TONY BLAIR is to express his “deep sorrow” for Britain’s role in the slave trade tomorrow, but his carefully worded comments will fall short of the full apology demanded by campaigners.

In a characteristic piece of positioning, the prime minister will issue a statement to the black community newspaper New Nation, atoning for the country’s involvement in the trade nearly 200 years ago.

But it will disappoint those who wanted the prime minister to make an apology in a parliamentary statement, or for the Queen to issue one.

“It is hard to believe what would now be a crime against humanity was legal at the time,” Blair will say.

“I believe the bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was — how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition — but also to express our deep sorrow that it ever could have happened and rejoice at the better times we live in today.”

Blair has often had problems apologising. The prime minister was criticised in 1997 when he said he “reflected” on the deaths caused by the Irish potato famine. According to notes recently flaunted by Baroness Amos, the leader of the House of Lords, the prime minister wanted to make a bold gesture that would be “internationally recognised” and back a United Nations resolution by Caribbean countries to honour those who died at the hands of slave traders.

Blair has been under pressure to make a gesture in the run-up to the bicentenary in March of the Slave Trade Act that abolished slavery in the British Empire. Up to 28m Africans were sent to the Americas and sold into slavery between 1450 and the early 19th century. Britain transported more than 300,000 a year in shackles on disease-ridden boats.

John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, sits in the Hull constituency that was represented by the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce. He chairs an advisory committee that has been planning the 200th anniversary commemorations.

Whitehall advisers are said to have argued that a full apology might prompt claims for reparations and urged that a statement simply say: “We regret and strongly condemn the evils of the transatlantic slave trade.”

Kofi Mawuli Klu, leader of the Rendevous of Victory campaign for an apology, said last night he was disappointed by the government’s compromise, which was “adding insult to injury”.

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