“We may ourselves be confronted by a bewildering array of difficulties and challenges, but we must never cease to work for a better future for ourselves and for others.”
- Queen Elizabeth II – Christmas Day broadcast 25th December 2009
The nation is preparing for an orgy. Up and down the land village committees are meeting to make their plans. Guides are being published. Events are being organised. Newspapers and magazines are planning special editions. Gold and purple printing ink will be in short supply. To prepare ourselves, pubs will be allowed to continue serving until 1am. Everything we could conceivably buy in a supermarket or garden centre will have a Union Jack on the packaging even if it has come from China. Bunting will be everywhere. There will be TV specials. Photo agencies will make a killing selling Royal family photos from over the last 75 years. No stone will be left unturned as orgy fever mounts.
I talk, of course, of the forthcoming Platinum Jubilee weekend. Nobody quite knows what to expect as we have never had a such a jubilee before. Even the previous record holder for royal longevity, Queen Victoria, did not manage to remain around for so long. What we do know is that there will be an orgy of nostalgia, flag waving, partying and unquestioning loyalty to an institution no longer fit for purpose.
What is for sure is that we will experience a long weekend like none we have experienced before. No questions will be asked, or allowed to be asked, as to why we are doing this. Likewise, questions about the Monarchy’s role and its place in a modern society will be strictly out of bounds. Politicians will battle with each other as to who can send the most cringing, loyal, vomit-inducing tweet. Any politician, particularly from the Labour Party or the SNP, who is not in full knee bending mode will be monstered by the Daily Mail.
At parades, church services, street parties, picnics, and other events the focus will be fully on a nostalgic look into the past built on the myth that the Queen is in some way serving us. We often hear sentiments along the line of giving thanks for the Queen’s unstinting 70 years of service to her people. Anybody who dares to ask questions about equating a life of privilege and entitlement with service will be immediately taken to the Tower.
Now I do not have anything personal against the Queen. I admire her stamina and willingness to be in the limelight at 96 years of age when she could be taking it easy at one of her castles and leave all the public stuff to Charles. What I do question is the role of the Monarchy in a modern society.
The Queen is a symbol of a hierarchical society based on a right of birth with the inherent elements of entitlement, privilege and deference. She, and the institution she leads, represent and promote a society dominated mainly by white men from public school backgrounds (usually Eton or Harrow) polished up at Oxford or Cambridge. Just look at the backgrounds of our endless stream of Tory PMs. Nearly all of the top jobs in the country are taken by those from a similar background. The Queen is actually powerless but nevertheless serves as the leader of a hierarchical society which allows her to be lied to by an Eton and Oxford educated PM who wanted to prorogue Parliament illegally to escape being asked awkward questions about Brexit. Even if the Queen knew what Boris Johnson’s true aim was, she had no power to stop him.
The Queen reached the position she has by accident of birth. If her uncle, Edward VIII, had not decided to spend his life with a divorced American Roman Catholic and as a result forced to give up the throne as a consequence, she may never have become Queen. She is unelected, unaccountable and has no written Constitution to guide her, or the authority to enforce it. This allows those at the top of the hierarchy to do more or less as they want.
So the Queen sits at the top of a structure which promotes and protects rights of birth, deference and entitlement. That is not the end of the Monarchy’s untidy fit with the United Kingdom in the early 21st Century.
When all the Royals get together for a joint wave-in on the balcony at Buckingham Palace what do we see? The faces are all white. All earned their place on the balcony through an accident of birth. Interlopers and those who might ask awkward questions such as Meghan Markle, Prince Harry or Diana Spencer are not present for a variety of reasons.
The balcony wavers are presented to us as examples of how we should all be living our lives with the emphasis on uncomplaining service. A quick look at the extra mural activities of Prince Charles and Prince Andrew puts the lie to this. The balcony occupants increasingly look nothing like the masses they are waving down to. The scene would have remained largely unchanged since George V stood on the balcony in 1918 to mark the end of WWI.
So when Queen Elizabeth II sadly leaves us, will it be time to take a proper look at governance at the very top of our society? Will it present the opportunity to remove a self-serving (for a privileged few) arrangement driven by accidents of birth which promotes deference and entitlement?
Perhaps the time has come to ask the greatest lawyers in the land to draft a written Constitution. The Constitution will clearly state how Parliament should conduct its affairs.
This will put a stop to the silly nonsense of it being okay to lie to the House of Commons but it being punishable by temporary expulsion for calling out the liar. The Constitution will determine when General Elections are held and not PMs manipulating the political timetable for their own gain. Perhaps the Constitution can ban watching porn on the backbenches and set down the circumstances for temporary and permanent removal from Parliament of members to stop the Whips manipulating such events for Party advantage. The Constitution could put the Ministerial Code on a more permanent footing to stop PMs from manipulating it for their own advantage. The purpose of the document will be to remove from the hierarchy its powers and instead invest them in a Constitution that has common consent and is enshrined in law.
The draft could be subject to a period of public consultation so it can gain as much support as possible.
The Constitution should then be enforced by an elected head of state. The document would clearly define and limit the powers of the post holder. The Constitution will be set out how that person is chosen.
This is not a revolutionary idea. Ireland, Germany and Austria do this already and their arrangements work remarkably well. They may have had the occasional dodgy President, but they have been able to replace them. You cannot replace dodgy monarchs under our current system. The excesses of George IV, the slave owning activities of William IV and the 11 illegitimate children of Charles II will no longer be acceptable actions by the head of state.
The end of the hierarchy, the end of deference and privilege can only reinforce our society and open up opportunities more widely to make the country a modern one ready for the challenges of a relatively new century. Walking backwards into the future while looking nostalgically back to a time that did not really exist cannot be good for us. So let us take the opportunity that will arise within the next few years to modernise our affairs by creating a Constitution which cherishes the values of openness, inclusion, opportunity for all and a classless, equal, multicultural society. A Constitution which sets down a basic set of human rights thus preventing Governments from fiddling with them for electoral gain as Boris Johnson is seeking to do.
We can only hope.
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