The past few years have seen calls to follow suit echoed throughout the Caribbean.
A royal visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (now the Prince and Princess of Wales) drew crowds of protesters demanding an apology and reparations for the monarchy’s role in the slave trade in Belize and Jamaica.
The republican movement in Australia has been gaining steam for years, its central bank announcing in February that the King wouldn’t feature on its new five-dollar note.
Only five countries have ever taken the extra step of leaving the Commonwealth altogether – three of which since rejoined.
Ireland was the first, cutting ties with the dwindling Empire with which it shared a bloody history back in 1949.
South Africa withdrew in 1961 amid criticism over apartheid but rejoined in 1994. Pakistan’s military coup in 1999 saw them suspended until 2004, and again between 2008 and 2009. The Maldives left in 2016 – the last country to do so – but rejoined four years later.
In 2003, Zimbabwe’s long-term autocrat Robert Mugabe pulled his country out after the group suspended its membership in 2003 over suspected election rigging.
Other countries without any history of colonial rule have opted to join the Commonwealth over the past few decades.
Cameroon and Mozambique – formerly under French and Portuguese rule respectively – both acceded to the group in 1995.
A former colony of Germany and Belgium, Rwanda was admitted in 2009 despite the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) finding its state of governance and human rights to be substandard.
The most recent countries to join were Gabon and Togo, two former French dependencies, doing so in June 2022.
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