Gaston Browne, the Labour Party prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, has proposed a referendum to abolish the monarchy before the Queen has even been buried.
Wearing no tie, still less a black tie, and sporting a questionable moustache, Browne told ITV News he would try to hold a referendum on abolishing the monarchy just moments after King Charles III was confirmed as the Commonwealth Realm’s new head of state.
“This is a matter that has to be taken to a referendum for the people to decide,” said Browne, educated in finance at the City Banking College and University of Manchester, both in Britain, before becoming taking up a position with the Swiss American Banking Group in home state.
“It does not represent any form of disrespect to the monarch. This is not an act of hostility, or any difference between Antigua and Barbuda and the monarchy,” he claimed.
“It is a final step to complete the circle of independence to become a truly sovereign nation.”
Antigua and Barbuda is of course already a fully independent state being a Commonwealth Realm — one of a number of states including Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom itself which retain the British monarch as head of state, entirely independent of the British government and parliament.
Browne conceded to ITV that the monarchy does not elicit “significant emotional responses” among his people, in a negative sense, and that he does think “most people haven’t even bothered to think about it” — yet his left-wing party still intends to push for its abolition if re-elected in elections next year.
Barbados became the most recent country to abolish the monarchy in November 2021 — a move prompted by its increasing closeness to and dependence on Communist China, according to some British lawmakers — and Jamaica’s government, which like Antigua and Barbuda is led by a Labour Party, is also seeking abolition, although the change will require a two-thirds majority in parliament and likely a referendum.