The power of the hat

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This week saw the official state opening of parliament. This is a strange ceremony which sees a posh bloke and his wife arrive in a horse-drawn carriage, with his magic hat following behind in a carriage of its own because, apparently, only three people are allowed to touch it (presumably in case the magic wears off or gets imparted to the wrong person). The procession is followed by people responsible for sweeping up the inevitable results of parading horses through the streets. When they get to parliament, the posh bloke sits in a posh seat, wearing his magic hat, and his wife sits in another slightly less posh seat deliberately placed at a lower level so that no-one ends up looking taller than the posh bloke himself. 

He then gets handed a speech, written on goatskin parchment which contains no trace of goat, which he is obliged to read out to an audience comprising as of right several hundred legislators who have not been elected to the role, including the hierarchy of a single sect of a single religion of only a part of the UK as well as a group which are only there because some ancestor or other did something or other which pleased one of the posh bloke’s ancestors. The officially humble elected legislators are summoned to attend whether they like it or not and forced to stand, which is not entirely strange to them because the legislature has never considered it necesary to provide enough seats for its members anway. The speech contains details of things that the government might or might not do during the next twelve months: there is no obligation on the government to do something just because they’ve forced the posh bloke to say that they would, and there is nothing to stop them doing things which they didn’t even tell the posh bloke about. It also contains party political propaganda which the posh bloke is obliged to read out whether he agrees with it or not.

Apparently, the UK’s so-called modern parliamentary democracy cannot operate without this pantomime being performed before each session. But who, in their right minds, would ever invent a process which placed such a dependency on the alleged powers of that magic hat?

The right time is now

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For monarchists, there is, apparently, never a ‘right’ time to talk about the question of monarchy vs republic. Whilst one monarch reigns for 70 years, it is an issue which can be deferred until she dies; when she dies, such a debate would be disrespectful; and when a new monarch is crowned, it is disloyal and unpatriotic to raise the issue. That takes us back to the start point where there is an unchallengeable reigning incumbent albeit without the 70 years of reigning, even if he has been busy cutting ribbons and opening things. And so the issue goes largely undebated and life carries on. Few boats are rocked.

Those who support the idea that the head of state should be a hereditary position argue that it gives us a degree of stability under the late queen and the current king that we would not have with an elected president. They often posit the choice between the late queen and a recent political villain of choice – Trump, say, or Blair. Reducing the choice to named individuals might make it easier to opt for the monarch of the day, but it’s a verbal sleight of hand. There are other potential presidents. Presidency can be executive or ceremonial; assuming them to be the same thing is a deliberate attempt at deception. It is more realistic to suggest that the choice could be between a hereditary monarch and a president such as Michael Higgins of Ireland. And there are also other royals. It is by accident of birth that we now have King Charles rather than King Andrew. Whilst a choice between two billionaires such as Charles and Trump might lead many to prefer Charles, I strongly suspect that were the choice to be between Andrew and Michael Higgins, supporters of hereditary appointments might rapidly find themselves in a minority. But choosing between the two options on the basis of which individuals might end up in the job is, in any event, a poor argument for one system over the other. Even if it’s the best argument that the monarchists have. Especially if it’s the best argument that the monarchists have.

It's true, of course, that in a republic we could end up with the ‘wrong’ person in the job. It’s also true that in a monarchy we could end up with the ‘wrong’ person in the job. But in the first case, there is a mechanism for removal at a subsequent election whilst in the second, there is not. We potentially have to wait 70 years (although not for the current incumbent, obviously, despite the call as part of the crowning ceremony that he should live forever). Elections can get it ‘wrong’ - democracy allows us to make bad choices as well as good ones. But whether a choice is good or bad is in the eye or mind of the beholder; it’s not an absolute. Surprisingly, not everyone agrees that Johnson was a disaster, for example. And it is, at least, our choice in a way that hereditary succession is not.

“Not my King” has become a popular slogan of late, and in the sense that none of us chose him, it’s true. We are, though, his subjects, whether we like it or not. As the Archbishop of the established church in England made clear in the ceremony on Saturday, he consecrated Charles as “King over the peoples, whom the Lord your God has given you to rule and govern”. And whilst the Church holds sway only in England, the people given to Charles by god, according to the archbish, include those in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as sundry other remnants of conquest. The idea that we are ‘given’ to a monarch as subjects to be ruled over is a fiction, of course. But it’s a fiction which goes to the very heart of the English constitution. The authority of parliament and the government stems from the crown not from the people; it stems from the fiction that they rule in the name of and on behalf of the Protestant Christian god; and it's a fiction of which last Saturday’s events rather forcefully reminded us.

It’s often argued that, for practical purposes on a day to day basis, ditching the monarch for an elected and purely ceremonial president would make little difference to most of us. If it were possible to make such a simple single change, that would be true. But from an establishment perspective – and there is little difference between the Tories and Labour on this issue – a debate on converting the UK to a republic is a very large can of worms. Challenging the fiction at the centre of the constitution challenges a great deal more which is taken for granted. It isn’t just about who fills the role of head of state and how he or she is chosen – it’s about the relationship between the people and power, and about on whose behalf actions are taken. It’s actually a very big deal – and a long overdue change.

Splashing the cash

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From a republican perspective, the results of a poll showing that 54% of people in Wales would vote to keep the monarchy whilst 23% would vote for a republic is not at all a bad starting point on an issue which is barely discussed publicly and in relation to which the media and the main political parties relentlessly promote the status quo. And, interestingly, it’s far from clear that even all those who support the continuation of the monarchy are over-impressed by the cost to the public purse, with just over half saying that the monarchy should pay for the coronation out of their own resources. That said, it’s probably the case that attitudes to Saturday’s events probably reflect attitudes to the institution, and that the overall level of enthusiasm is rather less than the BBC and media would have us believe.

There have been some wild claims as to just how much of a boost the UK economy will get as a result of the jamboree, with the palace repeating claims that the benefit could be up to £1.25 billion. That looks a bit like a politician’s statistic to me (92.8% of which, like the figure of 92.8% itself, are made up on the spot to support whatever argument is being advanced at the time). It’s certainly true that a lot of tourists like to visit royal sites and palaces – whether that number would rise or fall if the occupants were cleared out and the whole of the building made available for public view is an open question. Royal history without the royals might turn out to be a surprisingly lucrative proposition.

One rather more specific claim has been that pubs will gain from a £120 million spending splurge over the weekend. The basis of that claim is uncertain to say the least – the workings haven’t been reported – but, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that it’s true. The question, then, is ‘is that a boost to the economy overall?’, and the answer to that depends on where the money is coming from. If people are smashing open their piggy banks, or pulling the money from under the mattress or wherever else they’ve been hiding it, then the expenditure will indeed boost the economy overall. If, on the other hand, they’re merely spending money which might otherwise have been spent in the supermarket or on other leisure activities, then the ‘boost’ to one sector of the economy is matched by a hit to one or another different sector. In a time when people are struggling with the cost of living, the second scenario seems rather more likely than the first.

