{"id":5695,"date":"2022-09-09T19:22:10","date_gmt":"2022-09-09T17:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=5695"},"modified":"2022-09-09T19:22:10","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T17:22:10","slug":"queen-legacy-britain-medieval","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2022-09-09\/queen-legacy-britain-medieval\/","title":{"rendered":"The Queen and her legacy: 21st century Britain has never looked so medieval"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><i>Black suits, hushed tones, an air of reverence conceal the panic of an establishment that has just lost the main vehicle for justifying its privilege<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mint Press &#8211; 9 September 2022<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Anyone in the UK who imagined they lived in a representative democracy \u2013 one in which leaders are elected and accountable to the people \u2013 will be in for a rude awakening over the next days and weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">TV schedules have been swept aside. Presenters must wear black and talk in hushed tones. Front pages are uniformly somber. Britain\u2019s media speak with a single, respectful voice about the Queen and her unimpeachable legacy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Westminster, meanwhile, has been stripped of left and right. The Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Labour parties have set aside politics to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-IK9fRVP1C8\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">grieve as one<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Even the Scottish nationalists \u2013 supposedly trying to rid themselves of the yoke of centuries of an English rule presided over by the monarch \u2013 appear to be <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bsOCrmzlzwA\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in effusive mourning<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The world\u2019s urgent problems \u2013 from war in Europe to a looming climate catastrophe \u2013 are no longer of interest or relevance. They can wait till Britons emerge from a more pressing national trauma.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Domestically, the BBC has told those facing a long winter in which they will not be able to afford to heat their homes that their suffering is \u201cinsignificant\u201d compared to that of the family of a 96-year-old woman who died peacefully in the lap of luxury. They can wait too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Utterly bizarre moment here when BBC\u2019s Clive Myrie essentially says millions facing fuel poverty this year is \u2018insignificant\u2019 compared to news about the Queen. Just shows a complete disregard for potential suffering of millions.<\/p>\n<p>At least he was corrected somewhat by  colleague. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hQFv5F3dkl\">pic.twitter.com\/hQFv5F3dkl<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AaronBastani\/status\/1567926830035832833?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 8, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this moment there is no public room for ambivalence or indifference, for reticence, for critical thinking \u2013 and most certainly not for Republicanism, even if nearly a third of the public, mostly the young, desire <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/uk\/young-british-people-want-ditch-monarchy-poll-suggests-2021-05-20\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the monarchy\u2019s abolition<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The British establishment expects every man, woman and child to do their duty by lowering their head.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Twenty first-century Britain never felt so medieval.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Wall-to-wall eulogies<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are reasons a critical gaze is needed right now, as the British public is corralled into reverential mourning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The wall-to-wall eulogies are intended to fill our nostrils with the perfume of nostalgia to cover the stench of a rotting institution, one at the heart of the very establishment doing the eulogising.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The demand is that everyone show respect for the Queen and her family, and that now is not the time for criticism or even analysis.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Astonishing moment a cloud resembling Queen Elizabeth floats over English town just hours after she died <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/LLtvpYSKRb\">https:\/\/t.co\/LLtvpYSKRb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MailOnline\/status\/1568099793326538756?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 9, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indeed, the Royal Family have every right to be left in peace to grieve. But privacy is not what they, or the establishment they belong to, crave.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Royals\u2019 loss is public in every sense. There will be a lavish state funeral, paid for by the taxpayer. There will be an equally lavish coronation of her son, Charles, also paid for by the taxpayer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And in the meantime, the British public will be force-fed the same official messages by every TV channel \u2013 not neutrally, impartially or objectively, but as state propaganda \u2013 paid for, once again, by the British taxpayer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reverence and veneration are the only type of coverage of the Queen and her family that is now allowed.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Please take this moment to study, really study, the journalists working for the BBC, ITV and Ch4. Do they seem like fearless, independent, objective observers of the world, or more like fawning courtiers? This is the moment when the mask slips. Drink it in deeply&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1567970286154162179?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 8, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But there is a deeper sense in which the Royals are public figures \u2013 more so even than those thrust into the spotlight by their celebrity or talent for accumulating money.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The British public has entirely footed the bill for the Royals\u2019 lives of privilege and pampered luxury. Like the kings of old, they have given themselves the right to enclose vast tracts of the British isles as their private dominion. The Queen\u2019s death, for example, means the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have just <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/femail\/article-11196407\/William-Kate-Duke-Duchess-Cornwall-Cambridge.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">added the whole of Cornwall<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to their estate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If anyone is public property, it is the British Royals. They have no right to claim an exemption from scrutiny just when scrutiny is most needed \u2013 as the anti-democratic privileges of monarchy pass from one set of hands to another.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The demand for silence is not a politically neutral act. It is a demand that we collude in a corrupt system of establishment rule and hierarchical privilege.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The establishment has a vested interest in enforcing silence and obedience until the public\u2019s attention has moved on to other matters. Anyone who complies leaves the terrain open over the coming weeks for the establishment to reinforce and deepen the public\u2019s deference to elite privilege.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Continuity of rule<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Undoubtedly, the Queen carried out her duties supremely well during her 70 years on the throne. As BBC pundits keep telling us, she helped maintain social \u201cstability\u201d and ensured \u201ccontinuity\u201d of rule.