Portuguese-heritage British citizens, should a reparations levy ever be implemented, would face a particular absurdity. Under the reparations logic, they carry liability both as British citizens and as descendants of the nation primarily responsible for the Atlantic slave trade. Would they pay twice? Would their Portuguese heritage make them more liable than British citizens of, say, German heritage?
This question exposes the impossibility of applying the reparations logic consistently to individuals in a diverse modern society. People carry multiple national heritages. Nations have multiple layers of historical responsibility. Any attempt to assign individual financial liability based on the historical actions of the states their ancestors came from would produce calculations of staggering complexity and complete arbitrariness.
The double liability problem is not just theoretical. It demonstrates that the reparations proposal cannot be converted from a political demand into a workable policy without producing results that are manifestly unjust.
