LONDON (Dispatches) -- The death of Queen Elizabeth II has revived the debate about the future and unity of the British Commonwealth, a group of 15 independent countries that recognized the queen — and now the new King Charles III — as their official head of state.
That list of commonwealth nations, also known as “realms,” includes Canada and Jamaica across the Atlantic and as far away as Australia and New Zealand in the southern Pacific. The queen’s face adorns many of those countries’ coins and banknotes.
Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, elected to a three-year term just this past May, began laying the foundations for a nationwide referendum on transitioning Australia into a republic. In June, he appointed the country’s first minister to begin looking into the process.
Like her Australian counterpart, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern supports her country’s transition to a republic.
“I’ve made my view plain many times. I do believe that is where New Zealand will head, in time. I believe it is likely to occur in my lifetime,” she said.
Just after Charles was proclaimed king on Saturday, the premier of the tiny eastern Caribbean island country of Antigua and Barbuda said he will hold a referendum on transitioning to a republic and removing King Charles as head of state within the next three years.
Antigua and Barbuda was considered Britain’s crown jewel in the Caribbean, prospering on a slave economy and was even nicknamed Little England. Its transition from colony to independent state, which started in 1952 with the dissolution of the British Leeward Islands colony, was completed with its full independence in 1981.
If the referendum is approved, the country would follow the island nation of Barbados to its south, which removed Queen Elizabeth as head of state in November 2021 to become the world’s newest republic.
“The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind,” wrote Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley.
In March, Prime Minister Andrew Holness made news of his intent for Jamaica to become independent directly to his guests Prince William and Kate, now the new Prince and Princess of Wales, on their official visit to the Caribbean island country.
During their time, a protest was held outside the British High Commission in Kingston, the capital. People demanded an apology and reparations for Britain’s role in the slave trade from Africa.
At a state dinner, Prince William replied, “I want to express my profound sorrow. Slavery was abhorrent. And it should never have happened.”
A government minister overseeing constitutional affairs has said a committee to reform the constitution is being established with Jamaica becoming a republic by the next general election in 2025.
Arrests of Anti-Monarchy
Protesters
Civil liberties campaigners and others have expressed alarm about the response of police to anti-monarchy protesters after a number of incidents, the latest of which included the arrest of a man in Edinburgh for apparently heckling Prince Andrew.
The advocacy group Liberty said that new powers recently given to the police to curtail protest, and how they were being enforced by officers, were a cause for deep concern.
The Labour MP Zarah Sultana said in response to incidents in Edinburgh, London and Oxford: “No one should be arrested for just expressing republican views. Extraordinary – and shocking – that this needs saying.”
Police Scotland said a 22-year-old man and a 52-year-old man had been arrested in connection with a breach of the peace on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh shortly before 3pm on Monday.
It came after police were seen pulling a man out of a crowd of people, some of whom appeared to push him, after he was seen shouting at the procession accompanying the Queen’s coffin as King Charles, the Princess Royal, the Duke of York and the Earl of Wessex marched behind the hearse.
Earlier, a woman was charged after being arrested by police in Edinburgh on Sunday as she staged a protest during the accession proclamation for the King. Police said the woman, 22, had been arrested on Sunday outside St Giles’ Cathedral in connection with a breach of the peace and would appear at Edinburgh sheriff court at a later date.
The woman, called Mariángela and who had been seen holding a sign that said “F… imperialism, abolish monarchy”, was arrested moments before the reading of the proclamation. The incident took place outside the cathedral, where the Queen’s coffin lay on Monday.
On Monday night Global Majority Vs Campaign, the group Mariángela represents, released a statement following the arrest, saying it “condemned the centuries of colonial injustice, genocide, and unlawful extraction that have been – and continue to be – carried out in the name of the British Crown”. It added: “Calling for the abolition of the monarchy is as old as the monarchy itself and is a cornerstone of freedom of speech in the UK.”
In London, a barrister and climate activist who had held up a blank piece of paper in Parliament Square said he had been threatened with arrest by a police officer under the Public Order Act.