It has been reported that the cost of staging the event to the public purse will be around £100 million. Again, I haven’t seen the workings, but am prepared to accept the figure for the sake of argument. The same question arises – where does this money come from? Given that the government keep telling us that the cupboard is bare, it won’t be coming from Rishi Sunak’s piggy bank, or from under his mattress (although the tax authorities might usefully take a peek anyway to see what might be there and where it came from). And in the absence of any announcement of cuts elsewhere, it isn’t obviously going to impact other spending. In terms of the government’s overall spending, it’s a tiny drop in the ocean, but the likelihood is that it is effectively going to increase, marginally, the current year’s deficit. And that highlights one of the key differences between government spending and household spending – the government can, and almost invariably does, spend money which it hasn’t actually got. The result is that spending £100 million of extra government money on a coronation provides a real boost to the overall economy in a way which transferring £120 million of private money from supermarkets to pubs does not.

That doesn’t mean that I’m advocating spending £100 million on a pointless and archaic ceremony; I can think of plenty of better ways of spending that money. I’m more interested in the general lesson here, which is that government spending which increases the budget deficit boosts the economy; and its corollary, which is that ‘austerity’ (cutting government spending to reduce the deficit/debt) dampens the economy. That doesn’t mean that governments can or should run ever bigger deficits (there are other mechanisms, such as a lack of resources and a consequent increase in inflation which impose constraints on that, although despite all the posturing by politicians about percentages of GDP the simple truth is that no-one knows with any certainty where the limits lie). It simply means that when growth is weak, deficit-funded government expenditure can boost it, and that the time to reduce deficits is when growth is strong. There’s nothing new about that, it's something which has been known and understood for many decades. The tragedy is that we have a government which, for largely ideological reasons (and to protect the interests of the wealthiest, which may well amount to the same thing) tries to pretend that the opposite is true, and a main opposition party which is so keen to prove its fiscal responsibility that it’s even keener on taking action likely to dampen rather than promote growth.

Just Business as Usual

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According to the official constitution (to the extent that such a thing exists) the monarch’s line of descent was chosen by the will of god to rule over us. The historical reality is that the divine will has often been given more than a little human assistance in the form of patricide, fratricide and even infanticide, without an unhealthy dose of all of which the current monarch would not be occupying the throne. Had it not been so his offspring might not be pushing each other onto dog bowls, or, if they did, would attract rather less attention for doing so as members of some minor and largely forgotten branch of the family tree. Avoiding the potentially circular argument about whether killing off family members was actually god’s mysterious way of implementing his will to guide the current monarch into his elevated position, the reality is that the occupant of the throne at any time owes more to the nefarious activities of his or her ancestors than to the divine. History indicates that, by and large, the English monarchical system has a Darwinian propensity to select for murder, treachery and betrayal.

Throughout history, royal personages have attempted to put a positive light on some of their number and a negative light on others; much of what we learn about the history of the kings and queens of England – a history traditionally inflicted upon pupils in Wales as well as in England – is based as much on spin as on historically provable fact (such as Richard III’s hunchback). Modern technology didn’t invent spin or briefing; it merely facilitated and accelerated them. Shakespeare makes Alastair Cambell look like a novice, and King John with a Twitter account would probably have made Trump look like a rank amateur.

That all provides some context for the ‘revelations’ in Harry Windsor’s little tome, to be published next week. (Interestingly, one question which the media seem not to have pursued with any vigour is how the country which gave the world the very concept of mañana managed to steal a march on everyone else and publish the book early.) Listening to Harry’s long list of gripes, it seems that he doesn’t understand that what he is describing when he talks about betrayal, disrespect, and unfavourable briefings is what history tells us is Standard Operating Procedure for his whole family. In fact, being pushed around a bit by a brother who later apologised means that, in terms of his family’s normal approach to business over the preceding centuries, he’s got off rather lightly and made his brother look like a bit of a wimp. Most of William's predecessors would have had the axeman standing by. It makes me wonder what passes for English history on the curriculum at Eton. Or maybe they simply assumed, wrongly, that a living part of that history would already understand it.

More words, not action, from Labour?

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Looking back over successive elections since the time of Harold Wilson, I can’t remember a point during the lifetime of a Conservative government when the Labour Party was not promising, or at least talking about, either abolition or else major reform of the House of Lords. Nor can I remember a time when they’ve ever delivered on the fine words once elected. When push comes to shove, there are always other priorities and too many vested interests. And Labour PMs have usually ended up finding that the House of Lords is useful to them as a means of rewarding donors and supporters – or even just getting rid of troublesome MPs.

Today’s Great Announcement of the results of a Commission led by Gordon Brown can only sensibly be read in that historical context; the rhetoric is fine, but will they deliver this time? Some Labour voices in the Lords are already suggesting that the proposals should be watered down or delayed. There are, they argue, more important so-called ‘bread-and-butter’ issues which need addressing first, as though governments can only focus on one issue at a time. The words coming from Starmer and Brown today suggest that they realise that constitutional reform is not as divorced from the immediate economic reality as many seem to suggest: empowering the regions and nations of the UK can also help government to be more responsive, if done properly. That caveat (‘if done properly’) is an enormous one, though. The whole history of devolution tells us that the centre only ever cedes power reluctantly, always seeks to control tightly how it can be used, and always retains the right to ungrant what it previously granted. And whilst the idea that Starmer's Labour will be any different from the Tories on those questions has yet to be either disproven or demonstrated, the history of Labour attitudes to reform once they get elected is not exactly encouraging.

Some of the answers that Starmer and Brown have been giving today already look evasive, and there is a marked lack of detail on how the grand principles will actually work. What do they mean, for instance, when they claim that the replacement for the House of Lords (the council for regions and the nations) will represent the nations and regions? How will that work? How will they be elected? If elections are fought by the same parties as fight elections for the House of Commons, the new ‘council’ will end up being defined more in terms of its party balance (between ‘government’ members and ‘opposition’ members); the idea that, for instance, the Welsh members will vote and act as a bloc fighting for Welsh interests instead of splitting between the government and the opposition is one for the fairies. None of this is answered by today’s announcement – these are, apparently, all matters for ‘consultation’ and debate (which the more naïve might have thought was what the commission was supposed to be doing).

