If you have been listening to Suella Braverman and think Britain has gone bonkers, let me explain | Nels Abbey

. UK edition

Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman campaigning in Waterlooville, Hampshire, 1 May 2026.
Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman campaigning in Waterlooville, Hampshire, 1 May 2026. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

The idea that former colonies should pay reparations makes perfect sense to the new right. But have they got the telescope the right way round, asks author and broadcaster Nels Abbey

Dearest World,

Britain, that small yet once highly influential nation that once proudly ruled over much of you, that “gifted” you the English language as well as William Shakespeare and Mark Morrison, that kindly bestowed upon you industrialisation as well as industrialised slavery, the proud nation that won two world wars and created football … I’m afraid to reveal, is not what it used to be.

First, we lost “our” empire, then we lost Queen Elizabeth II, then we lost our sense of identity. And now, it would appear, a good number of us have lost our minds. Little crystallises this more than the latest brain-spark of former Conservative home secretary (now Reform UK equalities spokesperson) Suella Braverman. In a stroke of unmitigated genius, she has suggested that nations once enslaved, exploited and subjugated by Britain should pay reparations to Britain – the enslaver and coloniser – for all the “good” generously imposed upon them. Or, as she put it: “former colonies should pay the British back for the considerable investment, effort and contribution that this country made which laid the foundations for many flourishing democracies today”.

Mia Mottley, the globally admired prime minister of Barbados, took time out of her day to address Braverman’s “asinine” suggestion: “I cannot believe we are being asked to respond to the suggestion that the descendants of the enslaved should pay for the machinery that oppressed them.”

Now, I would love to comfort you with the idea that Braverman’s comments were atypical of Britain’s new right. Alas, a liar I am not.

You would be correct that Braverman’s reverse reparations demand came from someone who is themselves a descendant of the colonised. But this is far from unique in modern Britain. Her unelected colleague Zia Yusuf (who calls himself “shadow home secretary”), described reparations as “insulting” and proposed banning visas for people from nations seeking repair for the damage Britain did to them. Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservatives, called reparations a “scam”. To understand this you have to see it for what it is: a political culture in which rightwing ethnic minorities have to be the most extreme person in the room on issues of race and colonialism. As a result, far from civilising and mellowing British politics, ethnic diversity in politics has become the main conduit for laundering racism into mainstream Britain.

That’s not the only area of public discourse that has become topsy-turvy. When it comes to crime and policing in today’s Britain, the content of the crime matters significantly less than the colour (or religious beliefs) of the criminal. So, in a bid to curtail the risk of racist riots, police are now forced to swiftly announce the race of suspects in serious crimes. Once it is announced that the person suspected of, say, using a car to mow down dozens of people at a victory parade is white, many of the outrage warriors lose their voice. When serious crimes are committed against ethnic minorities, British “patriots” and the politicians they take their winks and nods from are nowhere to be found.

The right has scuppered the fight against poverty with racism. For example, the economic struggles of “white working-class people” (a deliberately racialised category) are exploited and weaponised against predominantly working-class black and brown people (whose class identity is gradually being erased). Meanwhile, the poverty at the root of their woes goes largely ignored. To be fair, it is cheaper to keep impoverished people in a perpetual racial death-cage match than it is to inflame donors or “£5m gift givers” with a wealth tax or any other policy to address the massive inequality in our society.

These are serious times. But Britain is no longer blessed with a serious political establishment to help guide us through them. The once sensible centre right of British politics has been dragged to the ridiculous and racist by the far right. And Britain has descended into a comedy troupe, one in which a leading politician (who is about to battle it out in a byelection with a dustbin-themed superhero) furiously and repeatedly suggested that that most wholesome and racism-fearing organ of the state – the police – treat black people better than white people.

Poorer than Mississippi (the poorest state in the US), yet with more racist lunacy than Mississippi Burning, this is not your great-grandfather’s Britain. With the country in the state it’s in, if I was anything less than a true British patriot, I’d be somewhere plotting a colonial rematch. Before you could say “fish and chips”, I’d be the governor general of Britannia, proudly overlooking the whites of Dover in my custom-made kente-cloth pith helmet. And I’d win not with guns, gunboats or even drones, but by simply feeding Britain’s worst tendencies on race.

On the rare bright side of things, the most diverse, meritocratic institution in Britain, the England football team, is a force to be feared yet again. All thanks to the most precious fruits of our “glory” days of Empire: immigrants. For the best of us, look to Djed Spence and Jude Bellingham. Our boys may not have brought football home this time, yet they will soon enough. Still we must wonder: is home even worth coming to?

In love and Britishness,


Nels