Why I would spoil my ballot in a referendum on the monarchy
If the monarchy can no longer represent something transcendent for the British people, it has ceased to truly be the monarchy; it becomes a perverse manifestation of modernity, and not of the eternal spirit of England.
It is probably necessary to preface this piece with my apathy to monarchism in general; I think monarchism is a unique and useful but by no means universal expression of the character and constitution of a people. The legitimacy and importance of a monarch is deeply entwined with the history of the dynasty in question – where it came from, its meaning to the population (not in the democratic sense) and, most importantly, its integrity as a representation of its people. A rather pertinent example of this is that it is difficult to see any comparable level of legitimacy in the modernist Bonaparte claimants of France as I can in the deposed House of Aisin-Goro in China.
And that is exactly what is in question here. The British monarchy is seemingly timeless, an expression of her people that takes us to England’s Saxon origins, and forward into its Saxon futures. Its spirit should be that of Spengler’s Egyptian concept of civilisation: an expression of a seamless process of history where both past and present are unified, permeated and living, stretching infinitely in both directions to remind the English of their eternality. A monarchy exists as an aspect and a manifestation of a nation’s essence; without that essence, it becomes a hollow simulacrum. It wears the trappings of an institution in imitation, much like the dwindling masses who fill the pews of the Church of England ritually over Christmas, never to attend again. Nobody but the most right-on of vicars would ever argue this occurrence constitutes that Britain is still truly a Bible-believing, Christian nation.
Argument from tradition in this sense simply does not alone suffice; the monarchy is old, it is an almost ancient English institution, but it is not a ‘tradition’ that stands on its own feet in the metaphysical sense. A monarchy is not a spiritual or moral set of principles: it is a representative channel through which the higher essence of those things is guided and maintained. It is through this lens that I draw my position.
I will personally be hosting a union jack-adorned barbecue for the Jubilee, and I very much appreciate that Queen Elizabeth successfully continues to meet the metric by which the monarchy and seemingly the monarchy alone is able to create such a transcendent state of identity and celebration among the English. Yet a sense of darkening already pervades. Not from the trending articles of our need for a serious republican movement. Nor from the perpetual national guilt whingers. And not the frantic ranting that royal pomp is ‘out of touch’ in a largely self-inflicted cost of living crisis, either. The real worry is that the monarchy will survive, but in the same form as the aforementioned Christmas services – and it is for this reason that I would spoil my ballot in a hypothetical referendum.
I am not voting for republicanism, the liberal-cosmopolitan underpinnings of which I wholly and totally reject, and the triumph of which would only formalise that which I detest. But there is no referendum by which I could guarantee that essence of monarchy I increasingly feel will be lost forever with the death of Her Majesty. A referendum would not be a referendum on the monarchy at all, but a choice on whether to maintain a desiccated imitation of it. My hope that Prince Charles will resist the tide is probably slim: former man of the conservatively-sympathising black spider memos and close friend of traditionalist academic and Sufi mystic Martin Lings now turned World Economic Forum associate bleating out sinister Malthusian talking points. His move toward the new money elite speaks for the colonisation of the royal family by the new world it must now inhabit – and this is to say nothing of Hollywood interloper Meghan Markle, or associate of arch-paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, Prince Andrew.
If the monarchy can no longer represent and enact something transcendent for the British people, and is instead reduced to nothing but an extension of the web of NGOs, financial institutions and hyper-liberal ideologues that rule the Western world, it has ceased to truly be the monarchy: it becomes a perverse manifestation of modernity rather than the eternal spirit of England. That is not to say England is finished; it will live on elsewhere. Heed the words of Richard Harris in the eponymous 1970 biopic as Oliver Cromwell: “The King is not England, and England is not the King.”
By all means rejoice and celebrate what’s left of this Jubilee week – I certainly will. But do so knowing that we may never have anything like it again.
