King Charles’s coronation is supposed to allow, for the first time, all subjects of the British Empire, not just Charles’s peers, to offer their vow of fealty to the new King. Anyone watching the coronation broadcast is to be given the opportunity. However, the coronation officials may want to rethink that.
A new poll of fourteen overseas countries of the Commonwealth show that six countries prefer to dump the monarchy and to form republics, six are mildly in favor of staying as they are now, and two—the Pacific island of Tuvalu and the country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines—are enthusiastically in favor of staying with King Charles.
The poll was conducted by Michael Ashcroft, former Conservative Party deputy chairman. In favor of becoming a republic and dumping the monarchy, if given an opportunity, were Canada (47% to 23%), Australia (42 to 35%), the Bahamas, Jamaica, the Solomon Islands, and Antigua and Barbuda. Further, the polling in Canada, along with three other countries, supported the view that the monarchy is a “racist and colonialist institution and we should have nothing to do with it.”
