The Caribbean sun hangs low over the turquoise waters of Antigua and Barbuda as the world’s oldest political union—now 56 nations strong—reassembles for its annual gathering. This year, the focus isn’t just on trade or defense; it’s on history. Or, more precisely, on how to reckon with it. And the British prime minister, Andy Burnham, is making a play for the center of the stage: not to atone for the sins of empire, but to reshape the Commonwealth into something new—one where the UK’s role in the transatlantic slave trade is acknowledged, but where the cost of that legacy is measured not in money, but in partnership, in infrastructure, in the promise of a shared future.
