Not even ten full months ago, Prince William and Kate began their Keen Caribbean Tour. The keen tour became a nightmare for them, and I dubbed it the Caribbean Flop Tour. The tour was full of tone-deaf colonialist imagery and a real lack of diplomacy. By the time they got to Jamaica, it was just one disaster after another and they couldn’t stop the bleeding. Kate winced when a Black woman touched her, then Will and Kate greeted people behind a chain-link fence. William tried to fake-apologize for slavery and Jamaicans weren’t buying it. The pièce de résistance was their final photo-op, where they dressed up in Victorian cosplay and rode around “inspecting” the Black troops. In the middle of the Jamaica leg of their Flop Tour, Jamaica’s prime minister Andrew Holness was so disgusted with their behavior that he called them into his office and fired them live on camera before they even sat down. Jamaica was always going to look to become a republic, but the events of the past ten months have sped up the process significantly.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness has given instructions to Marlene Malahoo Forte, minister of legal and constitutional affairs, to proceed with “speed” towards transforming Jamaica into a republic.

“It is time that Jamaica becomes a republic. For us, the process is not simple, and we have known this since we started on this journey. And we are making sure that we check every box as we move deliberately in that regard,” Holness said. “So I’m saying to you minister (Malahoo Forte), please move ahead with speed and alacrity on this matter, Jamaica must become a republic.”

Holness said that his administration will be taking the necessary steps needed to transform Jamaica from a constitutional monarchy to a republic, and that his administration will not be derailed.

“But whatever political footwork that those who call for it – and now don’t want it, and now are trying to obfuscate and confuse – whatever footwork they may choose to engage in, we are walking a straight line to the objective,” the prime minister insisted.

[From Jamaica-Gleaner]

Unlike Barbados, it will be a trickier process for Jamaica to become a republic, and there’s a lot of intergovernmental wrangling left to be done. But I like that Holness is making it perfectly clear: we need to get the hell away from the British monarchy right now.

For some time now, even before QEII’s death, I’ve believed that King Charles has known that he would “lose” most or all of the Caribbean countries which are still subjects of the British crown. I’ve believed for some time that Charles is only really committed to “keeping” the “white countries” like Australia and Canada.

Photos courtesy of Instar and Cover Images.

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