I have never been an enthusiast for the continued involvement of the royal family in the constitutional affairs of the UK, or any other country come to that. Everything about that involvement is inappropriate.
The claim of divine entitlement should be offensive to anyone with or without faith.
The concept of a hereditary right to govern is eugenic.
The privilege afforded to wealth and class represents an establishment much of whose wealth has been secured by the theft of the liberty and property of others.
The so called royal prerogative, granted to the prime minister to use, is an abuse of democracy.
The pageantry of royalty is used to uphold a system of patronage to which we are meant to defer when no such deference is either required, or appropriate.
The perpetuation of an honours system with which royalty is intimately involved, and which maintains reference to an Empire and the symbolism of oppression, is profoundly offensive to many.
The myth that those granted royal status have superior human qualities that justify their exceptional status has long been questioned. And now it has been trashed. Whether it likes it or not, the royal family shelters a member who will forever be associated with paedophilia. Supposedly royal resources are being used to make a settlement with a person who has been abused. And those resources did, undoubtedly, at some point emanate from the populace of this country and others. There was no other way in which the royal family secured them.
So, yes by all means allow the platinum jubilee celebrations this year.
But then the Queen should smell the coffee. At 96, which she will be when they are done, it will be time for her to retire from a job which it is no longer reasonable to think she should do. And the opportunity should then be taken to institute a constitutional review that should, amongst many other things, remove the constitutional role of the monarchy in its entirety, including the suggestion that a person might inherit the role of head of state.
The time has come to move on from this farce, but I very much doubt that the political will to do so exists.
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Agree with all that, Richard. But then as a life-long republican I would.
Re the queen’s advanced age and why continues this pantomime and doesn’t abdicate, over the years I’ve heard so many excuses I’ve lost track. First the answer I always got from royalists/monarchists was that she could abdicate while the queen mother was alive as there couldn’t be two queen mothers. Then it was that she set herself the goal of reigning longer than Victoria. Well, both those milestones past some while ago now and yet on and on she trundles. So now it seems to come down to what Private Eye has proposed for decades: that she simply doesn’t trust Charles (or ‘Brian’ as PE refer to him) to be sovereign. Seriously? A man whose now in his 70s! Is her distrust and disdain for her older son that deeply ingrained? What other excuse is there? So, leaving Andrew aside (phew, what a relief), you’re right: viewed from any angle this is a farce that should be ended.
I do not think there is any likelihood that the Queen will abdicate. She made an oath and she will do all she can to fulfil it. The only way I can see that she might step back is if she thinks she is no longer capable of carrying on, so the best way to serve would be by letting someone else take her role.
The reality is that we are likely to see a change anyway in the next decade. And perhaps a second one within a decade or two after that. Around 60 million people in this country have not known anything different.
Nearly 9 years ago, Iain M Banks, one of the UK’s better writers and a good socialist died, In his last book, The Quarry, one of the characters died and left this monologue – which I am pretty sure, knowing Iain’s politics as reflected in his books, reflected his views. This is the voice of Banks, writing as he was dying & most definitely not going quietly into the night:
I shall consider myself well rid of this island’s pathetic, grovelling population of celebrity obsessed, superficiality-fixated wankers. I shall not miss the institutionalised servility that is the worship of the royals – that bunch of useless, vapid, anti-intellectual pillocks – or the cringing respect accorded to the shitting out of value-bereft Ruritanian “honours” by the government of the day, or the hounding of the poor & disabled and the cosseting of the rich and privileged, or the imperially deluded belief that what we really need is a brace of aircraft-free aircraft carriers (this was written in 2013), and upgraded nuclear weapons we’re never going to use and which would condemn us for ever in the eyes of the world if we ever did. Not that we can, anyway, because we can’t fire the fucking things unless the Americans let us.
I shall not have to witness the drowning or the starvation through mass-migration of the destitute of Bangladesh or anywhere else low-lying and impoverished, or listen to another fuck-wit climate-change denier claiming its all just part of some natural cycle, or down to sunspots, or watch our kleptocrat-captured governments find new excuses not to close down tax havens, or tax the rich such that the fuckers actually have to pay more than they themselves or their lickspittle bean-counters deem appropriate.
And I shall not miss being part of a species lamentably ready to resort to torture, rape and mass-murder just because some other poor fucker or fuckers is or are slightly different from those intent upon doing such harm, be it because they happen to worship a very slightly different set of superstitious idiocies, possess skin occupying a non-identical position on a Pantone racial colour wheel, or had the fucking temerity to pop out of the womb on the other side of a river, ocean, mountain range, other major geographical feature or, indeed, just a straight line drawn across the desert by some bored and ignorant bureaucrat umpteen thousand miles away and a century ago.
