Is this justice, or more woke “nonsense”?

Imagine your rich uncle leaves you a million quid … great news!

But then you find out that he acquired this money by bending and breaking the law through complicity in the inhumane trafficking of people for slavery.

Is the money rightfully yours?

Would you give all or part of this inheritance to charities and projects to help the descendants of the victims of your uncle’s immoral business dealings, or would you consider his actions not to be a concern of yours, and that what’s done is done and you can’t rewrite history?

This is not an imaginary question for the Church Of England.

The Church of England are the beneficiaries of an endowment fund dating back to 1704 called Queen Anne’s Bounty which had links to transatlantic slavery. Under Project Spire, the church plans to invest £100m in enterprises aiming to achieve positive social or environmental goals as well as a financial return.

So this money is not a charitable gift. It’s an ethical investment and shouldn’t really be controversial. However the project has its opponents who accuse the project of being “historically uninformed” and a “departure by the Church Commissioners from their core duties” to English parishes.

Under the circumstances, this ethical investment is the minimum the church can do. There are many who think that “£100m is not enough, relative either to the scale of the Church Commissioners’ endowment or to the scale of the moral sin and crime”

Project Spire is far from being “woke nonsense”. It’s a token gesture in the name of reparative justice.

What is Project Spire and why is it dividing the Church of England? The Guardian, 1 Feb 2026