The monarchy’s real race problem

The monarchy has a race problem. And it has much more to do with Theresa May and Boris Johnson than the hazy accusations of the Sussexes. Two royal tours on the trot have now been upstaged by accusations of ‘colonialism’. First, the Cambridges took the Queen’s Jubilee message to three of her Caribbean realms. Then the Wessexes visited three more. On both tours, local politicians took the opportunity to lecture their royal guests on historic evils done in the name of the Crown. This was swiftly followed back home by a virtuous pile-on on Twitter and elsewhere. LBC’s James O’Brien berated the ‘absurd’ Wessexes for giving their hosts framed photographs. Some urged ‘independence’ for nations like St Lucia. This will have surprised those who attended its independence celebrations in 1979. Therein lies the problem. All the Queen’s realms in the Caribbean (and elsewhere) are as autonomous as the UK. It was they who asked her to be head of state. They could have switched to a presidential model (like Trinidad) at any time but chose not to. It was – and still is – their call. Therefore, to invite the head of state or her family to stay and then use the occasion to dish out ancestral reprimands and invite them to step down is, to put it politely, grandstanding. Yet there is no one making these points. Royal visitors must fix a mirthless grin.

Talk to any student of Caribbean politics and they will point to one perfectly obvious reason for this recent froideur: the Windrush scandal. The shocking blunders of Theresa May’s government in its treatment of post-war workers from the West Indies – and their dependants – has caused very great hurt across the region. ‘We thought we were welcome and now it turns out we were not,’ is the prevailing sentiment.