A protest against King Charles has been planned for the day of his coronation in Cardiff.
The group Cymru Republic, who protested the last time the King visited Cardiff, are planning to meet at the Aneurin Bevan statue at 12.30pm on Saturday, May 6. They will then march along Queen Street then look up to Bute Park to the stone circle. Once there they will hold what they have called a “republican lunch” where they are encouraging everyone to bring a picnic. They are planning to have music playing throughout the march an “possibly a samba band”.
Ben Gwalchmai, 38, from Montgomeryshire, is one of the organisers. He told WalesOnline that his motivation for opposing the monarchy came from what he perceived as the unfairness in the current system .
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“As an unpaid carer, as well as working previously as a teacher, factory worker and farmer, my Republicanism comes from the fact that there are people who are doing some of the most challenging things like caring who get next to nothing - certainly not enough to live on from the government. Carers allowance for example was recently put up to £76 per week. But you have to do 35 hours of caring to get it. Which means if you do a full time job, every other hour of your waking life is pretty much taken up.
“As a carer, I know that there are people out there that are struggling. At the same time in the royal family there are billionaire. in worth, not necessarily in cash. And yet, we as a people, as taxpayers, as a nation state in the UK, still give them £80 million a year. I know that the Irish president gets about 1/10th of that. Not obviously as a wage, but just in terms of total cost. So a president is cheaper and I know that that money could go to the most needy.”
According to Ben, it is not just the money that underpins his desire to abolish the monarchy. He said: “It's the 21st century and we have an institution that is at the top of our political, social institutions, which is feudal and mediaeval.
“But more than that, if you have a monarchy, however it's phrased, even if it is a constitutional monarchy, you are embedding inequality. That is a simple, obvious fact that America figured out 300 years ago roughly. France figured it out as well. One palace in France brings in more tourists than the entirety of the royal palaces and venues in the UK.
“It's simply wrong. It's wrong so many people should be struggling. And yet, one family born into wealth gets to continue, which does affect our society in a very negative way throughout.”
In their previous protests, Ben said there was a bit of a generational divide in how people react to them opposing the monarch. “It is spirited and it's always going to be,” he said. “We do get support. Obviously, we get older people telling us we're being disrespectful. But that is, unfortunately, the generational divide we face at the moment. Younger Welsh people identify as Welsh more than as British and not as royalists or monarchists mostly.Obviously, there are a lot of people who don't really give it much of a thought either way but the younger you are, the more set against the monarchy, you're likely to be. And we've definitely found that for sure.”
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