He said last month: “If the descendants of the original victims of colonial exploitation still suffer as a result of these injustices, are we modern Britons beneficiaries of those wrongs?… the answer must be ‘yes’.” While ignoring or downplaying these calls seems to have worked for the British Government and the monarchy in the past, those of us with ties to these countries, who do not have the luxury of believing tall tales about Britain already having paid its debts because we are reminded daily of how much was lost and stolen under British rule, understand that this issue is not going away.Įven the Reverend Dr Michael Banner, the dean of Trinity College, Cambridge, and perhaps the highest-profile white British person to do so publicly in recent years, called for Britain to pay reparations for the slave trade. Though there was significantly more public support for the idea in 1999, when 57 per cent of Australians said they were in favour, today’s renewed calls for the shift in power have weight behind them, particularly after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s revelatory interview with Oprah Winfrey earlier this year. For years, Australia has also fiercely debated the prospect of removing the Queen as its head of state, albeit for entirely different reasons. There have also been calls from many other politicians and public figures, including Jamaica’s opposition leader, Mark Golding, to pursue reparations for slavery.Īnd it’s not just the Caribbean. Jamaican politicians, including former prime minister Portia Simpson-Miller, and the incumbent, Andrew Holness, have also voiced support for such a move in the past (although Holness has specified that he would like Commonwealth relations to remain intact).
A poll last year showed that 55 per cent of Jamaicans supported the Queen being removed as the country’s head of state, while 30 per cent were in favour of her remaining and 15 per cent were unsure. Jamaica, another former colony, also seems to be largely supportive of the idea of cutting ties with its former ruler.
This is a decision that has already had a ripple effect in the Caribbean. In addition to seeking reparations from the UK on the basis of genocide and slavery along with 11 other Caribbean states, next month Barbados will remove the Queen as its head of state and become a republic.Ī year after declaring that the time had come for Barbados to “fully leave colonial past behind”, Prime Minister Mia Mottley said in August: “I am happy to report to the people of this nation today, that Her Excellency Dame Sandra Mason has consented to my government nominating her, at the appropriate time, to be the first President of this nation.”īarbados could cause ‘domino effect’ in removing the Queen as head – with Jamaica tipped to turn next Barbados is the latest former British colony to do so. Although, not for much longer, it seems.Īs institutions like the Government and the monarchy fight to hold on to an evermore fantastical sense of Britain’s power, other nations are backing away. But that’s this country for you, and its delusions about its past have served it well for some time. Of course, this is nonsense given the Government’s continual attempts to bend the curriculum to its narrative about the glory days of empire, or its rejection of the idea that Britain played any significant role in the abuses swathes of the world suffered under its rule. When Boris Johnson delivered his banter-laden speech to the Tory party conference, he made a claim that was clearly designed to stoke culture war flames: “We Conservatives will defend our history and cultural inheritance not because we are proud of everything, but because trying to edit it now is as dishonest as a celebrity trying furtively to change his entry in Wikipedia, and it’s a betrayal of our children’s education.”
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