Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe has been branded "narcissistic" and "attention seeking" after verbally abusing King Charles during his visit to Parliament.
In his first trip to the country as monarch, King Charles gave a speech to the delegates in Canberra's chamber as he was interrupted by Thorpe's outburst.
Before being escorted out of the building by security, Thorpe told the monarch "give us our land back" and "you are not my King" in a powerful, rage-filled display against the British head of state.
Speaking to GB News, Author James Woudhuysen claimed the demonstration was "ridiculous" and "not the way to conduct politics".
King Charles was taken aback as Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe stormed the monarch's speech in Parliament
Reuters
Woudhuysen said of the protest: "She is a bit of an attention seeker - she did date the ex-president of a biker gang in Australia.
"But as a Republican, I think one must make the argument against the monarchy in a clear written statement, not indulging the narcissistic politics of the performative gesture, which is what she's done."
Shedding more light on Thorpe's character, noting that she "has a lot of form" for outbursts against the monarchy, Woudhuysen added: "She was a top leader of the Green Party in Australia, so that kind of behaviour comes naturally to them in the same way as Just Stop Oil.
"She despises the national flag, and she seems to believe that all white people are racist. She wants a treaty with the rest of Australia beyond the Aboriginal community or the First Nations community, to sort of set things right."
Thorpe told Charles 'you are not my King' in her rage-fuelled rant
Reuters
Admitting he is a republican himself and does not agree with King Charles as the "unelected monarch having all the powers" for Australia, Woudhuysen criticised both sides and argued it is "woke against woke" between Thorpe and King Charles.
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Woudhuysen explained: "I think if you want to protest, and I'm all in favour of the right to protest and free speech, it's no good behaving in the way she did.
"Having listened a bit to his speech, which was full of all the woke nostrums about being nice to the original people, the oppressed and so on. There were lots of sort of drawings of Aboriginal people to welcome him - so really what we've got is the woke against the woke in this dispute."
He added: "But it's ridiculous to say that he should answer for the grave injustices that have been done to the Aboriginal people in Australia. This is part of a wider war against the past.
"So really it is a kind of thespian, luvvie gesture, and she has a lot of form on this. This is no way to conduct politics, whether you're a republican or a monarchist."
James Woudhuysen criticised Thorpe, declaring she is 'narcissistic' and 'attention seeking'
GB News
When asked by host Emily Carver if social media could be to blame for such outbursts in the political sphere against the monarchy, Woudhuysen disagreed, claiming that politics has become something of a "West End play" without social media.
He told GB News: "I don't like the elites, but when they self-flagellate in the way that Lidia Thorpe has done, she's a senator representing Victoria, Melbourne - what we're seeing is something just like a West End play, which is much of what politics has become.
"You can say it's all TikTok and Twitter and these loopy individuals, and you'd be right, but we know that it's a much wider phenomenon. It's why the police dance to Just Stop Oil. It is why they don't arrest anybody endorsing Hezbollah on the streets of London.
"They're part of the elite, the police, but they've lost confidence in what the elite used to stand for. As much as I criticise them, they used to stand for progress, for mass education, for looking after yourself or looking after your community for personal responsibility.
"They don't believe that anymore. And so they give a big space for these wacky people."