Lawyer Raj Chada led Camden Council in the mid-2000s

A FORMER Labour leader of Camden Council has defended anti-monarchists’ right to protest and questioned the “automatic” accession of the new head of state.

Raj Chada, a criminal defence solicitor at Hodge Jones and Allen in North Gower Street, has backed campaigning barrister Paul Powlesland, who was threatened with arrest in Parliament Square this week if he held up a sign saying “Not My King”.

Mr Chada, who was a councillor in Gospel Oak for four years and rose to become leader at the Town Hall in the mid-2000s, said he respected the Queen’s service and it was right the nation commemorates her.

But he added that he himself felt “something of an outsider” because he was critical of her association with empire and imperialism.

Mr Chada said: “People were arrested, or threatened with arrest, for expressing their views about who the Head of State should be in our country. We may enjoy infinitely more freedoms than in Putin’s Russia but that is worthy of a Kremlin proclamation.”

He added: “Free speech is meant to be the cornerstone of our democracy but it is cast aside when the state sees fit. “There can be no justification for such police action. What starts off as heretical, can soon become the orthodoxy, a position expressed by many judges in legal cases that protect the right to free speech.”

Anti-monarchy protesters at Camden’s proclamation event in Russell Square on Sunday

Mr Chada, who successfully represented one of the “Colston 4” who were cleared after being put on trial for felling a statue of  Bristol slave trader Edward Colston, said it was important for there to be a public debate about who the next “head of state” should be.

“I will say immediately that the institution of the monarchy is not one that I can sign up for,” he added. “The idea that there are people in public life because of their birth rather than their achievements or views is a relic to a previous age.

“The head of state should represent all in the country, but I join with Paul to say that ‘this is not my King’. “The symbolism of the Crown, its association with empire, imperialism and all that goes with that, means that it is not for me.”

pic.twitter.com/8s01SZc1gx

— Paul Powlesland (@paulpowlesland) September 12, 2022

At Camden’s own proclamation event in Russell Square on Sunday, three protesters held up signs demanding the “end of feudalism”. There was no disturbance and police did not intervene. The same group were also seen at the proclamation event in neighbouring Islington.

Mr Chada said: “The question is not of the last 70 years but of the next 100 and beyond. Monarchy by its very nature has no stop gaps. The Queen is dead. Long Live the King. The Proclamation of the King means that there was no debate about the rights and wrongs about our constitutional settlement.”

Mr Powlesland has said he had not written anything on his piece of paper before he was challenged by officers close. A partial recording of the incident has been watched hundreds of thousands of times online. Anti-monarchy protesters have been arrested by police in Oxford and Scotland so far this week.