10th September 2022
The Queen is Dead – crowds outside Buckingham Palace
If the Monarchy was an anachronism following its restoration in 1660, over three hundred and fifty years ago, it certainly is now, well into the first quarter of the twenty first century. Yet for the British ruling class the institution remains central to its grip on power, both through its actual constitutional role and its carefully stage managed narrative, designed to play to an audience brought up with mass media, functioning as a soap opera for the nation.
The Monarch is not only the unelected Head of State but also the Head of the Church of England. As Head of the Commonwealth, the Monarch is also Head of State in fourteen other nations, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand. All of this without a single vote being cast as to who should take on the role.
The term of office is for life and you get the job by being the first born of the previous title holder. If such a system were to have been instituted in the former Soviet Union, or in present day China, the outcry across the BBC and British media would have been deafening, with demands for democracy and denunciations of dictatorship ringing across the airwaves.
Apologists for the Monarchy will say that Britain is different, a constitutional monarch does not wield real power, the role is symbolic, it is a representation of national unity. Still, every Act of Parliament must receive Royal Assent. The Leader of the majority party in the House of Commons has to be granted permission by the Monarch to form a government or dissolve a Parliament. The Queen’s Speech (soon to be King’s) outlines the parliamentary legislative programme. The Prime Minister of the day has a weekly audience with the Monarch. Even the opposition in the House of Commons is Her (His) Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.
These protocols are so embedded within the British state that they are either taken for granted or are invisible to most of the population. While they may not be direct levers of power they are certainly channels of influence, latent should there be a constitutional or political crisis. There can be no doubt that in any revolutionary situation in Britain the Monarchy would not remain ‘above the fray’ and would do all it could to protect its power, privileges and influence on behalf of the class which it represents.
The public narrative around the Monarchy does not dwell on these things. The drama of the Royal Family is played out in births, marriages, tragic deaths, inappropriate relationships and moments of national celebration, which feed not only the tabloid press but the BBC and other media in their presentation of the nation’s longest running soap opera.
Like all drama there are moments of comedy and tragedy, there are heroes and villains, there are cliffhanging moments, there are scenes of joy and scenes of sorrow. However, like all drama this is a careful construct, designed to manipulate the message in favour of the main players and sideline those who do not fit the narrative. Not everything can be controlled of course, not least the audience response, but the ramping up of the role of the Queen in particular in recent years has provided a focal point to the action and ensured her star billing.
The analogy may seem a little stretched for some but the Queen playing opposite James Bond actor Daniel Craig, in the 2012 London Olympic ceremony, and alongside Paddington Bear in the recent Platinum Jubilee commemorations are almost designed to hide the fiction of the Royal Family as drama in plain sight.
Death is always a heightened moment of drama and, after seventy years of careful management of the interests of the aristocracy and ruling class, the demise of Queen Elizabeth II, even at the age of 96, was always going to be greeted with shock. The media frenzy, the carefully curated images of family grief, the vox pops of grieving members of the public outside Buckingham Place and Balmoral, the declaration of ten days of National Mourning, are all part of the stage management of the transition by the ruling class to maintain stability, provide the illusion of continuity and characterise any resistance to this as somehow unworthy or unpatriotic.
National strike action by rail and postal workers has been postponed in response to the prevailing mood, Premier League football suspended and radio stations reduced to playing ‘relaxed’ programmes, so as not to cause any outrage or offence. The House of Commons was, of course, ‘united in grief’. Planning for proclamations, church services, lying in state and the State Funeral began in earnest, all under the umbrella of Operation London Bridge.
However, none of the ruling class propaganda in favour of the Monarchy, which is already engulfing the nation, will change the fundamental realities of life in Britain today. Only 48 hours before her death the Queen approved a new Prime Minister, Liz Truss. Top of the in tray for Truss was the energy crisis and the need for homes and businesses to get some relief from escalating energy costs. The new Prime minister promised action. What she actually delivered was an energy price cap of £2,500, almost double that of bills for the past year and no windfall tax upon the energy supply companies which are making such vast profits.
Instead, Truss has promised to meet the gap between the energy cap and what companies are paying on the international market, from the Treasury. In effect this means company profits will not be affected but the national debt will increase and with it the percentage of the country’s GDP that the government must spend on debt interest repayments. In effect less money for public services, the NHS and other essentials. Add to this the commitment of Truss to increase military spending from 2% to 3% of GDP and it is already clear where the new Prime Minister’s priorities lie.
When the pomp and ceremony of the State Funeral has passed and the sheen of the new King has faded, the realities of hardship and struggle for the working class will continue to be faced this winter and beyond. The death of the Queen may have broken the spell of the Monarchy for many. The ruling class have lost a principal player and the understudy has proved to be a harder sell with the public. The Monarchy will do everything necessary to change the storyline however, if that ensures its survival.
On the subject of survival, the only real interest of Liz Truss over the next two years is to save her premiership. By the time of the next election the Tories will have been in office for fourteen years. Their record of fourteen years of austerity and hardship should be indefensible. The real national interest is not the changing of the leadership of the aristocracy, it is the changing of the system which gives rise to them in the first place.
One step towards that change must be mass extra parliamentary action to press for a progressive Labour government, which will move Britain in a new direction, free from austerity for workers and handouts for the rich. At its core should be the vision of moving towards a socialist republic.
Avanti Populo 