As King Charles and Queen Camilla were finishing up their big Australia-Samoa tour this weekend, i Newspaper published another critical piece about the monarchy. This one was written by Richard Palmer. The headline: “Royal tours may soon be over for good due to anger over slavery, Harry and Meghan.” Something similar was said in 2022, following Prince William and Kate’s catastrophic Caribbean Flop Tour, that the monarchy would “need to rethink” how and where they tour. Then QEII died, and William became more obsessed with copying his brother, and Charles got cancer, and on and on. Basically, it’s been two and a half years and the monarchy still hasn’t figured out if they can still “tour” their realms and former colonies. Some highlights from this piece:
Rethink royal tours: The King and his family may have to rethink their approach to the Commonwealth and realms after yet another tour was disrupted by protests and arguments over Britain’s colonial past. Charles and the Queen’s official visits to Australia and Samoa this week will be fondly remembered by the thousands who turned out to greet them. But for many around the world, the enduring image will be of a heckling Aboriginal senator being dragged out of Parliament House in Canberra after accusing the King of genocide.
Senator Thorpe’s message was received: Senator Lidia Thorpe’s tirade against the monarch did not go down well among some people. Even many of those not keen on the monarchy thought it ill-mannered. But it led Melbourne’s Age newspaper and some prominent liberals to demand that the King apologise for Britain’s treatment of the country’s indigenous people. Thorpe’s protest also came after the premiers of each of Australia’s six states snubbed an invitation to a reception to meet Charles, and the country’s republican movement labelled the first visit to Australia by a reigning King of Australia as his farewell tour.
All the king’s realms: The king has 14 overseas realms where Charles is head of state – Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. The Royals have found themselves the target of increasingly strident campaigns over the legacies of empire. These include demands for reparations for slavery and climate change; festering resentment over the way the Crown treated colonials; and in those 14 realms, growing calls to break the final tie with Britain by replacing King Charles with a homegrown head of state. “We just have to accept that wherever we go these days, not everybody is going to be delighted to see us,” one senior palace aide said. “It’s just part of our modern world. Those days of everyone coming out to cheer us are gone.”
The Cambridge Way: A tipping point came when William and Kate, then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and now Prince and Princess of Wales, went on an ill-fated Caribbean tour in March 2022 and found themselves facing protests. The couple were caught in a perfect storm of indignation during a week-long visit to Belize, Jamaica, and The Bahamas. Their aides vowed afterwards that the couple needed to rethink their relationship with the Commonwealth and how to undertake such tours in future. “We’ll do it the Cambridge way next time,” a senior palace official said. But there has been no sign of any similar trip for them since and aides admit that Kate’s cancer diagnosis, following on from the change of reign and Coronation, has meant that any big rethink about how to tackle Commonwealth tours has been put on the backburner for the moment.
The Sussexit & the commonwealth: It does not help, of course, that Prince Harry, who had been tasked by Queen Elizabeth with representing young people in the Commonwealth even before he met Meghan, has quit along with his American wife. Her mixed-race heritage made her instantly more relatable to so many of its 2.7 billion population. Many in Africa and the Caribbean have since bought into the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s version of events and their anger at the way they believe the couple were treated by the rest of the Royal Family has added to the public backlash against the monarchy there.
Whether William will eventually become head of the Commonwealth: But will William follow in his father and grandmother’s footsteps? On the plane back from that controversial Caribbean tour, a senior royal source briefed that the Prince and his staff recognised that he might one day be up to the job but also might never be the right person to lead the Commonwealth. Sally Bedell Smith, a distinguished American royal biographer, sees the value in a ceremonial, non-political, non-elected monarch heading the Commonwealth so thinks it remains possible. But she noted that Charles has been making all of those connections for decades during his long apprenticeship as heir to the throne. “William just hasn’t had that opportunity to immerse himself in the Commonwealth that his father had,” she said.
William & Kate won’t commit to putting in the time: He and Kate vowed to serve the Commonwealth as best they could. But are they prepared to put the hard yards in, travelling around all of the countries, especially after her illness and the re-evaluation of her priorities that is ongoing as she recuperates? It remains to be seen.
Sophie and Edward’s 2022 Caribbean Flop Tour got a similar shout-out for its awkwardness, and Palmer points out that Sophie and Edward have never returned to the Caribbean since then. Neither have William and Kate. LOL. The stuff about the Sussexes is so bizarre – “Many in Africa and the Caribbean have since bought into the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s version of events and their anger at the way they believe the couple were treated by the rest of the Royal Family has added to the public backlash against the monarchy…” He could have just said “people around the world believe Meghan and her side and the left-behind Windsors have never offered any kind of rebuttal or evidence to the contrary.” Because that’s the truth. Besides, people have eyes – everyone saw how the Windsors and the British media ganged up on Meghan and HOW THEY STILL GANG UP ON HER TO THIS DAY. Anyway, the perfect storm is as such: an old king, too sick and out of touch to make real changes; a flighty, lazy, ambivalent heir consumed with jealousy for a brother who escaped; the brother who escaped and has no interest in being his family’s scapegoat or workhorse ever again. Let the realms fall and become republics. Also: spare me the “William hasn’t had time to immerse himself in the commonwealth” – he’s 42 years old. He’s chosen the path of laziness for decades.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Instar.