Leaving colonial past behind: Barbados to remove Queen Elizabeth as head of state

Barbados government on Wednesday said that it will remove Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state. Announcing the decision, Governor-General, Sandra Mason, said in a speech, “The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind.” With this, the country will become the first to drop the monarch in nearly three decades.

Sandra said that they expect to complete the process by November 2021 and will announce the country as a Republic on the 55th anniversary of independence from Britain. Prime Minister Mia Mottley said that people wanted a Barbadian head of state. “This is the ultimate statement of confidence in who we are and what we are capable of achieving,” the speech read.

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Meanwhile, the Buckingham Palace responded that it was a matter for the government and people of Barbados. A source at Buckingham Palace said BBC that the idea “was not out of the blue” and “has been mooted and publicly talked about many times.”

Earlier, Barbados’ first Prime Minister, Errol Walton Barrow, had warned the country against “loitering on colonial premises.”

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Though Barbados got independence from British rule in 1966, Queen Elizabeth remained its constitutional monarch.

The Queen is currently the head of state of the United Kingdom and 15 other countries that were formerly under British rule — including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Jamaica and several other island nations in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean.