Which Way, Maam? Thanks to her Supreme Court justices, Elizabeth Windsor may soon be faced with a daunting choice: to become the “People’s Queen” – or their last.
THE SUPREME COURT of the United Kingdom has struck down
Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament and some people are cheering. The
chances of those people being well-educated, well-housed and well-paid
metropolitans are very high. In their eyes, the British constitution, in all
its unwritten mysteriousness, has been upheld. By eleven votes to nil, the justices
have legally obliterated the British Prime Minister’s attempt to silence his
opponents. The Houses of Parliament will reconvene, and the Executive – Johnson
and his Cabinet – will be held to account.
Some people, however, are not cheering. For them, the
Supreme Court’s judgement is a further confirmation (as if one was needed!)
that the Anti-Brexit Establishment will stop at nothing to thwart the will of
ordinary Englishmen and Englishwomen. These people will not read the judgement:
they are not interested in a daft-looking old lady-judge’s high-falutin notions
of parliamentary sovereignty and executive accountability. All they know is
that in 2016 a majority of UK citizens voted to leave the European Union and,
ever since, the Powers-That-Be have done everything they possibly can to stop
them.
If the Powers-That-Be succeed, will that be the end of the
story? Will the people who “took back control” by voting to leave the EU simply
return to their high-rise flats, their semi-detached units, and their bleak
rows of cheaper-than-cheap housing, meekly accepting their appointed station in
life as the UK’s designated losers? The Powers-That-Be had better hope so.
Because, if they don’t, then the UK will find itself teetering on the brink of
civil war.
And what a topsy-turvy civil war it will be. This time
‘round, Parliament will not be embraced by the common people as the protector
of free-born Englishmen’s rights and liberties – as it had been in the 1640s.
This time it will be seen as the protector of the elites; the corrupt defender
of an over-educated aristocracy of posh bastards. This time, the Executive will
not play the role of the people’s enemy, but of their champion. King Boris,
thwarted at every turn by his parliamentary enemies, will appeal over their
heads to the people – and the people (half of them, anyway) will flock to his
banner.
Assuming, always, that his appeal reaches them. Much now
hinges on whether or not the tabloid press decides to do what it did the last
time the judiciary intervened in the Brexit saga – which was to brand the
offending judges “enemies of the people”. If the so-called “red tops” decide to
rouse the masses to revolt; if they call the people onto the streets; who will
stop them? To whom will the Police and the armed forces answer? The Speaker of
the House of Commons, John Berkow? Or, to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson?
It’s just possible that they will seek instruction from the
person to whom they swore allegiance when they first put on their uniforms:
“Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs and successors, according to law.” But, what
does that mean? The UK’s mysterious constitution insists that the Monarch can
only act upon the advice of her ministers – her Executive. But, if her
Executive is acting in defiance of, or attempting to silence, Parliament,
should its advice be heeded? According to this historic judgement of the UK
Supreme Court, it should not. Poor old Liz: she’ll be damned if she instructs
her Lord Lieutenants to uphold the law, and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t.
The first civil war saw the monarchy abolished (albeit temporarily) can it
survive a second?
All the UK prime ministers who have been summoned to the
Palace since Elizabeth II became Queen in 1952 have remarked upon her political
canniness. The woman knows better than most how her kingdom’s politics are
played. As this latest crisis unfolds, she will keep a watchful eye on the
opinion polls. If the opponents of Brexit continue to refuse to allow a general
election to be called to resolve the deepening constitutional impasse; and if
the polls all indicate that the Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party would be
returned to office by a landslide; then the Queen will have to think long and
hard about when and how, if at all, she should wield her “reserve powers”.
The British monarchy has only survived as a serious
institution by adapting itself to the needs and expectations of the British
public. If it allows itself to be positioned as nothing more than a powerless
adjunct of the political class; a rubber stamp to be wielded against the
British public – or, at least, its humblest members – on behalf of the
Powers-That-Be, then the love that has allowed it to endure for so long will
evaporate, and the monarchy will find itself in the hands of those who hold it
in thinly disguised contempt. If it loses the love of the ordinary people of
England, the Monarchy will not be saved by a neoliberal establishment which has
tolerated its existence only because it was too popular to abolish.
Thanks to her Supreme Court justices, Elizabeth Windsor may
soon be faced with a daunting choice: to become the “People’s Queen” – or their
last.
This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Thursday, 26 September 2019.
