The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade was bad, I know this is a popular opinion that almost everyone in the United Kingdom agrees with and has agreed with since the 19th century. It is an issue we solved nearly two centuries ago and have spent most of those two centuries paying off the debt incurred to end it. Not only did Britain stop their own participation in the trade themselves, they made it completely impossible for every other Trans-Atlantic empire to take part in it. A job Britain did so well that not only did we name the town that was HQ for the slave freeing West Africa Squadron “Freetown” but there remains to this day an arch in Freetown with the inscription: “Royal Asylum and Hospital for Africans rescued from slavery by British Valour and Philanthropy Erected AD MDCC XVII – H.E. Lt. Col. MacCarthy”. This arch was made a national monument in Sierra Leone in 1949 and still stands as one today, post independence.

There’s good reason to mention this, since there is a relentless demoralisation of Britain's history and empire because Britain was involved in the industrialised trade of human lives. As mentioned above it is an evil trade and one that, thanks to British political action after Colston’s death, was ended and made impossible for any Western empire to trade in again. How this part of British history is not widely celebrated but ultimately seen as eternally shameful is beyond me. It is my belief that those who try to shame Britain for this trade do not actually care about slaves or slavery but instead use it as yet another way to demoralise those of us who are somewhat proud of Britain's history and the accomplishments of the British peoples.

I say this has to do with the toppling of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol, where a crowd of people toppled the statue and rolled it into Bristol Harbour on 7 June 2020, for good reason. This statue had nothing to do with the slave trade, it was erected in 1895 using funds raised by people of the city, through charity fundraisers with some large contributions made from The Society of Merchant Venturers, which Colston was a member of over 200 years earlier. This shows the statue, and the legacy of Colston, was popular with the people of Bristol. When proposed it was specifically to commemorate his philanthropy on behalf of the city, which is also why a number of schools, streets and music halls in Bristol were named after him.

I am by no means saying Colston didn’t derive any benefit at all from the evil trade, I am however saying that at the time of his life, slavery was not a major moral issue, the abolition movement only started 40 years after his death. Morals evolve, they are an act of discovery, but these leftists act like they are the sole and retroactive arbiter of who was moral and who was not. Hence they feel, and thanks to the courts they are vindicated in their belief, that they can get away with taking established processes into their own hands by tearing down a statue that had nothing to do with their moral crusade, one that the public of Bristol wanted to keep. This act also caused the city to start renaming anything Colston related, slavery is apparently the ultimate evil now, all thanks to an American being killed at the knee of an American police officer, events wholly unconnected to Britain. Another issue where the only way people can relate it to slavery is through a low resolution look at 19th Century American race relations.

Trying to judge morally, the actions of historical figures through a modern leftist lens means that we can see absolutely nobody as a morally good person. Even people who were pushing this morality half a decade ago are being disavowed. With this knowledge how can we take their claims seriously? These activists would rather tarnish the myth of a charitable merchant than do anything useful. Slavery is not abolished worldwide, it is estimated 40 million people are slaves today, with 136,000 modern slaves estimated to be in the UK. Do you see a single person who was so shocked about Bristol continuing to allow the statue of one of the city’s most charitable merchants to stand due to his slave trade links also beating  the drum about this issue? An issue they are so passionate about that they will completely ignore supposedly sacrosanct democratic protocol in order to have their own way and destroy public property? No of course you don’t, they are performing outrage, they could not do anything useful with their passions if they tried.

It’s worse than simply not being useful, it is actively hurting charitable organisations, with the Colston Society deciding to disband after 275 years of charitable work. This is what being passionate about the slave trade has lead to, destruction, self-censoring of a name, and the ending of an almost 3 century old charity. Though the charity organisers do intend to create a new charity, this is still in the works, these cowards would rather close down a charity and stop helping those in need than defend the inspirer for their charity. This makes my blood boil because absolutely nothing productive is being done in the name of what they claim their vandalism is for.

They activists at their trial said that “If you have a cancer like Colston festering in your city, you cut it out. Only once it’s gone the body can heal,” and “Imagine having a Hitler statue in front of a Holocaust survivor—I believe they are similar.” which are insane arguments that somehow won over the jury. Colston’s involvement in the slave trade was not festering in the city, everything being done in his name was clearly virtuous and inspired by his good deeds. Absolutely no one put that statue up or wanted to keep that statue up in the name of his participation in the trade of slaves. To compare him to the architect of the mass genocide is, frankly, laughable. If these activists believe slavery to be comparable to the Holocaust I expect them to take their vigilantism straight to where this would be effective, and bring any slave owner currently in the UK to justice, yet you will never see them do that. This is virtue signalling in its purest form, performative action against the memory of a man who did absolutely nothing wrong instead of rectifying evils in current society. As mentioned above, we have slavery in Britain now, more than we actually had during Colston’s time, if anyone thinks slavery is the purest evil either donate or volunteer to https://www.unseenuk.org/ a charity that help with victims of modern slavery in the UK, or to https://www.antislavery.org/ if you're more interested in international slavery. I doubt any of the Colston 4, or any anti-Colston activist have even heard of these charities.

Leftists can only destroy, they demand change that is never precise or explained in the name of a vague virtue. They should have been punished for their crime but got away with it through our lax justice system. To me this means that the laws that protect public statues need a rewrite which has begun to happen  with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. So at least the government appears to be taking this issue seriously and is doing something about it. Unfortunately the Colston 4 cannot be punished as they were found innocent but the precedent they set, of destroying public property because they don’t like it, was dangerous enough to be addressed in a new bill.

I used the Colston Statue as my main example of the Leftist crusade on slavery as it is the most salient to make my point, but battles in the so called name of 'anti-slavery' are everywhere. We see it in the Guardian where they wrote about toppling Nelson’s Column. We see it when the National trust conducts politically motivated assessments into their statues and estates to see just how linked to the Slave Trade our historical figures were and either remove them or install information to call them evil. We see it most clearly in near constant calls for reparations for slavery, to be paid to the very people calling for those reparations, people who have never suffered from slavery but want to be paid as if they have.

These people are morally bankrupt, they are committing the deadly sin of greed in the most charitable interpretation of their actions, and wrath with the least charitable. They are either after money or revenge, they make this clear. They hate the history of this country, hence they only focus on the slave trade, not the ultimate virtue of making it impossible for Europe to continue it. They will continue to try and destroy the very same British History and institutions which brought an end to historic slavery all in the name of a supposed crusade against slavery, one that was won by Britain a long time ago.