They are also promising legislation to ‘protect’ the powers of the Senedd and the other devolved administrations, but the ‘how’ is again missing. Unless they are proposing constitutional changes which will abolish the idea that no legislation passed by one government can tie the hands of any future government (and they certainly do not seem to be proposing that), then all they can really promise is that the next Labour government will offer such protection for the duration of a single term. It’s not much of a promise in reality. The real underlying problem, the one that they have completely ignored, is the supposition that ‘sovereignty’ is invested in the monarch by God and exercised by Westminster by the grace of the monarch. It’s the inevitable result of a monarchical constitution. Without moving to a position where ‘sovereignty’ is expressly recognised as belonging to the people in each nation or region, on whose behalf it is exercised through the various parliaments, it’s hard to see how they can deliver the long term changes needed. The founders of the Labour Party would have had little problem with understanding that, but the timid creatures currently inhabiting the party will continue to run a mile from the idea of real empowerment.

Lexicographical crime

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Yesterday, the new empathy-challenged Home Secretary, chosen for the job on the basis that her predecessor, Priti Patel, was simply not nasty enough, claimed that those Tory MPs who had ‘forced’ the government to abandon part of its proposed largesse towards the richest, had staged some sort of ‘coup’ against the elected government of the UK. Her definition of a ‘coup’, which is that MPs had threatened not to vote for a policy which they did not support and which formed no part of their manifesto at the last election probably constitutes some sort of crime against lexicography, but using a different dictionary than the rest of us, and defining words to mean exactly what they want them to mean (well, perhaps not exactly; exactitude is another missing attribute amongst the current government) is far from being the biggest problem with her statement. Within the normal meaning of the word coup, the overthrow of one government and its replacement by another, there has indeed been a coup, but it’s the one which took place a few months ago under which the Tory Party deposed one clueless leader in order to give itself free rein to find someone even more clueless, which is, I suppose, at least one task they’ve managed to complete successfully.

The bigger problem is that, under the UK’s unwritten constitution, and despite the way the media cover and present elections, we do not elect (and never have elected) governments, parties, or Prime Ministers. The only thing we are allowed to elect is a member of parliament for the constituency in which we live; once elected, he or she is free to support whatever policies, parties, or leaders he or she might choose, regardless of any pledges which might have mistakenly appeared on his or her election material. The result is that we now have a government whose leader was chosen by a vanishingly small proportion of the electorate as a whole which is following a programme which is significantly different from what the same people promised in 2019. And it’s all entirely legal and above board. There may be a few deranged members of the governing party who inexplicably consider that they might have some sort of duty to stand by what they said only three years ago – the ones who Braverman accuses of being coupists – but seen from the bunker in Downing Street, these people are little better than traitors, reneging on the only responsibility they have, which is to do as they are told.

What the rest of us need to remember is that this ability to replace a government with a wholly different one, committed to a completely different political direction, isn’t a bug in the UK’s constitution, it’s a feature of it. There has been an entirely legal coup; this is the way things are supposed to work. The PM is appointed by the monarch, not elected by the people, and once appointed is free to do almost anything he or she wishes, subject only to having a sufficiently servile bunch of MPs for those changes which require legislation, which is far from being all of them. The ‘solution’ is not just to hold a new election. That might defer the problem until halfway through the next parliament, or the one after that, but it doesn’t solve it. And since the only solution for the UK as a whole involves persuading turkeys to vote for Christmas, the only way out is to escape from the turkey farm and ensure that independent states in Wales and Scotland start life with proper written constitutions, fair electoral systems, and a recognition that sovereignty belongs to the people not the monarch. We could call it something novel and exciting, like perhaps ‘democracy’.

Silly numbers and extraordinary claims

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Interpreting crowds is never easy, not least because in any crowd there are likely to be many different reasons for the participation of individuals. In 2019, it was estimated that more than 100,000 people joined a march through the streets of Edinburgh in support of Scottish independence. The march was regarded as a huge success by its organisers and gave a huge fillip to independentistas in Scotland. In the same way, marches here in Wales attended by thousands, even if not (yet) on the same scale as those in Scotland have encouraged independentistas here as well. It’s important, though, to put the numbers in context: 100,000 is around 1.8% of the Scottish population (for a Welsh march to achieve the same level would require around 54,000 marchers), and given that it’s a self-selecting subset, it tells us little about what the other 98% think on the issue. Projecting numbers of marchers into an assumption of majority support for their aim is a risky business, to say the least. No matter how impressive the sight might be, no assembly of people can, in itself, tell us much about the opinions of those who are not present. For that, we need opinion polls – as well as real polls at election time.

The same is true – although from the media coverage, one wouldn’t know it – about the huge crowds turning out to watch the monarch’s coffin on its progress from the place of death to its final resting place. Motives for doing so vary. In addition to monarchists, fans of individual royals and lovers of pageantry, vox pops have shown a good sprinkling of republicans as well as others who just felt that the event was historic and wanted to be in some way part of it. Projecting that into an outpouring of love for the Union, and claiming that those taking part are an entirely representative sample of the population as a whole is as silly as claiming that 100,000 marchers for independence are entirely representative of the Scottish population. That hasn’t stopped the unionists, though. To them, the crowds are a clear indication that the idea of Scottish (and Welsh) independence is finished; a dream relegated to the past. We should probably be grateful for the over-simplicity of their analysis and the resultant complacency which it engenders but certainly should not believe it.

At the weekend, there was one estimate that, as well as the huge numbers turning out to physically watch the coffin being moved from one place to another, around 4.1 billion people – more than half the world’s population – would tune in to watch the funeral. I don’t know how they’ve calculated that and I’d like to see their workings, but it reminded me of my old maths teacher talking about the importance of subjecting the result of any calculation to the ‘common sense’ test. By that he meant asking the question ‘does it feel right’? And it simply doesn’t. The best estimate that I’ve seen suggests that of the world’s population of around 7.8 billion, around 5.4 billion are television watchers (in around 1.7 billion households with a tv). We can probably discount most of the 1.4 billion Chinese (where an astonishing close to 100% have access to a television), to say nothing of the 144 million Russians or 84 million Iranians, as well as a goodly proportion of the 1.4 billion Indians and 220 million Pakistanis (the latter of which have other things on their minds at the moment, although one would scarcely noticed from television news reports). There are other places one could add to the list; the point is that, if 4.1 billion of those remaining were glued to their tv sets, it means that rather more than 100% of those with both the facilities and desire to watch proceedings had to have been tuned in.

