No, Barbados became a republic in 2021:
Barbados is still a member of the Commonwealth:
Ah, thanks for the clarification. I had meant to say that Barbados got rid of the Queen as the head of state; I had thought they left the Commonwealth entirely when they did that.
Constitutional amendments take political energy and capital. If there’s no pressing need to change the constitution, most governments don’t want to do so.
Totally agree. It’s way easier to just leave it be.
Well, maybe. But that’s far from the universal experience; a majority of countries that used to be Commonwealth realms have ceased to be. There are currently 15 commonwealth realms (including the UK itself) but 20 republics that used to be Commonwealth realms, but decided to adopt a republican constitution. So a majority of countries faced with this decision have concluded that the constitutional reform is worth the trouble.
You seem to be confusing two different concepts. The Commonwealth of Nations has 56 members. Charles III is the King (head of state) of 15 of those. Most of them are republics or independent democracies which were formerly colonies of the British Empire. For example, India - undeniably an independent country - is still a member of the Commonwealth. Australia could totally decide that Charles is no longer their Head of State, but that doesn’t imply or require that they leave the Commonwealth.
As I remember, there was a Commonwealth meeting about five years ago during which they discussed who would succeed the Queen as head of the Commonwealth. They agreed that it would be Charles, but it doesn’t have to be the monarch. They could very well decide to elect someone else.
How many of those realms that went republican were federations with rigid amending formulas? Nigeria?
It’s the issue of the amending formula that came into play in Australia, where the proposal failed to obtain a majority of the voters in any of the states, and would also be significant for Canada, where unanimity (federal and provincial legislative bodies) is needed to change the office of the King.
ETA: for instance, in Barbados, the constitution can be amended by a bill passed by the two houses of Parliament, with a 2/3 majority needed for certain types of amendments. That’s a much simpler amending formula than either Australia or Canada.
ETA2: In Canada, the Meech Lake Accord, a package of amendments that needed unanimous consent, was defeated by one member in one provincial Legislative Assembly. The Charlottetown Accord was defeated in a national referendum.
There’s no confusion. I’m aware of all this. I never suggested that countries that ceased to be Commonwealth realms also ceased to be members of the Commonwealth.
It used to be the case that a Commonwealth country had to have the UK monarch as head of state, and when Ireland declared itself a republic in 1948 that was taken to end its membership of the Commonwealth (although in reality Ireland’s membership of the Commonwealth had been defunct for many years before 1948).
However that changed shortly afterwards when India, granted independence as a Commonwealth realm in 1947, wished to become a republic. At this point the UK still cherished hopes that the Commonwealth would have some signficance as a military bloc, and did not wish to lose access to India’s considerable military resources. So it was decided (by the London Declaration of 1949) that India could remain a member of the Commonwealth on the basis of “her acceptance of the King as the symbol of the free association” of Commonwealth member states. India duly became a republic in 1950 while retaining its membership of the Commonwealth.
Since then whether to have the UK monarch as head of state, and whether to be a member of the Commonwealth, have been separate questions. Ireland remains the only country to have ceased to be a Commonwealth realm and, because of that, ceased to be a Commonwealth member state.
Can’t speak for the Canadian experience but its certainly true of Australia. Amendment of the constitution is by referendum, but subject to a qualified majority requirement — the proposed amendment must be supported both by a majority of the votes cast nationally, and by a majority of the votes cast in a majority of the states (i.e. in four out of the six states). The general view is that a constitutional amendment is unlikely to succeed unless supported by a bipartisan consensus in the political establishment.
Having said that, I don’t think it was the rigidities of the amendment process that defeated the 1999 proposal for a republic. The proposal was defeated by a majority nationally and by a majority in each of the six states — even if there were no qualified majority requirement, the proposal would have been lost. The received wisdom is that, while a majority at the time (and today) favoured a republic, there was no consensus on the preferred model of a republic, and enough republicans voted against the particular model put forward in 1999 for the proposal to be defeated.
Since 1999, opinion polls on the subject have nearly always shown continuing majority in favour of a republic. My own suspicion, though, is that this isn’t a particularly strongly-felt preference for most; they have other, greater priorities, and they do not punish parties or governments for failing to pursue a republic. And, because the preference is not strongly felt, some of them would be relatively easily dissuaded from voting for a republic if another referendum were held — this is not the right time; this is not the right model of republic; etc. So I don’t think an Australian republic is happening any time soon.
Quite so.
Which gets back to:
The former Dominions that were clearly exploitation colonies (eg in Africa) had a strong nationalistic / ethnic / independence political ideology, which supported getting rid of the symbols of British colonial dominance.
My impression is that sort of sentiment is lacking in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, given their settler colony background.
Burma went directly to republican independence and has never been a member of the Commonwealth.
Apartheid South Africa also became a republic and flounced out when it was clear they weren’t welcome.
The lack of welcome wasn’t because South Africa had become a republic, though; it was because of South Africa’s policies of apartheid.
Indeed, I should have made that clearer.
None of the Middle Eastern countries under British rule ever became part of the Commonwealth either, although they were never technically colonies in the first place.
You know, I don’t see that many people working to remove the Scandinavian or Benelux monarchies, possibly because they keep such a low profile. Maybe it’s time for Britain to transition to a “bicycle monarchy”.
FTR we’ve been a member again since 1994.
Um. Yesterday I saw a casual mention that Charles had pancreatic cancer. Has that been officially announced? Because that’s a really bad one. 
It seems weird to be sorry for a guy who has been privileged his whole life, but it sounds like one of those good news/bad news jokes. Good news: you’re going to be King! Bad news: you have to hang around waiting for it for decades, and then you get a terminal diagnosis within the year.
Google pulls up a bunch of cites for pancreatic cancer and two years to live.