As a veteran republican myself, I appreciate that these sorts of people might look more like morons than martyrs to most. As a defender of free speech, however, I also believe that cancellation and censorship is no way to respond to their ranting and raving.
The foul-mouthed anti-monarchy protesters in Edinburgh were doing what practitioners of student politics (of all ages) have always done: making a spectacle of themselves in the hope of sparking an outraged reaction. As some mourners at the cathedral told the media, they ‘believe everyone does have a right to protest’, but this was ‘petty’ and ‘just looked like attention-seeking’. Attention-seeking, however, should surely not be an arrestable offence.
As for Dr Uju Anya’s description of Queen Elizabeth as Britain’s ‘chief monarch’ (were there others we weren’t told about?), that looks quite well-informed next to her ignorant attempt to blame the queen for a ‘thieving raping genocidal empire’.
Does the doctor perhaps imagine Elizabeth in a pith helmet, leading rapacious and bloody wars of conquest across Africa and Asia? There we were thinking that the queen had presided over the dissolution of the British Empire.
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