Like many estimates of the numbers in a crowd, the number is obviously something of an over-statement. Does it matter? In itself, no, not really. The basic fact is that there would have been a very large audience; there was no need to exaggerate that by putting a silly number on it.  As even most republicans must surely acknowledge, the event was a historically significant one – more so for the UK than for any other part of the world, although numbers never reached 100% here. The number does, though, tell us something though about those English nationalist exceptionalists and their belief that what happens on these offshore islands must be equally significant for everyone else as well. And it isn’t just about the belief itself; it’s about the fact that they have a desperate need to believe in their own country’s specialness. One of the best illustrations came from the Speaker of the House of Commons who made the truly extraordinary claim that the funeral of the Queen will be “the most important event the world will ever see”.  That it is a highly significant occasion for the UK cannot be doubted. It marks the end of an era, and it would be wrong to underestimate the importance of that. But “ever”, and for the “world”? That indicates the very exaggerated sense of self-importance which is sadly endemic amongst our rulers. They have a deep need to exaggerate the importance of their little corner of the world and what happens here; everything has to be portrayed as world-leading or world-beating. Being a large and important event isn’t enough: it has to be the largest and most important to validate their own self-belief. It is an essential element of their deeply nationalistic ‘non-nationalism’ that everything about their country is both the best and the most important. As with so much that happens in the UK these days, mere facts will never be allowed to get in the way of such self-aggrandisement.

The leaders we deserve

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One thing that the English establishment take great pride in is their ability to organise great events, with everything planned down to the last tiny detail. Like much of English exceptionalism, the ability is more imagined than real, although that may be partly because those doing the organising have so little connection with the real world outside their own little bubble. The Queen’s coffin was manufactured more than 30 years ago. No-one knows precisely when or by whom, apparently, since it was passed from one official royal undertaker to another some 30 years ago, and records predating that have been lost or mislaid in the mists of time. Anyway, the point is that with great foresight about the event (if not its date), the box was ready when required, along with detailed plans for its route (with separate plans depending on the place of death). So far, so good, so meticulous.

But one of the problems with plans laid down so long ago, and rehearsed so frequently, is that they may not always allow for the fact that society didn’t stand still in the meantime; and plans prepared in a degree of secrecy don’t always include all the possible reactions from people who haven’t been part of them. And then there’s personalities. Who could ever have predicted that a well-known petulant like the new king, who insists that everything be just so, might get annoyed at a misplaced pen rack or a leaky pen? Those are comparatively minor little hitches, whatever they may reveal about the short temper of the new monarch. But there was an underlying assumption by those doing the planning that the outpouring of grief would be universal; there appears to have been little by way of briefing the police, for instance, about how to handle any republicans who might want to make their feelings known, with some individual officers coming close to declaring that holding up a blank piece of paper amounts to a crime. It’s not what it says, it’s what it might have said.

One might have thought that at least someone involved in the planning might have considered whether winding up one royal household as its incumbent moved to a different abode might have a few implications for the staff, and thought about how that should be handled, but issuing redundancy notices to some of those involved in smoothing the transition while a thanksgiving church service was in progress is not exactly testament to great foresight. It suggests, rather, that the fate of the little people wasn’t even an afterthought to the planners.

Whilst there will certainly be many who wish to mourn the death of their divinely-appointed ruler, that subset of the population is certainly less than 100%. Ideas about how people might react seem to have been based heavily on assumptions that little has changed since the more subservient, not to say servile, attitudes of the 1950s. Failing to give guidance to people and organisations about what they should or should not do was probably wise; reactions to being told not to do a whole series of normal activities might have been fun to watch, but would hardly have added to the solemnity of the occasion. The result, though, is that many organisations have over-reacted, from Center Parcs initially saying they would throw all their guests out for the night (although they’ve now backtracked and said that people can stay as long as they don’t expect to eat or enjoy themselves in any way) to a Labour Party instructing its MPs not to talk about minor issues such as poverty or the cost of energy but instead to restrict all public comment to their own grovelling tributes to the late monarch, and a range of sports organisations reaching different and contradictory conclusions about what should go ahead and what should not. Fortunately, the lack of detailed guidance on how we must all grieve at least means that we won’t have police travelling door to door to check that we’re all watching television all day on Monday. Unless, that is, another poorly briefed individual officer takes it into his or her head to do so.

There is an old saying that we get the leadership we deserve. A country where people have to be told that piling marmalade sandwiches outside royal residences as a mark of ‘respect’ is really not a very good idea might just be proving the truth of that saying.

Like it or not, there will be change

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Even for a hardened old republican like me, it is clear that last week marked the end of an era. TV news references to “The King” felt a bit like watching crackly old black-and-white Pathé newsreels, and similar references in the print media felt like being trapped in a newspaper archive. The very word "king" seems out of place and out of date, reflecting those same attributes back onto the institution of monarchy in a way that references to “The Queen” somehow never did. The sense of anachronism is heightened by the arcane rituals surrounding the succession – the fancy dress, the archaic wording, the trumpet fanfares, the displays of subservience – coupled with what feels like an attempt almost to compel people to mourn, and the rush of politicians to take a wholly unnecessary renewed semi-feudal oath of loyalty. The BBC’s coverage seems designed to suggest that the only thing that has changed since the last time it happened, at the beginning of the 1950s, is the more ubiquitous presence of cameras. In truth, however, very much more than that has changed over the past 70 years – a reign being presented as one of stability and continuity has actually occurred in parallel with the fastest period of change – technical, social and economic – in human history, even if none of that change has had anything much to do with either the institution of monarchy or the person of the monarch.

In any rational world, the end of such a long era would be an ideal time for reflection about the future (rather than just about the past, which is where most of the coverage seems to be stuck); the future, after all, is where we are all going to be living, no matter how much some would apparently prefer to live in their own, somewhat rose-tinted, version of the past. Many have questioned whether the new king should really have rushed into ‘giving’ Wales a new prince. Whilst that questioning is an entirely rational response, it ignores the reality that rationality has no role here: the point about a hereditary monarchy is that what the people choose doesn’t enter the equation. The mechanics of primogeniture have a logic of their own in appointing the monarch, and the dispensation of titles thereafter is solely a matter for the monarch himself. The idea that ‘Wales’ – whatever its collective opinion might be, and however that is expressed – could choose whether to not to have a new prince, let alone who it might be, would undermine the whole principle of a hereditary monarchy. That also explains why the institution could never allow the end of one era to become an opportunity to discuss roles and purposes: merely asking questions about its role and purpose endangers the institution itself, since it would struggle to justify its existence on rational grounds. Instead, the imperative is to rush on, and do what they can to ensure that what happens is presented as an entirely natural and normal phenomenon, to which there can be no challenge. The unwritten constitution declares that the monarch is appointed by God himself, and not just any old god at that: it is very much the Protestant God whose divine will gives Charles his status and powers. That is illustrated by the fact that the coronation is a religious service in which an archbishop of one denomination of one of the world’s faiths anoints the monarch in the name of his god, whilst members of another denomination of the same religion are barred absolutely from the throne because of a religious dispute which occurred more than three centuries ago.

