Why I am protesting the Jubilee

Where to begin?  To start I would challenge your idea Brendon, that the privileged and the wealthy should predominantly have the keys to power.  We all have a stake in this country, rich, poor, wealthy, educated and not.  And many of those who fit that description pay tax.  Therefore they have already have a stake in the country and should by rights have a voice within the government.  There have been some remarkably effective ministers who could be classed as uneducated or undereducated.  A great example is Ernest Bevin.  After little formal schooling he began his working life as a dockworker, in Bristol no less, often earning less than a fiver a day.  And yet he rose up to become the Minister of Labour in WWII and then one of the best Foreign Secretaries (my dream job) in our history.  With his lack of education he still managed to help form NATO and navigate political minefields like the formation of Israel.

 Democracy is there to solve the problem of contemporary society.  If the representatives only a few small sections of that society it will be inadequate to do its job.  I would be quite happy to see more former tradespersons etc in the House.  If people don’t want them there, they simply won’t get voted in.  Avoiding that uneducated mass takeover you mentioned.  Simply put both the educated and the uneducated have something to offer.

 You bring up an often used argument used by monarchist supporters.  That of if a Presidency comes in, then won’t the same hangovers from British politics transfer to the Presidency.  To a certain extent this argument I acknowledge has merit, except for one glaring issue.  Doesn’t that say more about what is wrong about this country’s attitude to politics than anything else?  As soon as we talk about opening up politics we talk about how it will go wrong if we do?  We are simply a nation terminally negative about politics, and I think that is a damn shame.  In my view the monarchy acts as a convenient safety valve to public discontent.  But once the valve does its work, the impulse to action, to actually do something about our system’s ills goes.  And so we have greedy and corrupt politicians on the other and seemingly lofty monarchs on the other.  This country needs a radical shift in its attitude to politics.  We may laugh at the Americans and their Tea Partiers.  But you know what?  I admire their pluck.  I disagree with just about everything they believe in, except their idea of their duty to speak out against the wrongs (or perceived wrongs of their system).  We whinge too much and have not enough follow through.  The local election turnout bares testimony to our unhealthy attitude to politics.

The monarchy quite simply represent an ideal.  An ideal which I would argue when you scratch the surface, is not all that pretty, and in many ways is very ugly.  And this is coming from someone who actually reads history.  I couldn’t give a damn if anyone was born with a silver spoon in their mouth.  I was born in a well off family myself, not rich, but not worrying about money.  But then my parents didn’t start there and had to work hard to get there.  The issue I have with the monarchs is that they are born into privilege and status, by a specific structure in our society which I feel is outdated, wrong and an affront to democracy.  Take it or leave it.  That is what I believe.  You many call Cameron incompetent or what have you, but the Queen is an officeholder too and she and the institution she represents deserves scrutiny as much as any other.  They are not scrutinised enough in my view, and have on more than one occasion been evasive on the issue of greater transparency in the monarchy.  It is culturally acceptable to criticise and even demonise politicians, yet even doing the former with the Queen is considered worse than wrong.  I think this is a great affront to a free society.

As for political short term thinking, yes this is a problem.  But the monarchy hardly solves it.  Issue such as national debt and humans destroying their own planet can only be tackled by a change in political culture.  This has to come from the bottom up, simply we need to demand change more.  The monarchy is inadequate to bring that change about, in my view.

Pip, to answer your question I will tell you a little story.  My lecturer at uni told me about a conversation he had with a friend.  The friend asked him if he thought that the lecturer had a chance of stopping the Iraq War if he joined the March 2003 protests.  The lecturer said no, he knew the war would happen, but he went anyway.  Asked why he went he said that he went to the protest, to let the government know that although the war would go ahead, he did not agree with it and would use his democratic rights to express it.

It is similar with myself and this cause.  I would consider myself very lucky if the monarchy was abolished in my lifetime.  The way I see it my job as the Co-Ordinator for Republic in Bristol is to raise of the campaign as much as I can, and thereby expand the movement.  I am not going to settle for a majority opinion simply because they are the majority.  I believe differently, and in our free society (other than one object) I will express those views as I see fit.  All movements start small, and the debate itself at the moment I feel is distorted by misconceptions about what we are and what the monarchy is.  If I can help make debate more favourable to us before I reach a ripe old age, then I will be satisfied.  For other issues, I am a member of a political party and as such will never be a one issue pony.

And yes I realise that abolishing the monarchy won’t cure British political culture.  But it is a start.  And a post about what would cure British political culture would dwarf even this post.  I don’t hate monarchist supporters except those that accuse me of being unpatriotic.  I do this out of patriotism, because I believe my cause will improve the country for all.  Those who disagree with me but respect my views, I of course wish them well and respect theirs.