Royal tours could soon end for good due to anger over Harry and Meghan’s slavery.

King and his family may have to rethink their approach to Commonwealth and worlds after another tour was interrupted by protests and controversy over Britain’s colonial past.

Official visits of Charles and the Queen to Australia and Samoa this week will be remembered by the thousands of people who came to greet them. But for many around the world, the enduring image will be interrupt An Aboriginal senator is dragged from Parliament House in Canberra after accusing the king of genocide.

Senator Lydia Thorpe’s Tirade Speeches against the monarch did not go down well among some people. Even many of those who disliked the monarchy considered it ill-mannered.

But this led to Melbourne Age newspaper and some prominent liberals to demand that king apologize 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 declined an invitation to a reception to welcome Charles, with the country’s republican movement calling the reigning king’s first visit to Australia his farewell tour.

In Samoa, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), Britain fought a rearguard action to try to prevent demands pay reparations for slavery and climate change poorer member countries.

King Charles, as head of the 56-nation association and head of Britain and 14 other countries, including some of those calling for reparations, found himself in an awkward position. But he tried to sidestep political differences.

Speaking at the biennial Commonwealth Summit in Samoa as head of the family of nations, the king said: “None of us can change the past. But we can commit ourselves wholeheartedly to learning its lessons and finding creative ways to correct persistent inequalities.”

The UK Prime Minister insisted reparations were not on the table but said he understood the “strength of feeling” on the issue. Sir Keir Starmer said it was important to acknowledge the “difficult” shared history.

One senior royal aide said of the king: “He won’t do anything to undermine Britain’s position, but he will have to balance that with his other functions.”

The 75-year-old monarch, who has been visiting Commonwealth countries since he was five and traveled to Malta on the maiden voyage of the Royal Yacht Britannia, is an expert at managing sensitive diplomacy.

But there is no doubt that the monarchy is in for a headache.

Commonwealth disputes

Royal overseas visits have long been controversial for decades, but there is now a particular problem with travel to Commonwealth countries, especially those 14 overseas kingdoms where Charles is head of state – Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.

Members of the royal family have found themselves the target of increasingly strident campaigns over the empire’s legacy. These include claims for reparations for slavery and climate change; growing resentment over the Crown’s treatment of the colonists; and in these 14 kingdoms there are growing calls to sever the final connection with Britain, replacing King Charles with a home-grown head of state.

“We just have to accept that wherever we go these days, not everyone will be happy to see us,” said one senior palace aide. “It’s just part of our modern world. Gone are the days when everyone came to support us.”

The turning point came when William and Kate, then the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and now the Prince and Princess of Wales, embarked on an ill-fated Caribbean tour in March 2022 and faced protests. The couple were hit by a storm of indignation during a week-long visit to Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas.

Their aides subsequently vowed that the couple needed to rethink their relationship with the Commonwealth and how to conduct similar tours in the future. “Next time we’ll do it the Cambridge way,” said a senior palace official.

But there has been no sign of any such trip since then, and aides admit that Kate’s cancer diagnosis following the change of reign and coronation meant any major rethink on how to organize Commonwealth tours was put on hold second plan. moment.

The big problem for William and Kate with this 2022 tour was that it was intended to celebrate the Queen’s then-platinum jubilee, so inevitably looked back at her 70-year reign rather than forward, adding to the sense that it was about the colonial past .

Prince Edward and his wife Sophie were also embroiled in a similar dispute in the Caribbean in April that year while touring Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

In a painfully embarrassing public conversation in Antigua and Barbuda, while Edward laughed nervously, the country’s prime minister, Gaston Browne, publicly asked them to seek reparations for slavery and vowed to sever ties with the monarchy and become a republic. St. Kitts and Nevis said the same when they were in the region, and their visit to Grenada was “postponed” due to tensions over the program.

They have never returned here, and it remains to be seen how or whether they and other members of the royal family will approach such tours in the future.

Pointers to the future

King Charles may have offered some pointers to the future when he met veterans of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya last year and expressed his grief and regret at the “wrongdoings” of the British colonial administration and the killing and torture of thousands of independence fighters and supporters.

Two years ago he spoke similarly about slavery in Ghana, Barbados and at CHOGM in Rwanda. But he never offered an apology, which was not enough to appease critics.

It doesn’t help, of course, that Prince Harry, who was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth to represent young people in the Commonwealth even before he met Meghan, has left with his American wife. Her mixed-race heritage instantly made her more attractive to many of the country’s 2.7 billion population.

Many in Africa and the Caribbean have since believed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s version of events, and their anger at how they believe the couple were treated by the rest of the royal family has fueled public backlash against the local monarchy.

The British monarchs have been the head of the Commonwealth since its creation following the collapse of the empire in 1949. A largely ceremonial role is a lifelong job, but it is not hereditary or automatic, such that it must always pass to the new king or queen.

Elizabeth II followed her father George VI in this role and considered it an important part of her legacy to preserve the unity of the family of nations and to spread her values ​​of democracy and tolerance.

At the 2018 CHOGM in London, when there was real debate about whether someone from another part of the Commonwealth could succeed her in the post, she paved the way for Charles.

“It is my sincere wish that the Commonwealth continues to offer stability and continuity to future generations and one day decides that the Prince of Wales should continue the important work begun by my father in 1949,” she said, using her personal capital to secure a unanimous vote in his favor. the leaders of the time.

It was the same “sincere desire” formula she used in February 2022 to clear the way for Camilla to become queen, despite the royal court’s insistence for 17 years that she be known as princess consort out of respect for the memory of Princess Diana when Charles became king.

But will William follow in the footsteps of his father and grandmother? On the way back from that controversial Caribbean tour, a senior royal source said the prince and his staff accepted that he might one day be able to take up the job but might never be the right man to lead the Commonwealth.

Sally Bedell Smith, the distinguished American royal biographer, sees the value of a ceremonial, apolitical and unelected monarch leading the Commonwealth, so she believes it remains possible. But she noted that Charles made all these connections over decades during his long training as heir to the throne.

“William just didn’t have the opportunity to immerse himself in the Commonwealth like his father did,” she said.

He and Kate swore to serve the Commonwealth to the best of their ability. But are they willing to go the extra mile as they travel to all the countries, especially after her illness and the reassessment of her priorities that continues as she recovers? This remains to be seen.

He and his father are not genuinely concerned about whether the British monarch will remain head of state in these 14 kingdoms, believing that this is a matter solely for the people of these countries. But the UK government likes the soft power that the monarchy and its role in the Commonwealth as a whole brings, helping to spread British values ​​to parts of the world where authoritarian China in particular is making inroads.

The Royal Household may have to carefully consider its next steps.