Does it matter? At one level, no, not really. I’ve always been clear in my own mind that independence means that sovereignty lies with the people and is expressed through a democratically elected parliament rather than with the monarch on whose behalf parliament exercises it, and as long as the transfer of power does not lead to any retained ‘royal prerogatives’, it is the practicality of where power lies which is more important than the constitutional myth underlying it. At another level, though, it does matter. Hereditary power and influence based on the assumption of a divine right to rule is a negation of the concept of popular sovereignty, to say nothing of the idea of a meritocracy. For those who rather like the idea of a divine right to rule – and that includes not only the monarchy itself, but also the political rulers who depend on the power that it gives them – now is not the time to debate the issue. But that’s hiding behind the events of the day – there will never be a ‘right’ time as far as they are concerned; there will always be some excuse to postpone any discussion.

The English/British establishment are proceeding on the basis that the succession is done and dusted; there may be a few ceremonials to follow over the next year or so, but the accession of a new monarch is now safely accomplished. I doubt that history will record that things are as simple as that: they confuse affection – or, at the very least, acceptance – of an individual with affection for the institution itself, but there is a significant gulf between the two. The unravelling will be slow, and is likely to start outside the UK itself as the various dominions and possessions begin to question how independent they really are if someone else appoints their head of state. The process of converting to republics is likely to accelerate; for those states which will need to change their constitution to reflect the accession of a new monarch, the opportunity for that conversation is both immediate and pressing. The bad news for Charles III is that there is little he can do to stop the inevitable drift towards republicanism; the good news for him as an individual is that at least the process will not require the separation of his head from the rest of his body as happened to the first monarch to rule as Charles as well as many foreign monarchs. There are suggestions that we should not even discuss such issues out of ‘respect’ for the deceased queen. But there’s nothing at all disrespectful about noting that change is coming, whether they like it or not – or in hoping that her successor will enjoy a long, happy, and preferably early, retirement.

How it could have been done

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Yesterday’s pantomime in two acts as one PM flew off to Scotland to resign and his successor flew separately off to Scotland almost immediately afterwards to be appointed in his stead has been reported more than adequately. It seems that they needed to take two separate flights in case anything happened to one of them on the way there, and the outgoing one wasn't allowed to go in to see the Queen until the incoming one was in the building, just in case. How they would have coped if anything happened to the new one on the way home doesn’t seem to be recorded anywhere.

Not much of the reporting seems to have asked whether it was all really necessary. Whilst it’s true that ‘tradition’ dictates that PMs are appointed in person, and, leaving aside the question of what sort of functional state depends on the health of a 96 year old who has been in post for more than 70 years already, it would certainly be asking a bit much to ask her to travel from Scotland to London for two meetings neither of which needed to be longer than five minutes. But it doesn’t follow that two expensive separate return flights were required. Traditionally, PMs have to kiss the monarch’s hand in a demonstration of fealty in order to be appointed, but that ritual was replaced some years ago by a handshake, and the sky didn’t fall in as a result. It’s equally unlikely that it would fall in if the handshake was replaced by a Zoom-carried cheery wave, or even a simple old-fashioned telephone call. First Ministers of the devolved administrations are also appointed by the monarch, but it doesn’t happen in person – why should the PM of England be an exception?

It could even have been done by a few swift tweets:

@BoJo: Dear @RoyalLiz, I resign #PM #Quit #Butillbeback

@RoyalLiz: Goodbye @Bojo #PM #Quit #Hesfinallygone #Royalrelief #Noyouwont

@RoyalLiz: Will you @CommonerLiz form a government? #PM #Quit #Apparentlyonehasnochoice

@CommonerLiz: Yes #PM #LizforLeader

@RoyalLiz: Then you @CommonerLiz are hereby appointed. #PM #Whatdidwedotodeservethis

@RoyalLiz: PS: Just let me know when you @CommonerLiz are ready to resign. I’ve got enough time for another two PMs at this rate. #PM #Quit #Onecanhope

It could all have been over in about 30 seconds, and saved tens of thousands of pounds. For a new PM elected on pledges to challenge orthodoxy and keep a tight control on government spending, starting off by spending a whole day on this pantomime ‘because that’s how it’s done’ is not an auspicious start.

Monarchy may be the self-destruct button for the UK

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It is possible, as a few outliers have suggested, that ‘Keith’ Starmer didn’t really mean to say that it was our ‘patriotic duty’ to celebrate the Jubilee over the weekend, but I somehow doubt that he was particularly dismayed at the way most of the mainstream media, including the Telegraph for whom he wrote an article on the question, reported him as having said exactly that. Certainly, his Shadow Culture Secretary has been quick to jump on the bandwagon and claim that Labour is now the party of true patriots. Patriotism may, or may not, be ‘the last refuge of the scoundrel’ as a different Johnson from a different century put it, but it inevitably provokes questions as to what it means.

Labour seem to be defining it around support for what they refer to as “world-leading” institutions, and what they refer to as British values, such as “integrity, decency and honesty” and “tolerance, openness and generosity”. It’s impossible to argue that those aren’t values worth defending and promoting, and even taking a certain amount of pride in – but there’s nothing uniquely ‘British’ about any of them. And anyone with any degree of self-awareness would struggle to claim that they are values which the UK in the twenty-first century is actually displaying to the world. Those who claim (and we must include Labour in this) that these values are somehow ‘British’ and therefore ‘world-leading’ are crossing the line from harmless patriotism into dangerous exceptionalism, and implicitly claiming some sort of superiority for the nation or state to which they belong. It’s a step too far for many of us.

The institutions in which they tell us we must take pride include the monarchy itself, despite the fact that this great ‘unifying’ institution, whilst it might currently enjoy majority support, is slowly becoming irrelevant to increasing numbers, a trend likely only to accelerate after the inevitable departure of the current incumbent in the not-too-distant future. There’s nothing wrong, per se, with a certain amount of patriotism, nor with the idea that the state itself should encourage it, but in hitching itself to one particular definition of what that means – and a definition which is recognised mostly by a demographic which time and reality is slowly eroding – Labour is in danger of placing itself on the wrong side of history. Again.

They’re not unique in that, of course. For those who see only that which is and not the potential of what might be (another category in which we must include the Labour Party), the monarchy is as natural as sunlight. Perhaps for those who become adopted citizens of the UK, it really does look as though the nation is defined by the monarchy; certainly the omnipresence of it and its symbols seems to be a key part of the citizenship process. And probably for those involved in the celebrations – and especially those at the very core – let alone those whose awareness of it all was ‘informed’ by media coverage, it may well appear to have united communities, people and ‘the nation’. They are highly unlikely, in the course of their organising and participating, to have come face to face with the views of avowed republicans, even if not a few of the latter will have quietly participated in the festivities, either for the sake of communal harmony or even just because they fancied an outdoor party. But defining ‘the nation’ in terms of those who support the monarchy is defining it in a way which is, ultimately, exclusive not inclusive.

