A new blow for Sir Keir Starmer as the Prime Minister dismally fails to shut down calls for talks on slave trade compensation.

SIR Keir Starmer’s Commonwealth charm offensive backfired yesterday when he failed to shut down calls for talks on slave trade compensation.

Unfortunately he failed to obtain claims for damages scrapped, and country leaders said “the time has come” to debate.

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the prime minister traveled more than 9,000 miles to Samoa and was left red-faced after Downing Street said the problem not even on the agenda.

But he insisted Britain will not pay a cent after the allies included the need for talks in a statement at the end of the summit.

Sir Keir said: “There is. . . a paragraph from the statement on restorative justice.

“But I must be very clear: in the two days we have been here none of the discussions have been about money.

“Our position is very, very clear.”

But Sir Keir was still criticized for allowing go to agenda.

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw He insisted that Britain should not “pay reparations for policies that were pursued by a British government two centuries ago.”

“We cannot take any responsibility for it,” he added.

“It was a completely different period in our history, we were not a democracy… it’s absurd, frankly, to talk about us having to apologize for slavery.

“And to insinuate therefore that money is going to fall from the sky, in billions.

“That’s just not right.”

The issue is likely to be formally raised at next year’s UK-Caribbean Forum.