Challenge to the crown

‘In the new millennium Britain should be given the choice whether to keep the royal family or to become a republic’, states The Guardian in this controversial, republican edition on the State Opening of Parliament.

The Guardian, 6 December 2000
The British Library gratefully acknowledges the John Frost Newspaper Archive for permission to reproduce this front page.

This was not a new concept, as the Royal Family had met with opposition and criticism for many years. But the Guardian had jumped on the newly established Human Rights Act, declaring that the 300 year-old Act of Settlement, which bans Catholics and other non-Protestants from succession to the throne, contradicts basic Human Rights. The paper called for a Referendum but they failed to find anyone to bring a case to the courts.

As MPs were summoned by Black Rod to hear the Queen’s Speech, Labour MP Dennis Skinner shouted, ‘Tell her to read the Guardian’.