King Charles is Head of State of not one country, but fifteen: Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Grenada, Belize, Antigua & Barbuda, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, Jamaica, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and the Bahamas. Logically, then, the question of whether he will attend COP27 should be decided in one of two ways. Either there should be a majority vote among the fifteen countries, or if even one country wants him to go, he should go on their behalf.
But, of course, that’s not what’s happening. The UK Government doesn’t want him to go and therefore he’s not going. Either that means both the UK Government and the monarchy itself are stuck in an imperial mindset and think the other fourteen countries are subordinate to the wishes of London, or it means that the King’s status as Head of State of the other fourteen is something of a constitutional fiction. I can only guess, but it may be that if New Zealand were to request that the King goes to COP27 to represent them, they would be told that they have a Governor-General, and that the appropriate way of being represented would be via that person.
Which raises the obvious question: if the Governor-General is the de facto Head of State, what is the point of nominally retaining the monarchy? Why not simply continue with the system for selecting Governor-Generals but give that person the title of ceremonial President instead?
And a second question: if an independent Scotland retains the monarchy in line with official SNP policy, would we even have a Governor-General? The argument might be that Scotland is different from the other Commonwealth Realms because the monarch spends a significant percentage of the year here, and has an official residence in Edinburgh. But if we don’t have a middle-man or middle-woman to double as Head of State when London is throwing its weight around, where would that leave us? Who would go to COP32 on our behalf?
It’s questions like these, I suspect, that explain why recent polls show the supposed pro-monarchy majority in Scotland disappears when respondents are asked what should happen after independence. Scots may be pro-monarchy in a UK context, but it appears that they can see the logic that an independent country needs a homegrown Head of State. I suspect that’s exactly what would happen.
