The claim sounds plausible because colonial attitudes genuinely exist and genuinely shape debates about post-colonial justice. The history of paternalistic dismissal of Caribbean political claims by British governments and institutions is real. There is a documented pattern of former colonial powers resisting accountability in ways that do reflect an assumption of their own authority to determine what the colonised are owed.
The structural argument also has genuine force in some contexts. Legal systems and evidentiary standards were not designed with reparations claims in mind, and it is at least worth asking whether the application of those standards systematically disadvantages claims arising from colonial history.
The argument that those who benefit from a wrong should not be the sole judges of the remedy is a principle with genuine philosophical support. Conflict of interest is a real phenomenon in adjudication, and the observation that the British government has an obvious financial interest in rejecting the reparations claim is not trivial.
