Long Live the English Republic!

What is the Royal Family for? What do they do? They are a constant reminder of inequality and a past in which status was inherited. What possible excuse is there to maintain such a symbol of inequality and inherited status in the current era? None. They are offensive in the extreme. Not to oppose the monarchy is an act of treason.

The power in Britain today comes from the people, the will to be governed through democratic structures, typified by Parliament. The monarchy is an abscess, a boil on the arse of the nation. It is time it was lanced.

The crown represents power coming from above, from God or the power of the sword. In contrast Parliament represents power coming up from the people and their will to be governed responsibly by the rule of law. A system cannot be both top down and bottom up at the same time and make sense. The concept of top down rule is now an obscene anachronism. We should throw out all vestiges of this concept from the constitution of our nation.

There was a time when kings brought stability, peace and the chance for prosperity. There was a time in which kings were a bastion against anarchy and lawlessness. But that time has passed, it has been gone for three hundred years or more. The crown has outlived its usefulness. The world is full of thriving healthy republics which prove the irrelevance of kingship. Republics work, not all of them, but then monarchies don't all come in the one flavour either, Saudi Arabia, anybody...? Liberal societies can thrive with republican structures. Nations do not implode because they lack a living figurehead. Looking at our neighbours in Europe we find a mixture of republics and “constitutional monarchies” but no obvious pattern that shows one is better than the other. There is certainly no suggestion that throwing out a monarchy turns a nation into a hotbed of socialism, causes a collapse in morality or in the economy either. Switzerland is a republic and a democracy, and yet your typical little Englander closet fascist would be much happier there than in the monarchies of Sweden or Holland. Republicanism is not a left and right issue, it is a right and wrong issue.

The case for the republic is a moral one. The time for acknowledging the divine right of kings or the superiority of certain bloodlines must be put behind us, thrown onto the scrapheap of history along with slavery and the second-class status of women. It is not just a quaint anachronism it is an insult to the people. I am offended by the idea that my son can never attain the highest position in my country no matter what he does. (My daughter would always have the outside chance to get lucky, although not as much of a chance as some minor European Protestant princess, obviously.) I suggest all English people should feel the offence of that situation equally keenly. It is simply not acceptable that the highest position in a nation is given to a man because of an accident of birth.

The case for the republic is so clear it really speaks, or shouts, for itself. So why is that case hardly ever aired?

What is the case for the defence of the indefensible?

President Bogeyman

“Who would you have instead? President Benn? Commissar Livingstone? President Thatcher..?”

This is a specious argument. There would be no need for an executive president. A figurehead would do fine, like the Speaker of the House of Commons. There would be some need to have some office that formally accepts the choice of the House of Commons, there would need to be an officer to “hold the crown”, but such an office need have no formal powers beyond that and such an officer need not be directly elected by the people. Indeed a direct election may give that office holder an undesirable rival source of legitimacy. I suggest that some residual office is created and the choice of that officer (and designated deputy) should be made by parliament, or that the Speaker of the House of Commons is automatically the head of the office that holds the status of the crown, the empty crown.

If we need big nobs to eat banquets we have many ambassadors on the public payroll, they have had plenty of practice and have at least passed some public examinations to demonstrate basic competence. Whereas the Royal Family, well, intellectual heavyweights they are not. Princess Diana passed a solitary qualification, a very low level pass in domestic science. I'd wager there was not a single servant in the royal household that was not better qualified than Diana. Her sons seem to take after her too, Harry got the lowest A Level grade of any of his fellow Eton pupils, a grade D in geography, barely enough to get him a place in Sandhurst.

Oh, they are so busy, they do so much work...

The Queen thinks the whole world smells of paint. She never goes anywhere without finding things specially laid on for her. Yes, she does lots of public appearances and encourages a lot of charities, usually by encouraging people with incomes thousands of times smaller than her own to make contributions.

Who asks her to do this stuff? Do hospitals not get opened, ships not launched, flesh not pressed and charities not founded in republics? Monarchy is a job creation scheme for the otherwise unemployable. They do not do anything that either couldn't be done (for a lot less money) by somebody better qualified or need not be done at all. How hard is it to have your portrait put on a stamp or wave your hand from a carriage window?

We must not get too carried away with the idea that the Queen is so nice to the point at which we forget that there is no guarantee of decency, competence or adequacy in royalty. Yes, Elizabeth Windsor is a good woman, not an intellectual titan but she's not a national joke, we are lucky, she makes a fair to middling Queen. But Charles is next in line. He has quite a few interesting personality quirks, I'll just leave it at that. It is inevitable that at some stage in the future there will be a very bad monarch. An alcoholic, a wife beater, a boor, a sexist, a racist, a screaming queen or a homophobe. It will happen one day. Maybe not in our lifetime, but we have to be lucky every time. It only takes one lousy monarch and the institution is in tatters. Wouldn't it be better to quit on a high note?

They bring in so many tourists

Do you really believe that? All the hotels in London would close if the Queen left? As if. Rome, Paris and Vienna are not short of tourists. Without a Royal Family to get in the way there would be so many more castles and palaces for the public to visit.

Some tourists come to see parades. So let's keep up the parades. We don't have to prostitute ourselves as we prostrate ourselves.

Do British tourists seek out cities with monarchs in them? Do American tourists steer clear of going to republics such as Ireland, France or Switzerland? The argument is a non-starter, the only people who believe it are those who are desperate for a rational excuse to keep an irrational institution.

Tourists come to Britain because there are wonderful places and things to see and things to experience and we speak English, they don't come to meet the bloody Queen!

The monarchy is England

Utter rubbish. What it is to be English is constantly evolving. The real England or Britain has very little to do with the stereotype images we and the rest of the world cling to. England is far more than trooping the colour, fox hunting, Royal Ascot, red telephone boxes, village cricket and the boat race. English culture is much wider and deeper than that, take away royalty and there is still plenty of England left, and all the best bits.

Where do we go from here?

I'm not suggesting any French or Russian models should be followed, or even a replay of our first revolution. We need a new constitutional arrangement, a divorce between the state and the Royal Family (and the Church of England too for good measure). I have no objection to the title of King or Queen of England, only to the formal recognition of that status. By all means let them keep their titles and even let then parade about a bit as long as they don't get any subsidies from general taxation. If they are so popular they could collect money from their adoring fans, on a voluntary basis. I wonder how much they would raise? Enough to seal off a couple of streets in Windsor once a year perhaps?

Naturally there needs to be a careful examination of the assets of the family, to see which are private properties (until death duties kick in) and which are state properties. There can be no question of public subsidy of the family or of long term tax exemptions, neither should there be any suggestion of state appropriation. It will be a delicate job, but there are plenty of intelligent and well paid lawyers on the public payroll who are up to the task. Besides, there's no rush. We've put up with them for a long time, another 18 months or so wouldn't cripple us.

We had a republic once. The Commonwealth of England.

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God Save The Queen (Just Kidding)

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