Platinum Jubilee: Grenada leg of royal tour postponed

The Earl and Countess of Wessex's trip to Grenada has been postponed

The Earl and Countess of Wessex will no longer be visiting Grenada during their Caribbean tour which is due to begin next Friday (29 April).

The Queen's youngest son, Prince Edward and his wife Sophie's Grenada leg of their week-long trip has been postponed after talks with the island's government and governor general, says Buckingham Palace.

Dame Cecile La Grenade who is the current governor general in Grenada and the Queen's representative in the country suggested a postponement.

The news comes after the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were criticised for some parts of their recent trip to the Caribbean to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.

Dame Cecile La Grenade suggested the trip be postponed

Prince Edward and Sophie will still visit other islands on their tour including St Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Antigua and Barbuda.

They've said that they still hope to visit Grenada at a later date.

Why will the Earl and Countess of Wessex no longer be visiting Grenada?

The Duke of Duchess of Cambridge went on a Caribbean tour in March 2022

While no very specific reasons have been given for the postponement, the Earl and Countess of Wessex's trip to the Caribbean does follow Prince William and Kate's recent trip in March which not everyone was happy about.

Parts of that tour were cancelled because some local people didn't want the royals visiting them.

There were also several protests and some criticism about how the duke and duchess interacted with people from the local communities in the countries they visited.

Some groups protested when Prince William and Kate toured the Caribbean to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee

One of the big issues which came up from the tour is Britain's strong ties to slavery in the Caribbean.

Before the practice was abolished, Britain profited from what's known as the slave trade which negatively impacted the lives of millions of black people.

Prince William gave a speech while on the royal tour in Jamaica where he said slavery "should never have happened" and "forever stains our history" but some people felt this didn't go for enough.

For this latest tour, a Buckingham Palace source said talks were held with the nations involved to make sure what the Earl and Countess would be doing while on the trip meets its aims, which are to celebrate the islands and mark the Queen's 70-year reign.

What's been happening with countries in the Caribbean?

Jamaica's prime minister Andrew Holness told Prince William that his country planned to achieve its goal of becoming an independent republic

A large number of countries in the Caribbean used to be part of what's known as the British Empire.

The Empire was made up of nations from across the world which Britain had lots of control and influence over. This system is also known as colonialism.

Although the Empire no longer exists, some of Britain's former colonies still have the Queen as their official head of state and this includes a number of Caribbean nations. A head of state is the highest representative of a country.

Jamaica is said to have already started the process to remove the Queen as its head. If this happens, it's set to become an independent republic, which is a country that has an elected president as its chief of state instead of a king or queen.

Barbados has already removed the Queen as its head of state and other Caribbean countries are considering making the same move including Belize.

Reparations

Dame Sandra Mason was sworn in as Barbados' first ever president and new official head of state in November 2021

As well as several Caribbean countries reconsidering their current head of state, there are also groups calling for countries which benefited from slavery, which includes the UK, to properly apologise for the practice and to pay something called reparations.

This is when money is given to individuals or groups who have experienced some form of injustice as an acknowledgement that something happened which was wrong or unfair.