Barbados's Governor-General Sandra Mason has announced that the former British colony will remove Queen Elizabeth II as head of state by November 2021, when the Caribbean island will mark its 55th anniversary of independence
LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th September, 2020) Barbados's Governor-General Sandra Mason has announced that the former British colony will remove Queen Elizabeth II as head of state by November 2021, when the Caribbean island will mark its 55th anniversary of independence.
"The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind. Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state. This is the ultimate statement of confidence in who we are and what we are capable of achieving. Hence, Barbados will take the next logical step toward full sovereignty and become a republic by the time we celebrate our 55th anniversary of independence," Mason told the Barbadian parliament on Tuesday evening.
In her speech, written by prime minister Mia Motley, the governor recalled that Errol Barrow, Barbados's first head of government after the UK granted independence to the small island country in 1966, had cautioned against loitering on colonial premises.
"That warning is as relevant today as it was in 1966," she stressed.
Barbados's plans to remove the Queen as its head of state were first announced five years ago when the island marked 50th independence anniversary.
A first step towards abolishing the Queen's rule had been taken in 2003 when the country replaced the London-based Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice as its final appeals court.
If the plans announced by Mason are fulfilled, Barbados would join Trinidad and Tobago, Dominica and Guyana as fully independent republics.
