The Scotland I want to build is a genuine democracy, not one with an unelected and unaccountable head of state - Lorna Slater

The Royal Family will be coming to Edinburgh tomorrow so that the King and Queen can be presented with the “honours of Scotland”.

King Charles III meets members of the public during his visit to Kinneil House in Edinburgh, marking the first Holyrood Week since his coronation

My colleague Patrick Harvie and I were invited to attend in our capacity as co-leaders of the Scottish Greens, but we have declined our invitations.

We couldn’t go. It would have gone against so much of what we stand for.

It will be a big and elaborate ceremony with marching bands, a Royal Procession up and down the Royal Mile, a 21-gun salute, and a flypast by the pollution-pumping Red Arrows.

It will be much like the Coronation events we saw in London only two months ago, with the cobbles of Westminster being replaced by the cobbles of St Giles’.

For decades, the Scottish Greens have believed that our head of state should be elected, rather than being appointed by accident of birth.

We don’t believe that Monarchy is anything to celebrate. It is an out of date and fundamentally undemocratic institution.

This is the 21st century. It feels totally wrong and ridiculous that we still have a system that promotes and entrenches inequality by allowing one family to enjoy so much unearned wealth and privilege by birthright.

It feels even more unjust when we are in a punishing cost crisis and there are millions of people who have so little.

The Coronation is estimated to have cost upwards of £100 million.

Just think of the good that could have been done with that money. It’s not just about the money. It’s also about what it does.

You can’t have vast wealth and effective democracy living side by side, not when vast wealth gives you the power to distort that democracy.

We have seen that distortion time and again, with the Royal Family being exempted from laws that the rest of us have to follow.

What does it say to children when we explain to them that no matter how hard they work they can never aspire to the highest office because they weren’t born into the right family?

Wouldn’t it be much better if power and sovereignty lay with the people rather than a hereditary institution?

It’s no wonder the polling shows that more of us than ever before are questioning the need for Monarchy, especially here in Scotland.

How many of us would look at how things are and say that it’s the best system of government for today, let alone the future?

There’s nothing inevitable about it and nothing to say it always has to be this way. We can surely do better.

That is one of the reasons why I passionately support Scottish independence. It is only with independence that we will have the opportunity to ask the big questions about how we are ruled and give us the powers we need to build a fairer, more equal and more democratic society.

Lorna Slater is the minister for green skills, circular economy and biodiversity