“THE MONARCHY is a fundamentally racist institution,” said Republic CEO Graham Smith at The World Transformed (TWT) festival in Liverpool today.

Mr Smith was addressing a meeting on how to abolish Britain’s monarchy, with the republican activist saying the institution was “based on racist notions of bloodlines from a single, white, Protestant family from this country.”

The monarchy, slavery and empire are absolutely wedded to each other, Mr Smith told the TWT festival, a socialist alternative conference running along the Labour Party’s.

He said: “In terms of slavery, that dates back to Elizabeth I deliberately investing in the early expeditions that trafficked Africans across the Atlantic.

“Every monarch since Elizabeth [until it was abolished] invested in the slave trade.

“Last year, [King] Charles inherited an estimated £650 million from his mother. She would have inherited huge amounts of money from her father, and back and back and back.

“So it’s reasonable to assume that a significant lump of that money he is now sitting on, is from empire and slavery.”

Most people in this country are not particularly enthusiastic about the monarchy, Mr Smith said, and can be persuaded to get rid of it.

“Some polls show support for the monarchy down to 55 per cent,” he said. 

“A few years ago it was well into the 75 to 80 per cent area.”

The next step, he said, was to galvanise those who want to abolish the monarchy to persuade others. The important bit is then to put pressure on those in power.

He added: “If we don’t put pressure on them, then the government will keep on doing nothing about it.”