Why didn’t he say what he really felt? 🙂
In terms of what he really felt, ….. if you wish to understand better Mr Bank’s views you can do hardly better than “Complicity” – written nearly 30 years ago and a timeless masterpiece as a commentary on the so-called “modern world” – with a most excellent narrative drive.
Spectacular!
Phew! I thought that I could go off on one at times!!
Your final paragraph sums it up Richard. If Scotland becomes independent, I sincerely hope we have a referendum on the future of the monarchy. My personal preference is that we remove the monarch as head of state, and elect a president.
By the way, who exactly is paying the alleged £12m? I’ll answer my own question. The mugs once again. The British taxpayer.
Quite correct, regardless of how it is spun by royalist sycophants. No matter what ‘contribution’ is made by other members of the royal family to bail out Andrew Windsor, it will be recovered by a secret deal over reduced voluntary contributions to the Exchequer.
Of course, the rest of us Plebs must pay taxes, not voluntary contributions.
I whole heartedly agree with this post. Thank you.
And what is the REAL difference between us and the ‘royals’?
Wealth. A lot of money goes into the pageantry and the appearance of ‘superiority’ , ceremony, ermine etc.
It’s just a crude indicator that wealth trumps all.
Wealth is here to rule over you because you are NOT wealthy.
Now shut up and bow.
But … even this soap opera is better than the prospect of President Boris Johnson.
It would have to be a pretty wide-ranging constitutional review to find a model that works.
Your comment would be more persuasive if there had ever been a “wide-ranging” review of our dysfunctional and elusive constitution. The most recent ‘adjustment’ was Brexit and the NI Protocol, signed by the British PM (but only because he thinks a signature on a Treaty doesn’t count, presumably because the Government doesn’t think anything ‘counts’, because they clearly do not even understand the unwritten British Consititution, as demonstrated by the Prorogation fiasco). Before that it was the Devolution ‘settlement’; what a mess, most electors both sides of the border do not adequately understand what is devolved and what is reserved; even among Conservative politicians, who often exploit the confusion for propaganda effect. The Institute for Government, in a wide-ranging review (2017), ‘Has Devolution Worked: the first 20 years’ concluded that: “Devolution has delivered benefits for the devolved nations and parts of England. But it has not created a stable settlement, founded on agreed principles about the sharing of power and resources, for the UK as a whole” (p.18). Or think about the Queen, who may think the Crown prerogative has something to with her; but was clearly ‘out of the loop’ when she sat alone in Church at her own husband’s funeral, while Downing Street was in serial, rolling-24-hour party mode.
I will not even bother raising the cost of the Duke of York legal settlement, or who foots the bill; because you are never going to know, and quite obviously nobody cares.
This is the Constitutional arrangement you are selling us, as if it is unnecssary even to think about the ‘soap opera’ farce to which we are reduced; but unfortunately the case you make (and seem to think ‘self-evident’) is a dud.
John – precisely, it needs a far ranging review, not a tweak.
I agree with much of what you say, in legal fact any treaty (such as the WIthdrawal Agreement and Northern Ireland Protocol) modify the constitutional situation, but they don’t change the underlying structure. Composition and electoral basis of lower house, upper house and head of state, constitutional principles that new laws have to comply with and can be challenged in court, and so forth. It is a big job.
It is feasible that such a process would still decide that the ceremonial position of head of state was restricted to a single family – I wouldn’t want to speculate on the likelihood – but the important thing is that such a decision is taken through a proper democratic process of establishing a laid down constitution, not taken as read because that is the way it always has been.
And while not wanting to be an apologist for the monarchy, it would be ridiculous if a decision was made on the basis of an irrelevant misfunctioning family member of the headship of state.
“an irrelevant misfunctioning family member”.
It is very doubtful if families are more reliable as sources of wisdom as heads of state, than individuals (Presidents); and in a monarchy they possess the added unfortunate disadvantage that families are burdened by dynastic aspirations, and have always proved difficult to dislodge when they fail badly in post. Dynastic families come with a great deal of surplus baggage and guaranteed contracts.
Furthermore, at a deeper level of social psychology, I do not believe the culture dynastic families represent in the life of the country, taken as a whole, sets a convincing standard in critical areas in the modern world: of opnness in public affairs, of equality, of empathy, of diversity, of opportunity and of a much undervalued virtue, by everybody in this context; humility. British history provides something of a text book here in dynastic dysfunctionality.
