AN anti-monarchy rally in the Scottish capital drew together campaigners and pro-independence MSPs to call for democratic reform in Scotland.
Speakers at the annual Republic Day event on Calton Hill in Edinburgh included Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie, SNP MSP Emma Roddick and Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman, alongside performances by poet George Gunn and musicians Rue Cooper and Joan Blasco.
Organised by Our Republic and Republic, the rally focused on the anti-democratic nature of the monarchy, growing distaste for the royal family’s taxpayer-funded privilege during a cost of living crisis and the need for a united, grassroots movement for abolition.
Harvie told The National he was “delighted” to attend and “pleased” by growing momentum around republicanism.
On concerns about electing a head of state, he said: “The drawback with anything that’s about a greater democratic state is that we might make the wrong decision.
"When the monarchy’s power is abused, it’s often in secret, behind closed doors and doesn’t even come to light until years or even decades later.”
"If you take power back to the people ... we have to accept, of course, that we might make a bad choice, but that’s what democracy is.”
The event had a calm atmosphere but the frustration over power held in unelected hands remained clear.
Jemma Campbell (below), 23, treasurer of Scottish Socialist Youth, said: “Now is the time, more than ever, that we have to call for an independent socialist republic in Scotland.
"Seeing the rise of Reform in England and the lack of action by the Labour Government makes it abundantly clear that we have to take matters into our own hands.”
Paul Turner, 58, said: “People are beginning to wake up. They are beginning to realise that the royal family are not a higher form of humanity – they’re just ordinary, fallible people like you and I, therefore they have no more right than anybody else to our head of state.”
Francine Love, 50, added: “I really, firmly believe that we could have something much better.
"The monarchy props up a lot of inequality, a lot of injustice, and we’re never going to have better until we get rid of it and replace it with an elected head of state.”
She told The National: “We shouldn’t be having billionaires that cannot pay tax, that can change our laws and uphold these ideas that there is such a thing as divine right to rule and that the state should fund massive wealth inequality.
"I always say to people who say to me that they quite like Princess Anne, ‘grand, go and vote for her’.
"Vote for someone who can bring something to that role and really help Scotland move forward – the monarchy’s never going to do that.”
"We can’t have the powers we need at a local level to be able to build the economies we need that are going to be sustainable; economies that are for people and planet, not for profiteering.
"The monarchy may seem quite far removed from that, but at its core it is anti-democratic ... it represents everything that is wrong with Britain at the moment – we cannot have environmental or social justice without democracy.”
"This kind of significant change to how our society and government operates needs to come from society as a whole.”
Similar campaigns took place in London and Cardiff, with one Trafalgar Square protester criticising the royal family for “hijacking” VE Day celebrations.
