Anti-monarchy billboards are going up around England and Scotland this week in the first major push since the death of Queen Elizabeth II by activists campaigning for a republic.
The launch of the billboards – each one featuring a #NotMyKing hashtag alongside a picture of King Charles – coincides with a crowdfunding appeal by the pressure group Republic, which is planning to ramp up its activities before the coronation next year.
Republic largely suspended its activities during the period of mourning, though it had been responding online to controversies such as the arrests of individual anti-monarchy protesters.
Protests are now planned across the UK before and during the coronation on 6 May. The billboards are going up in 18 towns, cities and a number of London boroughs for now – including Dundee, Glasgow, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Southampton and Manchester.
The group said that its membership is growing rapidly and its income is expected to hit a quarter of a million pounds this year.
“These billboards are the latest drive to raise awareness of the serious problems with the monarchy, and the democratic alternative on offer,” said its spokesperson, Graham Smith.
“We believe now is the time to start talking about the democratic alternative to the monarchy, a parliamentary republic with a constitutional head of state. This works well in Ireland, Iceland, Germany and elsewhere and will be far better for Britain than the monarchy.
“There is absolutely no need for Charles to spend tens of millions of pounds of public money on his coronation. The whole thing should be scrapped. But as that’s unlikely to happen we’ll be there protesting against the monarchy.”
Polling by Ipsos last month suggested that Charles III was enjoying a bounce in popularity, with about six in 10 (61%) of those who took part in a survey across Britain expecting him to “do a good job”, an increase of from 49% since June.
Nearly half of those polled said it would be worse for Britain if the monarchy was abolished (47%), a small increase of five percentage points since June, while 22% think it would be better if it was abolished.
However anti-monarchist campaigners believe that public opinion will eventually change because of factors including the new king’s record of overstepping the constitutional mark, as well as his seemingly short temper.
Polling by the National Centre for Social Research (NCSR), which began charting attitudes towards the monarchy in 1994, recorded this year that support for the institution was at an all-time low. It found that the core group who believed the monarchy was “very or quite important” was down to 55%.
