It's anti-democratic - and holds Britain back

I was a teenager in suburban Liverpool when I decided I was a republican. It seemed to be a pretty easy act of rebellion a bit like wearing flared hipsters on Sunday. Yet it's a funny thing: like anyone halfway sensible, I've managed to jettison* almost everything that I held dear 30 years ago. Not republicanism. The older I get, the most implacably* I become convinced that Britain won't get some big questions right unless it dumps* the monarchy. Plainly, republican sentiment has risen in Britain during the monarchy's awful 1990s, but it's still a minority taste, and it will take more than few giddy* antics from Chuck, Di and the gang to convince most Britons that they are better off without the whole lot. Malcolm Frazer, an erstwhile conservative prime minister of Australia, has said that «the harsh reality is that the young royals have done the monarchy immeasurable harm». They certainly have: but the case for republicanism has to be made on principle, not on the sordid foolishness of the moment. The simple, straightforward case against monarchy is that in a democracy it is inappropriate for the head of state to be determined by heredity. Positions of public authority should, whenever possible, be acquired on merit and confirmed by democratic mandate. The obvious riposte is to note - as British monarchists have for a century -that the queen «reigns but does not rule», and to point to societies like the Netherlands and Denmark where democracy coexists with monarchy. Why not Britain?

Because Britain is different. In the 19th century, the British elite staved off revolution by giving a little bit of ground every few years to the forces of democracy. That was no doubt wise: but it has left modern Britain with a system of government that is in many ways premodern, and in which heredity still looms large. Arguably that mattered little until the 1980s. But it matters a lot now. For in the last 15 years, British society has been stood on its head. From a closed, inward-looking, placidly shabby sort of place, it has become an energetic, entrepre­neurial society with a diaspora spread across the globe. From a place in which everyone knew his place, it has become one of the most delightfully undeferential places on earth. Its institutions, from the BBC to labor unions, have been subject to withering fire. This, above all, is the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, who, when the history books are written, will be identified as the person who thrust a dagger into the heart of the monarchy. For at just the time when the British decided that authority had to be not inherited but earned, the monarchy went into a tailspin*.

The royal family, in one of the little phrases that we learned at school, was supposed to be a «mirror to our better selves». In the 1980s and 1990s, it became precisely the opposite - a dysfunctional family, alternately mired in Teutonic angst and screeching vulgarity, bouncing from nightclubs to grouse moors*, with experience of nothing (or, at least, nothing of relevance to most modern Britons), but an opinion on everything. To ask Britain to grant such a family authority and deference is to ask it to perform a feat of gymnastics which will, in the end, delay the necessary reform and modernization of its institutions. Isn't there anything good that can be said for the monarchy? A common argument is that is provides an indispensable* link with a nation's past, providing a symbol of national cohesion. Bunk*. Leave aside the miserable truth that at the moment the monarchy is not uniting Britain but dividing it. Remember, rather, that ending the monarchy does not mean abolishing history, or the shared assumptions that make up a society. I've just spent a few days in Paris, and though I'm guilty of the common British assumption that they order these matters better in France, in this case, they really do. French society is living proof that democracy and republicanism can coexist with a reverence* both for the past, for national cohesion, and with every society's need for some symbols of authority. You can still stand to attention for «God Save the Queen» but wish it had different words; at least, I can. Still, can't the genie* be put back in the bottle? I doubt it. Even if for some odd reason one thought that the Britain of the future would be a more successful society if it could rediscover deference, it strains belief to think that the monarchy can earn it. Tabloid culture isn't going to go away; on the contrary, it is (like TV in the United States) one of the things that make Britain what it is. Now that the royals have willingly stepped down from their pedestal, the British media are not of their own volition going to stick them back up there. Finally, can't the monarchy somehow become more (dread word) relevant to modern Britain? No, it can't. In a democracy, the only thing worse than a foolish monarch is an intelligent one. (Prince Charles's unique contribution to modern studies of royalty is to keep observers guessing which he is.) For an intelligent monarch will have influence, and an influential monarchy is precisely what cannot coexist with a modern democracy. Compelled by pop culture to live in the glare of the flashbulb but forced by democratic principle to a public role of trifling insignificance, the monarchy is doomed to limp on, its very existence a source of unhappiness and embarrassment. Better surely to prepare now for its dignified* end.

Michael Elliott, Editor of Newsweek International,

is a Briton living in Washington, D.C.

Vocabulary notes

to jettison игнорировать, пренебрегать

implacablyнепреклонно, неумолимо

to dump избавляться, бросать

giddyпустой, несерьёзный

tailspin резкий спад в экономике; хаос, паника, потеря контроля

grouse moor куропаточья пустошь (на севере Англии и в Шотландии; в частном владении крупных землевладельцев-аристократов; куропатки разводятся специально для охоты)

indispensable важный, необходимый

bunk чушь, ахинея

reverence уважение; почитание

genie джинн (из арабских сказок)

dignified достойный

Why the Monarchy Must Stay