Slavery and colonialism did not make Britain rich, and may even have made the nation poorer, a new study has found. The riches of the slave trade were concentrated in a few families while the nation footed the bill for extra military and administrative spending, according to a book by Kristian Niemietz at the Institute of Economic Affairs. “Profits earned from overseas engagement were large enough to make some individuals very rich, but they were not large enough to seriously affect macroeconomic aggregates like Britain’s investment rate and capital formation,” he said. Mr Niemietz argued that that the slave trade had little overall impact on the economy or the country’s ability to industrialise. He said: “The transatlantic slave trade was no more important for the British economy than brewing or sheep farming, but we do not usually hear the claim that ‘brewing financed the Industrial Revolution’ or ‘sheep farming financed the Industrial Revolution’.” It comes amid a heated debate over Britain’s imperial past. Caribbean states have demanded reparations from Britain, while more than 100 British families whose ancestors benefited from the slave trade, including former BBC broadcaster Laura Trevelyan, have pledged to seek ways to make financial amends. By contrast,...