It was during the first lockdown, if you can remember that weird balmy spring, where the sun seemed to shine every day as we sat in our homes, isolated, unaware of what stresses, strains and sorrows afflicted others in our neighbourhoods. We made a good fist of it, we got food for isolating neighbours, we got tipsy on Houseparty with old friends and those of us with kids and jobs forced ourselves into sleep patterns that we’ve never quite adjusted from since. About six weeks into this elongated pause, the queen made a speech. I didn’t listen to it, I couldn’t see the point. I supposed its intended purpose was to comfort a worried nation, like an animated version of one of those irritating “Keep calm and carry on” posters, but I couldn’t understand how the words of a 90-something aristocrat with what I presume is a limited knowledge of epidemiology was going to comfort anyone. Then I realised that the monarch’s purpose is never to reassure per se, but to reinforce the status quo. If people find that reassuring, that is because they have been trained from birth to seek reassurance in stagnation. The pageantry, the endless images of royals bestowing their presence on worthy, sick or vulnerable people and the speeches are all designed to train us to believe that the wellbeing of our nation depends upon the perpetuation of a system that rewards a small number of people for being born. The fact is that there is no rational or logical argument in favour of monarchy, much like religion, it relies on belief: a belief that some people were born to rule.
We are told that the advantage of a constitutional monarchy is that our head of state doesn’t represent a particular political party, so can represent all the people. However, simply by existing, the queen is a living embodiment of the core conservative principle that some people just are better than others and therefore shouldn’t have to pay tax. Everything that the queen does is in service to this idea. If a politician visits a hospital, it is in order to infer that some policy they enacted had a direct impact on making that hospital work; if the queen visits a hospital it is in order to infer that the hospital simply wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for her sprinkling of platitudes and inane questions. We have to believe that as a nation we can’t function without a patronising pat on the head from our head of state now and then. And that weird dependence, this strange form of Stockholm syndrome extends to the patricians who rule us, allowing them to lie to us and steal from us whilst we gratefully vote for them time after time.
Those politicians have shown us daily for innumerable days that they do not represent us, they represent the interests of themselves and others like them: a very small minority. It is this minority that our monarch’s patronage favours, and it is this minority alone that she represents: the international elite. Indeed, until recently the European monarchs had to breed amongst themselves in order not to sully the blood line. It is only in the last 40 years that they allowed selected commoners to join their ranks. Like Margaret Thatcher allowing people to buy their council houses it has been a PR coup: adding only a tiny number to the ranks of the elite whilst convincing the rest of the great unwashed that ‘happily ever after’ was within their grasp if they just played the game right. Kate was allowed to marry her Prince Charming because she played the game right: her parents had earned enough money to send their child to a good school where she had learned to be a good proto-aristocrat. She was perfect: ‘common’ enough to show how modern and diverse the monarchy was (having once bought a dress at Primark or whatever) whilst still being elite enough to show the people who really deserves a happily ever after. Meghan was an even greater gift: she was allowed a glimpse of her happy ever after with the coaches and horses and waving crowds, but when it turned out not to be happily ever after, she left. This allowed the constant stream of racist articles about why she was not fit to be royal to pivot to vindictive racist articles about her lack of gratitude for the crumbs that had been brushed her way from the royal table. She has become the establishment’s daily illustration of why the undeserving are undeserving, even if they have money. These stories have been a valuable addition to the daily rounds of propaganda aimed at ‘proving’ what passes for our constitution is based on something more mysterious and intangible than inherited wealth, institutionalised corruption and systemic racism.
As we all build up the the Jubilee ‘celebrations’ and the bunting is hung out, the jingoistic rhetoric seems to get ratcheted up. People will tell you that those who don’t want to celebrate the queen mustn’t love their country, but this is the kind of absolutist argument employed by those who fear genuine debate. The monarchy is just another cabal of rich people who have successfully managed to weave this unquestioned absolutism into a complex pageantry. They are no different from any other rich people who wish to retain family wealth, they have just convinced us that they are.
I really love my country and I want a sensible debate about what is best for it to include whether unquestioning worship of inherited wealth and power is a good basis for a functioning democracy that (cl)aims to be meritocratic. I want to be able to sing a national anthem that celebrates my country, rather than droning on about keeping an old rich person alive. I have no objection to the royal family as people*, they can keep their wealth (as long as they pay inheritance tax) they can keep the properties (as long as the same rules apply to them as to all other property in the country), but they should have no constitutional role in this country. Until that changes we cannot say we live in a fair society.
*apart from the fact that they seem like fairly objectionable people, but that is just a standard trait of privilege as far as I can tell.
