‘You Are Not My King’: How Senator Lidia Thorpe, Embarrassed British Royals

It was an embarrassing scenario for visiting Britain’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla when Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe yelled out: “You Are Not My King’ .

The king had just finished giving a speech to Australia’s Parliament House in Canberra when Thorpe’s voice rang out from the back of the room, “Give us our land back, give us what you stole”.

Even as security officers moved to escort her away, she had already delivered her message.

The royal couple Charles and Camilla arrived in Sydney on Friday, as part of the monarch’s first tour to a Commonwealth nation since coming on the throne.

They were scheduled to meet with political leaders, and delver important messages, to a people with which the British has had a long interaction.

Apparently prepared ahead of D’day, Senator Lidia Thorpe refused to be cajoled by the patronisng recognition of the Australisan people and their “great honor of sharing so generously their stories and cultures”, as Charles put it during his speech.

Thorpe, left, to King Charles III right: “Give us our land back, give us what you stole”

“Throughout my life, Australia’s First Nations people have done me the great honor of sharing so generously their stories and cultures,” Charles said.

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“I can only say how much my own experience has been shaped and strengthened by such traditional wisdom.”

The senator was speaking from the hangover of years of maltreatment of the indigenous population in Australia.

Hundreds of thousands of the Australian indigenous people lost their lives to the coming of the British in the 1930s, even as they still see, experience and feel the vestiges of racism and racial discrimination.

Analysts believe the Senator was only acting out a deep-seated feeling of the indigenous Australians, contrary to the aboriginal perception of the British and what they represent.

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Media reports say the Senator had also shunned the traditional “God Save the King” recital during such ceremonies, even as images released from the ceremonies showed her, in the opposite direction of other attendees.

Though the king and queen have not reacted to the reception, the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been reported saying that Charles was doing a “fantastic job.”

“We should remember in the context of health, that he is out there doing his public service notwithstanding, you know, the health challenges he himself has had – so I think he’s doing a great job,” Starmer told reporters on Monday.