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At the same time, Mottley has also paid great tribute to the Queen and was adamant that the Prince of Wales should be asked to take part in this week’s constitutional handover. He was very happy to do so. It has certainly been handled with dignity and good humour on both sides.
‘Mia wanted her moment in history. She didn’t want a debate and the constitution doesn’t require a referendum,’ explains one Caribbean diplomat. To listen to some of rhetoric this week, the most surprising thing may not be that the Queen has gone but that she was still there until 2021.
In fact, like so many new Commonwealth democracies, Barbados elected to keep her for practical reasons, not out of deference. The Crown reinforced a legal system, a military, public institutions and an honours system which all worked reasonably well. It also gave the people a degree of protection from overmighty politicians.
Barbados was, emphatically, not adopting the British Queen. Under the doctrine of a divisible Crown, she was the Queen of Barbados, answerable through her Governor-General to her Barbadian ministers and not to the British PM (Harold Wilson back then).
In his excellent book, Monarchy & The End of Empire, professor Philip Murphy reveals the extent to which the British government actively discouraged ex-colonies from hanging on to the trappings of royalty during this period. All over the old empire, the Commonwealth Relations Office (yet to merge with the Foreign Office) tried to persuade the founding fathers of independence to adopt a presidential system from the start. Not only was it less messy constitutionally, it also spared the Queen the indignity of being given the boot later on.
The situation was more complicated in the Caribbean after the collapse of the fledgling federation of the West Indies in the early Sixties. The islands wanted to go it alone, but with the ultimate symbol of stability. So, with the exception of Dominica, the whole lot chose to retain the Crown. Just two, Trinidad and Guyana, later opted to be a republic. Now that Barbados has joined them, will this start a chain reaction among the neighbours? That depends on three things: timing, personality and constitution.
Not every realm is a one-party state with a leader of Mottley’s calibre. And not all leaders enjoy the same constitutional leeway. All eyes are on Jamaica which has been talking about removing the Crown for years. Writing my last book, I found a telegram from the British High Commissioner, John Hennings, to the Foreign Secretary ahead of the Queen’s visit in 1975. That would be her ‘last’ as Sovereign, he declared. Nearly half a century later, the Jamaican constitution requires a two thirds majority in both houses of parliament plus a referendum to shift her. And, unlike Barbados, Jamaican politics is a two-party affair.
It’s a similar story in St Vincent and the Grenadines (which includes Mustique). To eject the Queen there also requires a referendum. Twelve years ago, the socialist prime minister, ‘Comrade’ Ralph Gonsalves, held a vote on the Queen in the very week that she was in the Caribbean for the 2009 Commonwealth summit in Trinidad. Much to his surprise, the people voted 55/45 to stick with the Crown.
And therein lies the problem for so many republicans: the voters. The Australian political and media establishments were gobsmacked when the people were offered an Ozzie president in 1999 and rejected the idea. Tiny Tuvalu did the same in 2008. In each case, it was not a personal vote for the Queen. It was the fact that a neutral Crown, represented by a locally-born Governor-General, was deemed a safer bet than yet another politician.
I have no doubt that in the reign of King Charles, we’ll see more ceremonies like this week’s event in Bridgetown. There will be nothing personal about it. Some nations will view it as a piece of overdue historic housekeeping. Others will maintain the status quo. The current consensus, for example, is that Australia will probably go and that Canada will probably not.
The only royal concern will be that it is done democratically and with good grace. The monarchy has never been about ‘clinging on’. If it was, then this has been one hell of a cling.
Because you read about barbados
Also by Robert Hardman
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