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The start of her reign in 1952 coincided with her government ordering the suppression of the Mau Mau independence uprising in Kenya. Much of the population were put in concentration camps and used as <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2012\/apr\/23\/british-empire-crimes-ignore-atrocities\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">slave labour<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2013 if they weren\u2019t murdered by British soldiers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Comparisons between the UK and, eg, North Korea, are often unfair. But then you get this: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/065VJyXTGA\">https:\/\/t.co\/065VJyXTGA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Mark Curtis (@markcurtis30) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/markcurtis30\/status\/1568155981288284160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 9, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the height of her rule, 20 years later, British troops were given a green light to massacre 14 civilians in Northern Ireland on a protest march against Britain\u2019s policy of jailing Catholics without trial. Those shot and killed were fleeing or tending the wounded. The British establishment oversaw <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/derry-tony-blair-edward-heath-lord-church-b2001869.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">cover-up inquiries<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> into what became known as \u201cBloody Sunday\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And in the twilight years of her rule, her government rode roughshod over international law, invading Iraq on the pretext of destroying non-existent weapons of mass destruction. During the long years of a joint British and US occupation, it is likely that more than <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-iraq-deaths-survey-idUSL3048857920080130\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a million Iraqis died<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and millions more were driven from their homes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Queen, of course, was not personally responsible for any of those events \u2013 nor the many others that occurred while she maintained a dignified silence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But she did provide regal cover for those crimes \u2013 in life, just as she is now being recruited to do in death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Public service announcement:<\/p>\n<p>Thank you to the rest of the world for stopping whatever it was you were doing &#8211; warring, starving, dying &#8211; so we can focus on grieving for a rich old lady. Obviously her death is more important than your suffering<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1567972194612805637?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 8, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was her Royal Armed Forces that killed Johnny Foreigner.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was her Commonwealth that repackaged the jackbooted British empire as a new, more media-savvy form of colonialism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was the Union Jack, Beefeaters, black cabs, bowler hats \u2013 the ludicrous paraphernalia somehow associated with the Royals in the rest of the world\u2019s mind \u2013 that the new power across the Atlantic regularly relied on from its sidekick to add a veneer of supposed civility to its ugly imperial designs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Paradoxically, given US history, the special-ness of the special relationship hinged on having a much-beloved, esteemed Queen providing \u201ccontinuity\u201d as the British and US governments went about tearing up the rulebook on the laws of war in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Teflon Queen<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And therein lies the rub. The Queen is dead. Long live the King!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But King Charles III is not Queen Elizabeth II.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Queen had the advantage of ascending to the throne in a very different era, when the media avoided Royal scandals unless they were entirely unavoidable, such as when Edward VIII caused a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegazette.co.uk\/all-notices\/content\/103449\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">constitutional crisis<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in 1936 by announcing his plan to marry an American \u201ccommoner\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the arrival of 24-hour rolling news in the 1980s, and the later advent of digital media, the Royals became just another celebrity family like the Kardashians. They were fair game for the paparazzi. Their scandals sold newspapers. Their <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/4170083.stm\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">indiscretions<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cosmopolitan.com\/entertainment\/celebs\/a29802099\/prince-william-prince-harry-royal-feud-rift-timeline\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">feuds<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> chimed with the period\u2019s ever more salacious and incendiary soap opera plots on TV.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But none of that dirt stuck to the Queen, even when recently it was revealed \u2013 to no consequence \u2013 that her officials had secretly and regularly rigged legislation to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2021\/feb\/08\/royals-vetted-more-than-1000-laws-via-queens-consent\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">exempt<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> her from the rules that applied to everyone else, under a principle known as Queen\u2019s Consent. An apartheid system benefiting the Royal Family alone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By remaining above the fray, she offered \u201ccontinuity\u201d. Even the recent revelation that her son Prince Andrew consorted with young girls alongside the late Jeffrey Epstein, and kept up the friendship even after Epstein was convicted of paedophilia, did nothing to harm the Teflon Monarch.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QtBS8COhhhM\" width=\"520\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\">&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;span data-mce-type=&#8221;bookmark&#8221; style=&#8221;display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;&#8221; class=&#8221;mce_SELRES_start&#8221;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;\ufeff&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;\/span&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Charles III, by contrast, is best remembered \u2013 at least by the older half of the population \u2013 for screwing up his marriage to a fairy-tale princess, Diana, killed in tragic circumstances. In preferring Camilla, Charles traded Cinderella for the evil stepmother, Lady Tremaine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the monarch is the narrative glue holding society and empire together, Charles could represent the moment when that project starts to come unstuck.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which is why the black suits, hushed tones and air of reverence are needed so desperately right now. The establishment are in frantic holding mode as they prepare to begin the difficult task of reinventing Charles and Camilla in the public imagination. Charles must now do the heavy-lifting for the establishment that the Queen managed for so long, even as she grew increasingly frail physically.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The outlines of that plan have been visible for a while. Charles will be rechristened the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/agenda\/2020\/11\/prince-charles-the-10-actions-we-must-take-to-tackle-climate-change\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">King of the Green New Deal<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. He will symbolise Britain\u2019s global leadership against the climate crisis.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the Queen\u2019s job was to rebrand empire as Commonwealth, transmuting the Mau Mau massacre into gold medals for Kenyan long-distance runners, Charles\u2019 job will be to rebrand as a Green Renewal the death march led by transnational corporations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Which is why now is no time for silence or obedience. Now is precisely the moment \u2013 as the mask slips, as the establishment needs time to refortify its claim to deference \u2013 to go on the attack.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Black suits, hushed tones, an air of reverence conceal the panic of an establishment that has just lost the main vehicle for justifying its privilege.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[22,28,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-5695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-colonialism","10":"tag-media-criticism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5697,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695\/revisions\/5697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}