UK taxpayers still paying for slave owner compensation in 2015

In 1833 when the slavery was finally ended by Britain £20 million was paid as compensation to slave owners by the  Government. This was 40% of the total budget for that year and the equivalent of £17 billion today. Until the bail-out of the banks in 2008 it was the largest single payment ever made by a British government. Now the Bristol Post has discovered that this compensation was still being paid off by taxpayers in 2015: revealed by the Treasury under a Freedom of Information request. It means that "anyone who paid any tax at all before February 1, 2015 was paying off the debt created from the millions paid to British slave owners in 1833". The slaves received nothing.

The Treasury then trivialised this fact through a tweet which said: "Here’s today’s surprising #FridayFact. Millions of you helped end the slave trade through your taxes.” Several historians queried the tweet's tone and accuracy (the slave trade actually ended in 1807) and it was quickly deleted. Read the full story here.