It’s been three decades since the last great crisis of the British Monarchy. In 1997, the House of Windsor’s cold response to the sudden death of Diana Spencer provoked a wave of public anger. As the popular history goes, one man saved them from the baying mob: the newly elected Labour prime minister Tony Blair.
It would not have been the course chosen by Keir Starmer. At the time the young lawyer was an avowed republican with something of a public profile. In the aftermath of Diana’s death, Britain’s commentariat was set alight with debate over a bold new book by Jonathan Freedland of The Guardian. In Bring Home The Revolution: The Case for a British Republic (1998), Freedland argued for the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords. In the acknowledgements page he thanked one Keir Starmer for “help, advice and inspiration”.
Fresh from inspiring the most sensational tract of British Republicanism since Tom Paine’s Common Sense, Starmer was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 2002. Thus his mellowing began. Privately, he joked about the irony of his new honorific. On the recesses of YouTube there exists a video clip of Starmer, in 2005, saying: “I also got made a Queen’s Counsel, which is odd since I often used to propose the abolition of the monarchy.”
Now he seems a full-throated supporter of the House of Windsor and a personal admirer of the King. A more republican-minded Labour figure says: “whether his position has really changed or whether he’s just a pragmatist in politics remains to be seen”. I reckon the Firm are unlikely to face much of a threat from this once-radical figure. But what of the parliamentary Labour party he leads?
While some of Labour’s early titans were all for the downfall of the monarchy, republicanism been something of a niche interest in a party whose history has often been as much about seeking a comfortable consensus with the establishment as fighting a class war. Even the lifelong republican Jeremy Corbyn, when he campaigned to be the party’s leader on a platform of speaking honestly about his principles, said that republicanism was “not a battle I’m fighting”. Like so many on Labour’s left he looked at the prospect of a slow, hard fight against the Windsors and decided that there were more achievable victories to be had.
The only explicitly republican campaign group within the party, Labour for a Republic, was only founded in 2011. In the last two years, since Labour won the election, it has had a stall in the party conference exhibition centre – a new development – and holds events with supportive MPs. But even keen participants admit that it is a fairly niche interest within the broad Labour movement. One of the group’s leading figures says: “We know that this is going to be a long debate. We’re not asking that Labour says in its manifesto that we want to abolish the monarchy. What we ask from the leadership is that we have a serious discussion about the monarchy and a recognition that this is a political issue.”
Despite the surreal arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor this week, I find that even the most anti-monarchy Labour MPs doubt they will be able to divert much parliamentary attention to real action, such as removing Andrew from the line of succession. The soft left of the Labour party have more important priorities as they try to steer Keir Starmer’s economic and social policy in a different direction after the fall of Morgan McSweeney. Most consider republicanism to be an indulgence of their student days, an eccentricity of the far left and an electoral liability (in that an anti-monarchy stance will recruit few voters and put off plenty). They may be right. Despite the Andrew scandal, which has been roiling since the death of Jeffrey Epstein and the former prince’s disastrous Newsnight interview in late 2019, public attitudes to the monarchy are slow-moving and don’t seem to have been hugely affected by the actions of this rogue royal.
But there are other targets in a campaign of what is described to me by one anti-Windsor Labourite as “chipping away at the monarchy’s power and its more outrageous powers”. Number one on the wish list is removing the royal family’s exemption from Freedom of Information law, which now seems indefensible. There is also the exemption from any obligations under the Equality Act, by which the rest of the government is bound. Next on the list could be changing the oath of allegiance so MPs declare loyalty to their constituents rather than to the King, his heirs and his successors. Further areas of interest include getting an answer as to where Mountbatten-Windsor got the £12m used to reach a settlement with Virginia Giuffre. Like the rest of the country, those hoping to “chip away” at the House of Windsor will be asking the broad questions of what the Firm knew and when.
[Further reading: The questions the royals can no longer ignore]
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Subscribe here to commentBetween retention and abolition there lies a range of measures that can be taken to bring Britain’s royal family into the 21st century. And if we cannot have abolition (an unlikely scenario), then modernisation would be a reasonable option. And what might modernisation look like? Many things, including: transparency (financial and legal); reducing the size of the monarchy to the immediate family; budget reform; and introducing clear definitions on what the royal family is (and is not) required to do. In short, make the royal family and head of State fit for purpose.
You Brits will never get rid of the windsors since they are only the tip of a very stratified iceberg. Unfortunately, neither will we Canucks, since we’re dead scared of opening discussions on the constitution. Both countries have bigger problems than the windsor soap opera
Two words for British republicans, President Farage.
Reply : – You can always – Vote him OUT!