Your final sentence protests it is not an apology for monarchy; but finishes with an expression that looks to me suspiciouly like – an apology for monarchy. Allow me to close by saying that the British people may very well prefer monarchy; I consider it entirely their prerogative; but like Brexit, or voting for Boris Johnson, I do not have the illusion that the public necessarily possesses the wisdom of Solomon, but if that is their ill-judged choice, so be it. One way or another, however be assured they will – and do – pay for it. All I can hope for is that they should be well-informed about the consequence of their decision; and I do not think the British are currently particularly well informed about the inherent weaknesses in our Constitution, either by politicians or the media; but that is another matter,
There are advantages in having a non executive head of state, such as the German President.
Canada, Australia and New Zealand have Governor Generals who perform limited constitutional functions. Such things as granting honours, confirming appointments, opening important events.
If we were to replace the monarchy, this might be a model. We need to replace the Lords with a Senate. They should be regionally (the majority of the Lords live in the south east) elected by STV as that gives a more diverse representation and allows for the election of non party candidates. I would be open to a number of time limited appointments to people who have held important posts or who are elected by bodies like the TUC, CBI and such like. There are difficulties in deciding who would be entitled to nominate but it could provide informed expertise.
This Senate would then choose the President.
It occurs to me that it is likely Northern Ireland will join the RoI in the next 20 years, and possible Scotland will achieve independence. It might be that would hasten a process of change.
This phrase “Such things as granting honours, confirming appointments, opening important events” worries me. Does anyone think that those things actually NEED to be done by anyone? As an example – confIrmIng appointments is a non-event unless the person confirming has the right to reject the appointment. Which they don’t.
Yes, Cyndy, they do need to be done.
People need a human dimension and someone to represent the nation or government on formal occasions. It is a bit like wedding, funerals or festivals of remembrance. They need to be marked by rituals and words to honour the occasion.
Of course, it can degenerate into ostentatious display and flattering of a person or government’s ego. That is the danger.
“….but I very much doubt that the political will to do so exists.”
I’m sure you’re right about that. The Tories might be able to do it, but wouldn’t want to and Labour would be pilloried by the media as treasonous (and mostly wouldn’t want to either, I suspect).
Also I have no confidence that a referendum would favour abolition of the monarchy. In Scotland…..maybe. In England I doubt it. Alternative constitutional arrangements would need to be very attractive to swing the vote in favour of abolition of the monarchy, And there would need to be across-the-board support in the mass media. I can’t see it anytime soon.
Switzerland has no head of state. The six members of the cabinet take turns to serve as president for one year each on a rotating basis, but s/he is not considered the head of state. Works fine over there.
Imagine a government with only six cabinet members! No head of state. No lords and ladies. No honours system. No foreign wars. One of the world’s highest standards of living…
The challenge of course is what do we replace The Monarchy with, back a few years ago a referendum in Australia voted against becoming a republic as the public were not keen on what they saw as a presidency aimed at retired politicians.
The reason that, in my view is the strongest for the abolition of the monarchy is the effect that it has on those born onto the Royal Family, both Andrew & Harry being current examples of what it can do to you. They had no option not to be born onto the Royal Family but it doesn’t seem to have done them any good.
In an ideal world, I would agree that the monarchy serves no purpose, and nor should it. In this world, we would have President Johnson. Regarding honours, who do you think gave Marcus Rashford an MBE? It wasn’t for footballing achievements, since there are many others who have more medals, so it must have been for his work on child poverty, which our current government hated. Effectively, the Queen sent a political message to this government, although it was probably too subtle for some of its denser members to notice.
The Queen does not choose those rewarded
I agree with every word, Richard. I have a sense that this country will never be fully mature until we move on decisively from the imperial past. My own preference would be for something like the Irish system with an elected non-political head of state replacing the monarch for essential ceremonial duties such as welcoming foreign visitors but, unlike the monarch, serving only for a few years. However I’m not optimistic – I’m nearly 71 and don’t expect any change in my lifetime. I’m also somewhat bemused by my 21-year old grandson who loves the Queen.
I would share your puzzlement
Agree; well past time to be rid of the lot of them.
When, but probably not in my lifetime, we do have a constitutional rethink, how can we obtain a system immune from abuse? The American presidency has not ever (?) been a good model, and has been shown to be not fit for purpose, recently.