This isn’t about Scotland and Wales on the one hand and England on the other (although it is notable that antipathy, or even simply apathy, towards royalty is more prevalent in Scotland and Wales); there are plenty of people in England who will also feel that such a definition of ‘the nation’ is one that they are just not part of. It is true, though, that in Wales and Scotland there is an alternative vision available if people choose it, something which people in England will struggle to find, especially with a Labour Party apparently trying to prove itself even more committed to a backward-looking view of Britain that the overtly nationalist Tory Party. It’s yet another indication that the long-held view of many independentistas that the Union will eventually be destroyed by England’s exceptionalism rather than by the demands of its Celtic possessions may be correct.

Packing up the bunting

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As a general rule, I’m not a huge fan of the medals and titles which the ruling establishment dish out to a carefully selected sub-set of the population a few times a year. But surely, the person who selected the reading to be delivered by a certain B. Johnson at the Jubilee service yesterday deserves some sort of public recognition. Obliging a man whose moral compass was terminally mislaid decades ago, and who sits in the middle of a growing pile of corruption, dishonesty and cronyism, to read out loud to the assembled members of the great and the good, as well as anyone watching in their homes up and down the land, an injunction to think about "Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable” is pure class. It’s astounding that the congregation didn’t dissolve into a giggling mass, especially since they all knew that the man doing the reading was the person present least likely to think about or understand the words he uttered.

There was something more than a little Ruritanian about the whole event. It sometimes seems as though the amount of bling being sported by the male members of the monarch’s family is increasing in inverse proportion to the size of the remaining Empire, although that could just be a personal impression. There’s certainly something very quaint about the way the date was selected, given that yesterday was actually the 69th anniversary of the coronation. The 70th anniversary of the accession passed largely unmarked back in February. None of that matters much to those who enjoyed the day. It’s far from unreasonable to suppose that whether they knew or cared about what event they were actually celebrating is largely beside the point. Give it another day or two and the red, white and blue bunting will all be packed away again to wait for the next suitable occasion. Or sent to landfill.

It would be a mistake to read too much political significance into the event. Those who think that all those flags and all that deference are in some way representative of a great coming together of the people of the UK around what is probably it’s most outdated institution and all the (officially-approved version of) history surrounding it are likely to be proved as wrong as those of a more republican bent who see it as an attempt to impose an identity and mindset. Not only was the grass roots participation in the revelry rather less common than the media would have us believe, but also much of it was just seizing an excuse for a party. The lasting political impact is likely to be close to zero. The good news is that those who would drag us back to the past will probably see it as a huge success and carry on in the same doomed-to-failure vein. For most of us, though, we can recognise what they don’t – which is that nostalgia just ain’t what it used to be.

The past won't conform to prejudices

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As far as I’m aware, none of those arguing about whether a book which has been commissioned to tell the ‘patriotic’ story of the English Monarchy should or should not be circulated to children in Wales via schools has actually seen the content as yet. Certainly the public at large hasn’t yet seen it, and debating whether to distribute it or not without seeing the content can only be based on a mixture of supposition and prejudice. Having said that, one thing of which we can be certain is that any book which sets out to tell a story from a ‘patriotic’ standpoint (and that is the clearly-stated intention of those who have commissioned the work) is, by definition, not setting out to give a balanced or objective view. That, in effect, makes it, wholly intentionally, a work of propaganda rather than information. Whether a work of propaganda should be distributed in schools is a matter of opinion; for what it’s worth, I see no harm in that at secondary level if the intention its to study and analyse the work in comparison with other versions of the same events; critical analysis is a valuable skill. There should surely, though, be no place for the distribution of one-sided propaganda in primary schools – not in a democracy, anyway, or even a semi-democracy like the UK.

There’s something rather Soviet-era about such a blatant approach to ensuring that a particular version of history is inculcated into children as part of their education, but in truth all states seek to ensure that their citizens share a common understanding of history, as a means of building a sense of commonality and belonging. The problem in this instance is that the current rulers of the UK are stuck in a time-warp, and are trying to reinforce a narrative which has become outdated, using the methods of a long-gone era when people had no other sources of information, methods which simply look crass in the devolved landscape of the twenty-first century. I don’t believe that it would be impossible to build a new narrative of the UK fit for the current era, but it would look nothing like the immediate post-war narrative to which the current government seem to want to return (let alone the eighteenth century narrative more favoured by the Rees-Moggs of this world). Whilst ‘history’ is built on a series of facts which are themselves unchanging, the interpretation and relative importance of those facts is always changing, as new facts come to light and new perspectives are applied, in a process which exceptionalist Anglo-British nationalists seem incapable of grasping.

It isn’t just the much-debated book which underlines the attachment of our rulers to an outdated view; we’ve recently had the Education Minister, Nadhim Zahawi arguing that pupils should be taught about the benefits of the empire and colonialisation as well as the brutality. In a limited sense, he has a point. People probably should know and understand that when they look at grand old houses in the countryside and grand old buildings in our city centres, they are indeed seeing the benefits of colonialism – for the colonialists. And it would be far from an entirely bad thing if many of those railing against immigrants and refugees coming here from poorer countries had been taught, and had understood, that much of what makes the UK a wealthy country was acquired by transporting stolen wealth from those poorer countries. I suspect, though, that that isn’t what Zahawi and his ilk have in mind. His statement referred to the way the colonists set up administrative systems and exported the British Civil Service (and others have referred to building railways) – he’s talking about the ‘benefits’ which should be taken into account on the plus side of the equation when the exploitation, the massacres, and the slavery are being criticised. To call these ‘benefits’ of colonisation, though, requires us to assume that leaving those areas uncolonized, letting them benefit from their own natural resources and developing links through trade and commerce rather than conquest, would not have left them better off, and that they would never have developed such administrative systems of their own accord. It’s an arrogant assumption, to say the least. It might be less pejoratively-worded, but at root it’s simply a modern variation on the old idea that Britain brought civilisation and cricket to the savages, in return for which they should be grateful enough to overlook the worst excesses.

Whether we are talking about the monarchy or the empire, understanding our history is important in giving us a sense of who we are, but that requires an ever-changing analysis of the facts. We cannot change the past. Whilst some of us might wish that it were possible to airbrush the monarchy and the empire from history, that would be no more honest than presenting them as unchanging symbols of what it means to be British. Trying to imbue our children with a biased view of either the monarchy or the empire does them no favours when they will eventually find themselves in a world which has a totally different understanding. Addressing that is rather more important than sloganizing about the distribution of a book.

Trend-setting

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In his farewell speech to Barbados, Charlie Windsor said that “the creation of this republic offers a new beginning”. He’s right, of course. We can only hope that the idea catches on – there are a few monarchical states a lot closer to home that could do with just such a new beginning.

