It’s the beginning of the end for the monarchy

In the next few years the monarchy is going to work harder and more ferociously than ever to cement public support in time for Prince Charles’ succession. The upcoming Royal wedding will be celebrated with a crazed fanfare like never seen before. Glossy editorials will commemorate the blue blood’s wedding with even more sickening adoration than in 2011. Plastic union jacks will be sold by the imperial ton and gaudy royal crockery will be trolleyed out in suburban bungalows across the nation.  Strange men in union jack suits will sleep on Windsor’s pavements 3 weeks before the day of the wedding. News crews will be cookahoop at such a spectacle- capturing their garish fancy dress devotion rather than advising them on a more suitable place to frequent. A local hospice perhaps? Giant life size Victoria sponge cakes depicting a waddling Prince George will continue to be baked by culinary royalists (I’m not even kidding).

In fact, long discredited commentators are already lining up to announce their long held “affection” for the aging Elizabeth; how her privileged and unelected grandchildren show so much “dignity” in their vast richness. The establishment media will goose step onwards, presenting the public with a never-ending conveyor belt of complimenting sycophants. BBC correspondents won’t question whether weddings for billionaire castle owners should be paid for by the tax payer. They won’t mention that the queen’s estate has been avoiding paying taxes through offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. They won’t question whether palace refurbishments should be paid for by the tax payer in an age of austerity, rising homelessness and NHS deficits.

But here’s the rub.

Well informed readers know better than anyone the monarchy’s sheer absurdity – but above all else they know the monarchy isn’t fit for purpose. And the very first death blow to the monarchy was inflicted this week. It didn’t come from anywhere within the UK and it shouldn’t be underestimated.

On Tuesday the Commonwealth met in secret to discuss who should succeed the now frail and 91-year old unelected head of state. Colonial subjects as it were, in the Royal’s back garden so to speak, deciding upon the end of the Commonwealth, as they know it.

Although the role of head of the commonwealth is technically not hereditary the thought of a meddling and unpopular Prince Charles as chieftain of another 53 countries is clearly too much to bear for some.  So, the Queen has been working in secret to try to ensure that “Prince Charles does succeed her”. Elizabeth has sent “senior officials around the world to lobby Commonwealth leaders.” Desperate indeed.

Prince Charles claims on his website that he is a “proud supporter” of the Commonwealth.  What will it mean if democracy and greater sovereignty continues to edge forward in the Commonwealth? If Charles fails to succeed? Further title stripping of Royals will likely follow in the years ahead.  This secret meeting might be the first organised attempt at restitution on the claims of our miserable monarchy.

The last few years have seen unimaginable political change not least in the form of Trump, the fracture of Syria and in the rise of viable left-wing alternatives in the West. Could we have envisioned change like this just several years ago?  A recent poll found that 63% of Australians now don’t want Charles to replace the Queen as their head of state. An Australian referendum on the matter has been proposed for 2022.

The Commonwealth, which represents 2.4 billion people on earth, can do better than a having a head of state who has been appointed only by virtue of his ‘noble’ birth.