LONDON: Britain’s largest anti-monarchist group which campaigns for an elected head of state said on Monday that India could play a leading role within the Commonwealth to highlight that the organisation is not inextricably linked with the UK’s royal family.
Graham Smith, CEO of Republic, referenced the latest opinion polls to show declining support for the monarchy ever since it lost its “star player” in Queen Elizabeth II.
Ahead of the Coronation of her successor, King Charles III, on May 6, the group has been finalising plans to organise a series of #NotMyKing protests at Trafalgar Square and along the route of the 74-year-old monarch’s Coronation procession in central London. “I think what India can do is remind us that the Commonwealth and the monarchy are not connected,” Smith said.
“India made the right choice a long time ago to get rid of the monarchy, to separate from the Crown and be a Republic, and that is a strong reminder that the Commonwealth is not linked to the Crown in that way,” he said.
In August 1947, India made the decision to completely sever colonial ties as an elected Republic, unlike some former colonies who held on to the British monarch as their head of state.
Barbados is the most recent example of a former colony parting ways with the UK monarchy to become a Republic in November 2021.