The Spectre of Republicanism

A spectre is haunting the UK, the spectre of republicanism, and to a lesser extent, communism.

Recently, everyone's favourite producer of benighted drollery, Nigel Farage, said this:

"If we destroy the monarchy then we destroy something special about our country. Harry and Meghan are doing their very best to make that become a reality." - Tweet link

Come on, Nige, what's special about the monarchy? 

It's an anachronistic aberration that institutionalises its members by keeping them inured to centuries-old feudal dogma under the guise of "tradition" and "convention". The sort of traditions and conventions that actively negate any semblance of humanity that a royal might otherwise, albeit "accidentally", express. They are stripped of all of the qualities that we usually consider human and instead are compelled to live a strict and rigid life guided by incommunicable, nonsensical rules that were written the best part of a millennia ago. Being institutionalised in this way brings other problems to the fore, most notably the perpetuation of a culture of outdated colonial and otherwise bigoted attitudes. See Prince Phillip, or that ghoul Princess Michael Kent, for example.

To restrict people, a certain class, to a particular lifestyle based on what they were born into is a horrific act. None of the royal family has any real freedom nor privacy, nor are they touched by the laws that we common folk abide by. They are, in fact, alienated from the rest of society by right of birth. The last century is replete with evidence of this: The abdication of King Edward VIII because he wasn't allowed to marry an American divorcee, the tumultuous unfolding of multiple royal marriages in near real-time, the constant chase of the paparazzi that murdered Diana and haunt every waking moment of the royals, the noncery of Prince Andrew who appears oddly untouchable, and now Harry and Meghan's own abdication. 

Since the time of Cromwell, the monarchy has been politically castrated bar a few points where parliament allowed the Queen to intervene to protect her own wealth. They serve no real purpose other than being a spectacle for the gawping public-at-large and a cash cow for the corporate media. The relationship with the media is in reality almost symbiotic. The monarchy needs constant positive coverage from the media to justify its existence and the corporate media, in turn, gets tremendous profits. The argument that they bring political stability collapses like a lame horse as soon as you consider the fact that many European nations have an elected head of state and are far more stable than the UK is. And no, the Royals don't bring in more cash than they cost, that has been debunked so many times that it feels cliched for me to do it again.

Should the monarchy not have political, democratic, economic and social freedom like everyone else, though? I realise the irony in me, a socialist, claiming that everyone in the UK has all of the above when they obviously don't but if it's good enough for the rest of us, why isn't it good enough for the royals? Is there something wrong with our political order? Being part of an institution that has hereditary privilege entrenched in its very foundations means that there is no need for any of them to worry about such frivolous things. 

And what about the land they own? Most of it is ripe for rewilding or could be put to good productive use rather than being the proverbial golden goose for already rich-as-fuck aristocrats. Turn them into common lands and gardens, let the people once again till the land for their own benefit! 

I don't hate the royals as individuals, but I can only know of them what has been presented to me by the media, which suffice to say is probably either not a lot or untrustworthy. But I do with every inch of my being loathe the royal institution and all the backwardness it stands for and thrusts upon those under its thrall. Combined with the political class and the media, they form an almost impenetrable ideological bulwark - British capitalism is maintained as being synonymous with the Crown and an attack on one is an attack on the other. You criticise the monarchy, you're an enemy of the state! If you criticise British capitalism, you must hate Britain!

It is a backward, amoral and decadent institution that circumscribes its members with feudal tradition and spectacle. It is a cash cow for the media (yes, I've said that twice for emphasis) and a political convenience for the establishment in that the political class can pretend that they are at least subordinate to some sort of authority rather than their own whim. 

The monarch, as sovereign, further serves as the dictatorial element of the state. Think about it: Who is it that gives assent to laws passed through the parliament? It is not parliament itself, it is the sovereign. Who's power does the government claim to wield, when legislation must be given immediate assent in times of crisis? The sovereigns. Thus, the state wields the power of the sovereign as a means to bypass democracy. The state wheels out an effigy of the sovereign whenever it needs to assert its dominance or enact a state of emergency, which can be literally anything they want. 

And from whom is it that we have learnt these lessons? The Nazis, of course! Philosopher and Nazi, Carl Schmitt, documented and wrote extensively on how easily liberalism can collapse into a dictatorship, something that we're seeing signs of today. All we need is for Johnson and the rest of the Tory jackboots to enact a permanent state of emergency as a pretext for mass political repression.

Nationalists want the monarchy retained as a totem of Britishness, even if it means the continuation of hideous royal conventions such as consanguinity - also known as "keeping the bloodline pure by inbreeding". The self-worth of nationalists is, for some reason, intimately tied to the mere existence of these totems which they are quite happy to worship despite having less than a percentage of the monarch's total wealth. This uncritical worship must amount to some form of internalised self-flagellation considering that nationalists, like all other workers, earn their wealth through sweat and toil whilst the monarch sits on a literal throne of gold and implores the nation to "live within its means".

Can they not see the hypocrisy?

The abolition of the monarchy is not an anti-British endeavour, though. It would be, in fact, an all-around kindness; one that would liberate its members from the cruel and unyielding vigour monarchy perpetuates, and one that would finally allow the rest of society to progress beyond its otherwise medieval trappings.

Monarchy is a cloak that envelops the real human from birth. It confers upon its members certain conditions which by right of birth they must adhere to. 

All humans are born into material conditions beyond their control. They are indoctrinated into the beliefs of their parents and the world around them. Those beliefs are almost always the beliefs of the ruling class. There is no part of the UK population where this is more self-evidently true than it is within the monarchy where an institution has been established, The Firm as it's sometimes called, to guarantee indoctrination of new members into the "proper" way of life.

It is that cloak of monarchy that needs to be abolished and cast into the great dumpster fire of history. Only then can the human underneath, who is veiled by the mysticism of monarchy, be free.

So, if you consider yourself a patriot as our comrade Nigel clearly does, is it not patriotic to release your fellow countrymen from the bonds of the archaic, backward institution of which they are part? Patriots should want liberation from the bloody malodorous machinations of empire and the decadence of the old ruling classes. They should absolutely want equality in the form of the abolition of class, the only equality that makes any sense: No gods, no masters and certainly no bloody monarchy!

What's the point in keeping The Firm when it is on the whole irredeemably archaic and antithetical to a civilised society? Some might say that a better idea would be to overthrow the entire state of affairs and get the job done in one hit.

Actually, let's do that instead.

Liberty, fraternity and equality are waiting.

Rest in peace, Prince Philip, 1921 - 2021

The revolution of 1688 where parliament was asserted as being above the Crown