Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

King Charles’s ascension ignites debate over royals across Commonwealth

King Charles’s ascension ignites debate over royals across Commonwealth

Head of state role in doubt in realms from Jamaica to New Zealand after death of Queen Elizabeth II

King Charles’s ascension to the throne has reignited a debate over whether the royal family deserves a global role in the 21st century, no more so than in the 14 Commonwealth realms where the British monarch remains the head of state.

A legacy of empire and slavery that was entwined with British royalty for centuries has raised tough questions about the place of a foreign king, and republican movements from the Pacific to North America to the Caribbean will be assessing whether they should seize the moment.

Recent developments, notably Barbados becoming a republic in 2021 and removing Queen Elizabeth as its head of state, have also led to a crescendo that could now reach a climax.

While there are strong republican voices in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, Jamaica appears to be most likely to face the issue immediately, not least because appointing the new king might require a constitutional referendum.

On Friday, the main story on the front page of one of Jamaica’s leading newspapers, the Gleaner, said the Queen’s death would “make Jamaica’s break with monarchy easier”.

Elizabeth II had a “personal kind of lingering among some sections of the population”, the paper quoted cultural expert Jahlani Niaah, senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies, as saying. But he added: “There is another section that is clear that we have come too far with those millstones around our necks, and the fact that she has passed will mean there is less affection for the symbolism that she represents as a powerful woman in the world.”

In 2020, Mikael Phillips, an opposition member of Jamaica’s parliament, filed a motion backing the removal of the monarch and on Thursday said he hoped the prime minister “would move faster when there is a new monarch in place”.

Queen Elizabeth II in Jamaica on her Jubilee tour in 2002.


Jamaica’s government last year announced plans to ask London for compensation for an estimated 600,000 Africans who were shipped to the island to the financial benefit of British slaveholders. And a poll this summer found that more than half of Jamaicans said they wanted the Queen to be removed as head of state.

The royal family has sought to address Britain’s bloody imperial past for decades. As prince, Charles attended the Barbados ceremony last year and gave a conciliatory speech referring to the “appalling atrocity of slavery” that “forever stains British history”.

Note: British Antarctic Territory not shown


More than 10 million Africans were forced into the Atlantic slave trade by European nations, and those who survived the trip were shackled in the Caribbean and the Americas.

Belize has already announced a constitutional review, and political leadership in some overseas British territories such as the British Virgin Islands was also heading in a similar direction.

The wider Commonwealth of Nations, a group of 56 countries including 2.5 billion people, will also face a reckoning. The organisation has attempted to democratise, for example, by declaring that its head is not a hereditary role. However, Charles was still chosen to lead by leaders of the bloc in 2018, which has made some countries uncomfortable.

In Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the transition has brought grief but also raised resentment around the damaging effects of Britain’s colonisation on Indigenous peoples.

In Canberra parliament has been suspended for 15 days, while the Sydney Opera House was illuminated in the Queen’s honour. Still, within hours of her death being announced the long-running republican debate was revived.

A Green party senator, Mehreen Faruqi, said: “I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples.”

This June, Australia’s new government headed by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, appointed Matt Thistlethwaite as the country’s first minister tasked with overseeing a transition to a republic.

In New Zealand, the republican prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, remembered Queen Elizabeth II as “extraordinary”, saying she came “to define notions of service, charity and consistency”. And Marama Davidson, the co-leader of New Zealand’s Green party, said the relationship between the British crown and New Zealand was “a question for another day”.

A 96-gun salute for Queen Elizabeth at Parliament House forecourt in Canberra, Australia.


Regardless, a fresh break from British royalty seemed an inevitable question. Sir Don McKinnon, a former deputy prime minister of Aotearoa and former secretary-general of the Commonwealth, told Radio New Zealand that the possibility of New Zealand becoming a republic would “build up quite a head of steam now”.

In Fiji, which was a British colony from 1874 until 1970, the Queen was being mourned but British imperialism had complicated their feelings, said Inise Kuruwale, a librarian. “I believe most people feel sad today, but not all, because a lot of people are still a bit angry about the fact of colonialism.”

In Vanuatu, which was run as a joint colonial post by the French and British after the second world war until gaining independence 42 years ago, residents of the capital of Port Vila expressed sadness for her passing, but said the relevance of the monarchy has dimmed over the years.

“She was a very good role model. She came to Vanuatu, but it was before I was born,” said Lopez Adams, who owns a cafe in Port Vila. “We are sad for her family, but for us, we have been forgotten. Colonisers came and they took. We are independent now and we have seen nothing from them.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
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
×