Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Jamaica’s PM tells Kate and William his country is ‘moving on’

Royal couple’s visit met with growing republican sentiment and pressure for reparations over slavery

Jamaica’s prime minister has told the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge that his country is “moving on” and intends to become a republic.

The royals’ arrival in Jamaica on Tuesday coincided with a much-publicised demonstration urging the monarchy to pay reparations for slavery, and calls from politicians for the country to become a republic.

The couple’s visit to Jamaica has given the nation the opportunity to address “unresolved” issues, the prime minister, Andrew Holness, told them. During an official welcome, Holness said: “There are issues here which are, as you would know, unresolved but your presence gives an opportunity for those issues to be placed in context, put front and centre and to be addressed in as best [a way] as we can.

“Jamaica is as you would see a country that is very proud of our history and very proud of what we have achieved. We are moving on and we intend to attain in short order … our goals and fulfil our true ambitions as an independent, developed, prosperous country.”

After the decision by Barbados to remove the Queen as head of state, Holness said last December that “there is no question that Jamaica has to become a republic”. There has been bipartisan support for the move for years and the campaign to change Jamaica’s status is increasingly a mainstream position.

Amid reports that a senior official has already been appointed to oversee the transition to a republic, polling experts say Jamaican public opinion has moved steadily in favour of becoming a republic over the past decade, fuelled by increasing discussion of the negative legacy of colonialism and by interest in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Lisa Hanna, Jamaican’s opposition spokesperson on foreign affairs, said the last three years had led to a generation of Caribbean people who are “more self reflective, more socially conscious”, and the Windrush scandal was contributing to this. Watching how “our grandparents and great-grandparents” were being treated “gave us a sense of questioning and reckoning”, Hanna said. “It’s time we look at how we’ve given so much of ourselves to Great Britain.”

Political pollster Don Anderson said only around 40% of Jamaicans supported separation from the monarchy in 2011, but in 2020 this had increased to 62%. “I’d be surprised if that number isn’t closer now to 70%, because of the increased calls for Jamaica to follow Barbados in becoming a republic,” he said. “There has also been an increased awareness of the atrocities of colonialism. I don’t think it was on people’s radar in the same way 10 years ago. I believe the government will be forced to respond to this very soon.”

Campaigners this week published a document listing 60 reasons why the British government and royals should apologise to the Jamaican people and offer reparations, citing human trafficking and the transatlantic slave trade and the destruction of Jamaica’s natural environment by establishing a plantation system.

Demonstrations greeted William and Kate in Kingston, Jamaica, demanding the monarchy apologise for its role in the slave trade.


An open letter addressed to Prince William and Kate, signed by 100 campaigners, which was delivered to the British high commission on Tuesday, noted that the Queen had “done nothing to redress or atone for the suffering of our ancestors that took place during her reign and during the entire period of British trafficking of Africans, enslavement and colonisation”.

“You, who may one day lead the British monarchy, are direct beneficiaries of the wealth accumulated by the royal family over centuries, including that stemming from the trafficking and enslavement of Africans,” the letter said. “We urge you to start with an apology and recognition of the need for atonement and reparations.”

Economics professor Rosalea Hamilton, who drafted the letter, said the royal visit was inadvertently “fast-tracking” the campaign to move to a republic. If Prince William failed to apologise and discuss reparations during the visit, the campaign would “surge ahead” and the move to a republic would become an inevitability, she said.

Lawyer Jennifer Housen said people in Jamaica were increasingly wondering what the benefit was of continued ties with the UK, given that the UK requires Jamaican nationals to apply for visas before visiting (and makes these visas hard to secure) and that economic links were no longer significant. “How special are we when our nationals need a visa even to come to Britain? People feel the relationship is pointless.”

The parallel campaign for payment of reparations for slavery from the British government has intensified in the past year. Culture minister Olivia Grange said this week: “Reparations will happen. It is about regaining our respect. It has to do with our dignity. It has to do with ensuring that the injustices that were meted out to our enslaved ancestors are corrected. We are on a mission, we have to achieve that goal.”

Earlier this year, the Jamaican prime minister established a new ministry responsible for constitutional reform, having previously directed then attorney general Marlene Malahoo Forte to research the removal of the Queen as head of state.

Philip Murphy, an expert on Commonwealth history and author of Monarchy and the End of Empire, said the royal family’s decision to visit Jamaica was having the unintended consequence of strengthening campaigns for Jamaica to drop its ties with the British monarchy. “Campaigners might not have got that kind of international attention without the presence of William and Kate. We seem to be reaching a tipping point where events that are clearly choreographed by the British government as a sort of charm offensive, banging the drum for global Britain, become a kind of shitstorm of controversy,” he said.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
×