It’s good to know that amid the fawning frenzy that passed for balanced media coverage of Friday’s royal wedding, the 20% of us who identify as republicans did eventually receive some representation in the emerging pictures. The above, now famous image somehow manages to capture our position within the nation perfectly. As the newly-wed couple loom large on the balcony, a wonderfully stroppy looking girl is hunched over at the bottom of the picture, looking like she’s been forced into a dress she didn’t want to wear, covering her ears to block out the hysteria and presumably wanting the whole thing to end as quickly as possible!
To be honest, I think that little girl may have been the most mature person on the mall. It certainly wasn’t a good day to be in that 20%, with near demented levels of celebration accompanied by much dick swinging from the right (e.g here, here and particularly here). Many have asked republicans why we can’t just put the politics to bed for a day and enjoy the spectacle of two people who love each other getting hitched. I can only speak for myself, but for me the frustration goes wider than the celebration of servitude to desiccated, archaic and unelected rule. My bewilderment goes wider still than at just the collective blindspot it seems to represent in the nation’s supposed love of fairness and meritocracy. First and foremost, it’s about an entire conservative establishment given renewed reason for hope.
Our upper chamber in this country is entirely unelected and still contains members there by virtue of bloodline or what god they believe in, our lower chamber is dominated by the executive and elected via a creaking electoral system, and both are governed by impenetrable layers of convention and pomp which determine everything from the daft language members are required to address themselves in to parliamentary procedure itself. Nowhere is there a written constitution codifying limits to executive power or enshrining the political and economic rights citizens can expect to receive.
This has long been past fit for purpose in the 21st century, and is comparable to virtually no other democratic country. It is profoundly undemocratic, elitist and at least contributes to the disaffection with politicians which is such grist to the anti-republican mill (“You don’t want President Blair, do you?” they snort).
But it’s the monarchy which keeps the lid on this whole ludicrous, creaking constitutional arrangement - both formally and discursively. Almost every attempt or suggestion at decent constitutional reforms meets with a status quo patrolled by exactly the same sort of self-satisfied, whimsical bunkem paraded over the last few weeks: what we have is “quirky but peculiarly British”, “it works”, “it’s tradition”, ad nauseum.
The laughable notion that the royals are ‘just like us’, or that Middleton’s ascendency to the aristocracy represents a vindication of social mobility, is also in its own way quietly pernicious. Through personalising the institution it quite obviously masks the unimaginable disparities in wealth and influence between the average member of the royal family and the average Briton, including the Middletons. It also in its own small way serves those who want to bury discussion about similar inequalities in wider society and especially the still resoundingly white, male, upper-middle class nature of our political and legal establishment. We shouldn’t be surprised that wealthy, crusty old twerps like Nicky Haslam have taken to the air since Friday lunchtime to announce, “I hope that the English will now drop this terrible class consciousness about middle class and working class. We’re all commoners except the Royal Family” (26m50s in).
The point here is that the monarchy is a fundamentally political construct. I’m not sure everyone – particularly those in my generation - who celebrated yesterday so fervently entirely understand that; that what they are buying in to when they line the streets for a look at The Dress or flaunt a bit of ‘kitch’ merchandise is not a mere figurehead or a bit of quirky nostalgia, it is an entire political order. Hence the crowing of the right (and that Toby Young piece is worth linking to again as the best example).
It is also an utterly bizarre, outdated view of Britishness. Since when was it British to revel in being a complete anachronism within the democratic world? More to the point, the supposedly ‘positive image’ the monarchy reinforces is only that of us as the curious, crumpet-eating eccentrics popular in American mystique. But since when did this align with most people’s experiences of day-to-day reality in 2011 Britain? And since when was just being seen the same as being taken seriously? There’s an element of tragedy here - of glorifying vessels of our autocratic and imperial past (military uniforms et al) because it mausolates images of a time long gone, a time when we took up a place as the superpower at the front of the world’s stage. It’s like a Brit in America who indulges in stereotype by suddenly developing a far more accentuated, tweed accent than he uses at home, enjoying rather than cringing every time he’s excitedly asked to pronounce “bath” or “city”! It all speaks not to our pride in Britain, but to our lack of confidence.
Isn’t it time we grew up a bit as a nation? Isn’t it time we let go, and brought what it means to be British into the 21st century? There’s so much that we can lay claim to being proud of (the NHS, broadcasting and music, literature) without the need to cling in unashamed deference to a crumpled, archaic and completely insane bunch of aristocrats – or other equally tatty clichés of our heritage - which, in the grand scheme of things, make us look ridiculous and sets back democratic advance.
Maybe I should calm down a bit. Perhaps, as Dan Hodges says, some of us should just relax and learn to pick our battles a little better. But I just can’t help feeling that in a culturally rich, complicated and alert 21st century country, we can do better – that’s all. I’m not angry, Britain, I’m just disappointed.
