his wife had an audience with King Charles at Balmoral, his Scottish castle, earlier this month. Royal officials say plans are led and decided by the Commonwealth Secretariat and its secretary-general.
The king would have good reason to want backup, as the politics of this year’s summit looks destined to be particularly fraught.
It is being held in Antigua and Barbuda in the Caribbean, many of whose island nations are leading a charge for Britain to pay reparations for its historical role in the slave trade. Last week, Caribbean nations met in Barbados for a conference on reparatory justice.
Calls for reparations dominated the last CHOGM on the Pacific island of Samoa, where Burnham’s predecessor, Keir Starmer, insisted the issue was not on the table before other nations confronted him with a communique that mentioned reparations directly.
While U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband is also due to attend CHOGM, one of the three people cited at the start of this article said attending personally would allow the prime minister to “lead from the front” rather than watching the debate unfold in his absence.
However, Downing Street’s line on reparations has changed little since 2024. Burnham’s spokesperson said on Sept. 7 that “the U.K. does not and will not pay reparations,” adding: “The transatlantic slave trade was abhorrent, and of course it’s right that we acknowledge the wrongs of the past, but we’ll continue to face forward and work with other countries on our current shared challenges.”
