Jamaica’s Prime Minister hints at secession from British Crown

William and Kate’s Caribbean trip is accompanied by demonstrations. Jamaica’s prime minister becomes clear at a meeting.

During a visit by British Prince William (39) and his wife Duchess Kate (40), Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness indicated that the country would secede from the crown. “We’re moving on,” he told journalists Wednesday in the capital, Kingston, in reference to Jamaican history, standing next to William.

“Jamaica has grown and matured over the past 60 years, and with that maturity has come a desire for full political independence and self-determination,” Holness wrote on Twitter.

The Caribbean country celebrates 60 years of independence in August. “I have expressed to the Duke that in this regard it is inevitable that we will move towards becoming a republic and with it the will of the Jamaican people and our ambitions to become an independent, developed and prosperous country fulfill.”

Holness had already said in December that Jamaica must become a republic. A few days earlier, Barbados – also a Caribbean ex-British colony that had become independent in the 1960s – had broken away from the British monarchy and declared a republic.

Jamaica is the second stop on William and Kate’s eight-day tour of three former colonies – on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II (95), who is celebrating her 70th anniversary of the throne this year. The journey began in Belize and ends next Saturday in the Bahamas.

A demonstration took place in front of the British embassy in Kingston on Tuesday, where organizers say 350 people demanded an apology and reparations from the royal family for slavery and other acts during the colonial era. The couple had previously canceled a visit to a cocoa farm in a village in Central America’s Belize after a protest from residents.