Falling bridges

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It is not entirely unreasonable for someone to be making plans for the death of a 95 year old woman, particularly if that woman just happens to be the head of state. And whatever one might think about the way in which the UK’s head of state is chosen, it’s not unreasonable to suppose that the various parliaments within the UK might decide, when the death is announced, that they will suspend their deliberations for a period as a mark of respect. It seems, though, according to the plans leaked last week, that it will not be up to them; it has already been decided by someone in London that that will happen without waiting for those parliaments to decide for themselves. The exquisitely Ruritanian exception, apparently, is that in the event that the UK Parliament finds itself in recess at the time, it will be recalled in order to adjourn itself. It has also already been decided that on the seventh day after the death, the Senedd will pass a motion of condolence and the new king will travel to Cardiff to receive it. Whether any of the elected members have any say on any of this is a question answered only by the fact that no other possibility seems to have been considered. However reasonable the proposed actions might be in themselves, there seems to be a certain detachment from the idea of democracy here.

In order that no-one eavesdropping on any Prime Ministerial conversations understands what has happened in the few minutes before an official newsflash makes the actual public announcement, the PM will be given the message in code, being told merely that “London Bridge is down”. Presumably, now that this particular code has been broadcast to the world, the civil servants will have to come up with a new code phrase instead. How can they choose a suitable phrase allowing the secret to be maintained for a whole ten minutes - and, more relevantly, why on earth does anyone think that it needs to be?

My favourite bit of all, though, came in the Guardian’s report on the same story which tells us that one of the big concerns of those writing the plans is the “potential for public anger if Downing Street cannot lower its flags to half-mast within 10 minutes of the announcement since there is no ‘flag officer’”. Perhaps I’m underestimating the degree to which the reality at the time will match the pre-scripted outpouring of official grief, but I’m struggling to believe that people will take to the streets (or even just write cross letters to the newspapers) protesting at the absence of a designated flag-lowering person in Downing Street if it means that a whole eleven minutes passes between the announcement and the lowering of the flag. Or could it just possibly be that those drawing up the plans have ever-so-slightly lost the plot?

Stocking up on tinder

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The politics of Northern Ireland are complex, and it’s generally a mistake to ascribe an outbreak of violence to a single cause in a society where two different identities sit uneasily together in the same space. It’s easy enough for politicians to condemn ‘lawlessness’, but that lawlessness never exists in isolation from political events and debate. It is doubtful, though, that the failure of the police to conduct mass arrests of republicans over attendance at a funeral in apparent breach of Covid regulations would be enough in most contexts to spark off the sort of violence which has erupted in recent days, were it not for underlying tension. And it is clear that at least some of that tension is a direct result of a Brexit deal which leads some to feel that their British identity is under threat – the sort of threat which a carefully negotiated and implemented Good Friday agreement had managed largely to assuage for decades.

It’s too facile simply to blame a Brexit deal negotiated by careless ideologues who ignored all the warnings about the impact on the delicate balance which had been put in place, but it would also be facile to pretend that deliberately introducing an element of instability into that delicate balance has had no effect. Calculated and persistent dishonesty about the impact of the agreement which they negotiated merely rubs salt in the wound. The tone-deaf approach of the current UK government continues to exacerbate rather than improve the situation. The PM said yesterday that “The way to resolve differences is through dialogue…”, and just a few days ago, Lord Frost, Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, said that it is difficult to see how the NI Protocol can be "genuinely durable" without the consent of "all of the people" of NI. Well, yes to both of those – and won’t both men be furious with whoever decided to negotiate a deal which involved neither dialogue with nor the consent of the people and parties of Northern Ireland?

Of course they won’t; it didn’t occur to them in advance that they needed any such dialogue or consent, and what they mean by the words now is that those on whom the deal has been imposed need to listen to what they’re told and then give their consent to what has been imposed upon them. And as a fallback, they can always blame the EU for actually wanting to implement the agreement to which the UK signed up. It’s the sort of cavalier attitude to the opinions of others which one might expect from a world king, and underlies the approach which the PM takes towards the Welsh and Scottish legislatures as well, to say nothing of the House of Commons, where he regularly lies and misleads. Absolute monarchy means that other views can be disregarded and overridden at will.

History tells us that absolute monarchy as a method of government often works rather well, from the point of view of the absolute monarch at least. Until it doesn’t, at which point there is a distinct tendency for the absolute monarch’s head to become physically separated from the rest of his body. One of the few historical certainties about absolute monarchies is that they always end, and they often do so rapidly and unexpectedly. Messy endings aren’t quite such a historical certainty, but they are the norm. To return to where we began; the event which sparks the end may be something relatively inconsequential in itself (such as, in this case, a failure to comply with Covid regulations), but it is the underlying resentment and anger which turns a spark into a conflagration. It’s hard to say what Johnson’s spark will be or when it will come, but his dogmatic, mendacious, and arrogant approach means that he’s certainly building up a good pile of tinder.

Is there a case for the Union? 4: Shared institutions and symbols

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Another argument made by unionists for the continuation of the UK is that there are UK-wide institutions which we share and which bind us together. It was a central part of the pitch made by Andrew RT Davies in an article in the National this week. It is, though, a very narrow range of institutions which they normally refer to – the armed forces usually top the list, followed by the monarchy, the flag, the NHS, and the BBC. Well, maybe not the BBC so much these days, given that the current government seem determined to control and neuter the organisation’s so-called ‘independence’. And using the NHS as a symbol of ‘unity’ whilst failing to adequately fund it or pay the staff what most people feel they deserve isn’t the brightest of ideas. Whilst people in general might well feel pride in the NHS, it's not a pride which is obviously reflected in government actions towards the institution.

There are certainly those who see the monarchy as something quintessentially British, a living link to a long history. It depends on a rather selective interpretation of a somewhat inglorious record of infighting, murder, and treachery, but there are three rather more important difficulties. The first is that many of those who support the monarchy are already on the unionist side: they aren’t the ones they need to convince. The second is that, from a Scottish perspective if not a Welsh one, the Scottish Crown, both legally and conceptually, isn’t the same as the English Crown. Historically, the union of the crowns and the union of the parliaments were two entirely separate events; reversing them separately is not at all the strange concept which it appears to be from the perspective of the English establishment. And thirdly, there are plenty of independent countries in the world which have, for various reasons, chosen to retain England’s monarch as Head of State. It is, therefore, perfectly possible to be a supporter of the monarchy, and even the present incumbent, and still advocate independence. The institution does not depend on the structure of the union.

