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Barbados will remove the Queen as its Head of State next year, the country’s prime minister announced.
The Caribbean island is scheduled to become a republic next November and wants to “leave [its] colonial past behind “.
She gained her independence from Great Britain in 1966, but kept the Queen as Head of State.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced the news in a written overnight speech, citing the warning from Prime Minister Errol Barrow of the Caribbean nation against “loitering in colonial facilities.”
Reading the speech, Governor General Dame Sandra Mason said: “The time has come to completely leave our colonial past behind. Barbadians want a Barbadian Head of State.”
(Image: Getty Images)
“This is the ultimate statement of confidence in who we are and what we are capable of achieving.
“Therefore, Barbados will take the next logical step towards full sovereignty and will become a Republic by the time we celebrate our 55th anniversary of independence.”
The measure has been in the cards for more than 20 years, and in 1998 a Barbados constitutional review commission recommended Republican status.
(Image: Getty Images)
(Image: Getty Images)
In 2015, then-Prime Minister Freundel Stuart said that “we have to move from a monarchical system to a republican form of government in the very near future.”
Most Caribbean countries have maintained formal ties to the monarchy after achieving independence.
Barbados would join Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica and Guyana if it continues with its plan to become a republic.
(Image: UK Press via Getty Images)
Jamaica has marked that transition as well, and Prime Minister Andrew Holness said it is a priority of his administration, but has yet to make it.
Barbados took another step towards independence from the United Kingdom in 2003 when it replaced the Judicial Committee of the London-based Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice, located in Trinidad and Tobago’s Port of Spain, as its final court of appeal.
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