Quote of the day 28th January 2024

"The Memorial to the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron is revealed in the @DailyMailUK today. Its creator and a model of it will be coming to Parliament next week. Thank you everyone who has supported this campaign."

Rt Hon Penny Mordaunt MP writing on X, formerly twitter, yesterday (27th Jan 2024.)












Almost every country, including Britain, practiced slavery for centuries. Some British people continued to be involved in the slave trade abroad after the courts had ruled that slavery was illegal in Britain, before the British parliament finally voted to ban the trade in 1807.

But just as every country which practiced slavery, including Britain, should be ashamed of having done so, we are also entitled to be proud of the role we played in eradicating the slave trade as it then existed throughout the world, and celebrate those who fought against slavery, including the brave sailors of the RN West Africa squadron who risked and in many cases lost their lives, fighting for freedom and who wiped out the North Atlantic slave trade.

I write "as it then existed" because, sadly, slavery has morphed into new forms and we must not be complacent about modern slavery. But at least now slavery is almost universally regarded as a crime and an evil to be fought, not seen as a normal practice seen openly throughout the world. 

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