this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
29 points (96.8% liked)

UK Politics

5406 readers
160 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 14 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 9 points 22 hours ago

Honestly a list of unforgivable crimes would probably be a better use of time so you don't start arguing about whether slavery or genocide is worse.

[–] anothermember@feddit.uk 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not for the sake of defending the UK government but in all honesty, I can understand the objection to the wording "gravest crime against humanity". It's surely one of the worst but to rank it above all out of all of history seems a bit narrow, I think the response “we must not create a hierarchy of historical atrocities” is probably fair at least based on the information from the linked article.

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 2 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

Trans-atlantic slavery was the ultimate degredation of using humans as cattle on a mass industrialized scale. It was unique and only possible by the extreme power imbalance of guns and the extreme lack of morals of the countries perpetrating it.

Point is: Africa deserves restitution for its stolen wealth (and also the stolen stuff in the "British" museums)

[–] anothermember@feddit.uk 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

A lot of atrocities were unique in their own ways, I think trying to quantify them in such absolute terms risks ignoring nuances and degrades the others deemed to be "less bad". Instead we should focus on learning from each one in context.

Point is: Africa deserves restitution for its stolen wealth (and also the stolen stuff in the “British” museums)

That's separate, you don't need to declare something to be the "gravest crime against humanity" to make the case for restitution.

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 0 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

No this is cope by people who don't want to be inconvenienced by justice.

[–] anothermember@feddit.uk 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Couldn't parse that, who doesn't want to be inconvenienced by justice?

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] anothermember@feddit.uk 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

No that wasn't meant to be rhetorical, who are you talking about?

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

The vast majority of people not wanting to pay reparations for slavery because it costs money.

[–] anothermember@feddit.uk 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Right, we're on the same page then. I think we owe reparations, but that has nothing to do with declaring slavery the "gravest crime against humanity", you've made a straw man.

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml -2 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Transatlantic slavery was basically the Holocaust except with more people and it lasted the entire lifetime of the slaves instead of 6 years and that times multiple generations. Maybe that helps paint a picture.

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There are probably worse things tbh

[–] Flyberius@hexbear.net -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Britain existing being one of them

[–] Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago