Scottish Green Party to turn down invitation to King Charles coronation

The party's co-leader said they weren't "remotely interested" in attending

King Charles delivering a Queen's Speech in Parliament

Charles Windsor is set to be coronated as King on Saturday 6 May. The coronation is the formal ceremony in which the incoming monarch is crowned and anointed, and follows Charles’ accession to the throne in September 2022.

The event will be attended by high profile guests from across the world. Current and former prime ministers of the UK will be in attendance, as will royal families and heads of state from other countries.

Among those to be invited but absent, however, will be the Scottish Green Party’s MSPs. According to a report in The National, the Greens – who are currently in government in Scotland with the SNP – will be turning down their invitations to the coronation.

The National report that the Scottish Greens received invites to the ceremony alongside other political parties in the Scottish Parliament. However, the party’s co-leader Patrick Harvie said that no one from the Greens was “remotely interested” in attending the coronation.

He said: “We obviously got a party allocation of invitations, but I think all of us will be able to think of better things to do with our day.

“All the parties in parliament got an allocation of invitations, but I think we have anyone who is remotely interested in attending it.”

In advance of the coronation, the Scottish Green Party will be holding an event on Scottish Republicanism. The advertising for that event says “In the wake of an overly expensive and extravagant coronation in May, the Scottish Greens are inviting everyone who believes in a republic and an elected head of state to our event”.

According to The National, Harvie said: “It is an appropriate time to be talking about the history of the monarchy and its association with slavery and exploitation – but also the present modern day reality of the monarchy and its extraordinary wealth-generating operation, a lot of which uses resources that belong to all of us.”

On the day of the coronation itself, the party’s other co-leader – Lorna Slater – will be speaking at an anti-monarchist rally organised by Our Republic.

The news of the Scottish Green Party’s decision to reject invitations to the coronation comes as the Guardian has revealed the scale of Charles’ private wealth. Analysis from the newspaper suggests that following inheritance, Charles now has an estimated fortune of £1.8bn.

Left Foot Forward contacted the offices of the Green Party of England and Wales’ parliamentarians in Westminster to ask whether they had also received invitations to the event. Neither Green MP – Caroline Lucas – nor the Greens’ two members of the House of Lords – Jenny Jones and Natalie Bennett – received invitations to the coronation and as such will not be attending.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: Annabel Moeller – Creative Commons

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