When it comes to the armed forces, it is true that there is a long-standing, albeit often vague, sense of loyalty. However, in Scotland that is often to traditional Scottish regiments rather than the armed forces as a whole and those regiments have suffered cuts and mergers over decades at the hands of the London government. Scots might reasonably be excused for thinking that the bit of the armed forces to which they feel the greatest loyalty and attachment might be better protected under independence. There are also generational differences: even amongst the older generations ‘the war’ is now outside the experience of most, and whilst many unionists seem to see it as ‘the’ defining characteristic of the UK, for younger people it’s now almost ancient history.  It’s true that, partly because of its possession of nuclear weapons, the UK’s armed forces remain amongst the deadliest in the world, but whether that’s a matter for pride or not depends on perspective. The unionist argument depends on an assumption that their perspective is widely shared, which is, like many of the assumptions they make, increasingly out of kilter with the twenty-first century UK.

That leaves us with the biggest and most obvious symbol of all: the Union Flag. There really does seem to be a prevalent belief amongst the unionists that simply plastering the flag on anything and everything will somehow engender a pride in Britishness and a feeling of being together. There was a time when it might have been true – it was the union flag rather than the cross of St George which was flown for the English world cup team just 55 years ago, and it felt like a British, rather than simply English, victory at the time. But things have changed, and clocks can’t be reversed. What was entirely natural just half a century ago jars today. The one echo of 1966 which still has resonance today is the reverse of what it was in 1966, and it’s a negative one for the union. It is that the union flag represents England, rather than the whole UK. That in turn means that trying to replace saltires and dragons with union flags has, for many, precisely the opposite effect to that intended; rather than strengthening a feeling of union, it strengthens a feeling that English people conflate England and Britain. If I were looking for a strong argument for the union which would appeal to those currently inclined to support independence, I wouldn't try  and base it on a particularly English interpretation of institutions and symbols.

Making assumptions about attitudes

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Yesterday’s call from the queen for us all to take pride in the UK’s response to the pandemic reminds me of a speech at a Plaid event many years ago by a guest from the SNP.  She talked about having been on a British cruise ship in the Mediterranean which suffered engine failure followed by a breakdown in the power in the kitchens.  Drifting in the middle of the sea with only cold food to eat, one of her fellow guests referred to the stoic nature of the response by saying “Doesn’t it make you feel proud to be British”.  Her quick response was to say that she’d have been rather prouder had the ship been underway and had they been eating hot food.

And so it is with the UK response to the pandemic. Of course it’s good to see most people responding responsibly and accepting the temporary deprivation in mostly good spirit, but I’d find it a great deal easier to be proud of the UK if the government hadn’t spent 10 years cutting back on the NHS and other public services, four years working out how to cut ourselves off from our nearest neighbours and sources of support and mutual aid, and two months underplaying the extent of the crisis, doing too little, too late, and increasing the toll of preventable deaths as a result.  There’s more pride in competence than incompetence; a willingness to learn from and work with others is a better cause for pride than pretending we’re exceptional, different, and know better than anyone else; and honesty and straight talking generate more pride than obfuscation and lies.

I don’t doubt that there are many in the UK whose attitudes are coloured by a rose-tinted folk memory of ‘the war years’.  Most of them weren’t actually there, of course, but they hark back to a sense of unity and resolve, ignoring the huge rise in crime and selfishness which was also a major characteristic of the time (if anything, the real surprise today is not that some people flout the rules but that so few do). For that group, the presentation of facts which undermine that interpretation is not only unacceptable, it’s almost treason. The government and the monarch are assuming that those attitudes, that ‘official’ version of history, is one shared by all, or almost all the population, and that an appeal to that folk memory will rally the populace. That might well turn out to be just another miscalculation by an out-of-touch elite.

The arcane and the bizarre

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Responding to the move to prorogue parliament yesterday, the Speaker denounced it as a “constitutional outrage”.  The Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg responded on BBC Breakfast this morning by saying that, “It is not constitutional for the speaker to express his opinion without direction of the house”.  It’s like a game of constitutional trumps.  They’re both right – and they’re both wrong.  Both are highlighting instances of actions which are, in one way or another, outside the norms of UK parliamentary process, but in a country whose constitution is unwritten and depends totally on precedent, nothing can ever, in strict terms, be ‘unconstitutional’.

The idea of ‘precedent’ assumes that little can ever change, and that the action to be taken in any given set of circumstances must be exactly the same as taken the last time those circumstances arose.  If the circumstances are unique (as, in reality, they always are), then the action to be taken must mirror as closely as possible the action taken in the most closely similar circumstances in the past.  It’s a recipe for superficial ossification, and in the absence of any real objective basis for deciding which is the closest historical parallel, for making things up as we go along.  And I’m really not sure which is worse – the de jure constitutional position that we always do whatever we did in the past, or the de facto constitutional position that we simply make up the rules as we go.  Neither seems compatible with a modern ‘democracy’, let alone one which its fans consider to be a model for the rest of the world to follow.

It’s not the only thing which is incompatible with a modern democracy, and if Brexit has served any purpose at all, it has been in exposing the inadequacies (or lunacies, more like) of the current system.  We’ve had two other examples this week alone.

The first was the suggestion that the solution to a situation where the PM of the day disagrees with majority opinion in a parliamentary chamber which is already hopelessly over-populated with unelected appointees, hereditaries and bishops is to simply find a lot more people who agree with him and appoint them as additional parliamentarians so that he can get his way.  Is there any other country in the world, with serious aspirations to call itself a democracy, in which the membership of one of its two chambers of parliament is completely unelected and where the government of the day can ‘adjust’ the membership so as to give itself a majority?

The second was yesterday’s news that the Privy Council had met with the monarch and advised her to prorogue parliament, advice which she then accepted.  It’s true that 3 members of the Privy Council flew up to Balmoral to impart their advice, and that, under the unwritten constitution of the UK, that amounts to a ‘meeting of the Privy Council’.  There are, though, around 700 members of the Privy Council, and we can safely assume that at least 650 of those didn’t even know that there was going to be a meeting yesterday.  And under the rules under which the Council operates, they didn’t need to know.  A ‘meeting’ of the Council need not consist of more than a few members, hand-picked by the PM of the day, sent to convey his views to the monarch.  It’s a complete anachronism, like so much else about the UK’s system of ‘democracy’.

The more Brexit teaches us about the UK’s definition of ‘democracy’, the more I find myself wondering whether the UK has ever really complied with the spirit of the EU’s charter on the rule of law, which is supposedly a fundamental requirement of membership (and which may now be used against the UK).  I’d like to think that current events might provoke more people into recognising that we need a proper written constitution which lays down processes and procedures to be followed, but I’m not going to hold my breath.  Regularising the arcane and bizarre is, though, a clear advantage to Welsh independence.  It is inconceivable that a new Welsh state would be so stupid as to follow the processes of the so-called ‘mother of parliaments’, isn’t it?