Barbados to ditch Queen Elizabeth as head of state, become a republic

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/09/16/barbados-to-ditch-queen-elizab.html

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But to learn from mistakes you must confront them, and exceptionalism means you never do.

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All hail Barbados’ new queen

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Ironic how the announcement is made by the Governor-General, who is the envoy of the Queen.

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But chosen by the Barbadian government.

Sandra Mason is a senior Barbadian judge.

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If a head of some other state is to sign all of your laws, then you’re not independent.

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Then the UK isn’t independent, because our laws have to be signed by the heads of state of fifteen other countries.

(Well, not literally signed. Some dudes in RenFaire get-up stand in Parliament and shout “La Reine le veult!”, which I believe is Norman French for “The Queen wills it.” If she were to veto a law, they’d instead shout “La Reine s’advisera”, which means, roughly, “The Queen will think about it.” But that hasn’t happened since 1708.)

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Barbados and the UK are united in our shared history, culture, language and much more.

Yeah that kind of happens when you do so by force.

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I knew this would come, and it is wrong. The UK agreed to follow EU guidelines for a while, just like in those beloved trade agreements. And the UK did whatever it wanted ever since, special treatments included, with all its laws effective of course. This is significantly different from the precondition to have laws signed all one by one by Miss Otherland from far far away (or her substitute).
However, all of the nuisances described above will end pretty soon.

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But @SheiffFatman isn’t talking about the EU. The “heads of state of fifteen other countries” are all the Queen.

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My bad.

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Exactly. If Barbados isn’t independent because its laws need to be approved by the Queen of the UK, then ipso facto the UK isn’t independent because its laws need to be approved by the Queen of Barbados.

Putting facetiousness aside for the moment: both the UK and Barbados are constitutional monarchies, which means the Queen can only exercise her powers in the UK on the advice of the British government, and in Barbados on the advice of the Barbadian government (where “advice” is a euphemism for “instructions”).

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I imagine a fair number of other countries will bolt, but not until Queen Elizabeth is pining for the fjords. Most of those countries only became independent during her reign and since she can’t last all that much longer, they might hold off until then.

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Good. Time for the rest of the remnants of Britain’s imperialist past to go the same way, including independence for Gibraltar, Islas Malvinas, Northern Ireland, and last but not least, Scotland and Wales.

Not sure if Spain, Argentina or the Republic of Ireland would agree with you.

I don’t think Gibraltar wants that.

Personally I don’t support British or Spanish sovereignty over Gibraltar, but I’m just an anarchisty communist person.

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They should sign up with Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg - so they can be part of the EU.

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Yeah, because “independence” for Hong Kong went so well…

Tangential: South Carolina was largely colonized by Barbados slave owners hoping to expand the plantation systems they developed in the Caribbean to the mainland. This is incredibly important to US history and culture today.

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