This is addressed to all those who consider themselves to be ‘Conservatives’, in one form or another. I will await your reply, but, alas, I do not think that after this address you will have any legitimate rebuttal or argument against what is about to be laid out against you.
This is a letter, a commentary, an observation if you will on the Jubilee celebrations taking place across the United Kingdom at this present time. I hope to look back on this week fondly, not to remember Elizabeth Windsor, but to remember the beginnings of a necessary and long overdue departure for many from the so-called ‘Conservative’ party, or side.
For many years, practically my entire life, I have never been exposed to a community of any meaningful sort. Football teams came and went, after-school clubs were attended, hobbies briefly held then surrendered. My mother even tried to bring me to our local Catholic church, yet she relented in the face of my apathy and petulance. Suffice to say, for all my study of antiquity and the medieval world, I had scant real understanding of what community meant, or what ritual and celebration was.
I begin this address like this because I wish to first empathise with the conservative, the person reading this. Even though you may lean bravely centre-right, and more likely than your centre-left counterparts to have been raised in some sort of religious background, I strongly doubt that you have any sense of a firm community. If you are older than me, and that is possible, then you will more likely than not have memories of a world were there was, in fact, a significantly stronger sense of community in your local area. Perhaps this is what you seek to build, in some small way, by your ‘conservativism’.
In all honesty, however, it is most likely the case that we both have suffered from a concrete community in our lives, and have turned digital in order to find it - be that on forums, within video games, social media etc. I am guilty of this. The digital world has been my refuge more often than not. It is not all bad, but it is no substitute for a real community.
Now then, let us turn to the subject of this address - the Platinum Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
For seventy years, Elizabeth has reigned over the United Kingdom and a dwindling number of overseas territories. Truly, she has been a light. A light from a torch, switched on and off to the tune of whatever government has been in power during her reign. In truth, I cannot blame her entirely for her weakness and uselessness. Since 1689 (perhaps even earlier) the United Kingdom has continually weakened and embarrassed the role of the Crown in favour of the bourgeois, the landed gentry, the emerging proletariat or whatever organised group has successfully agitated for over the centuries.
This is not a history. There are those far more able and eloquent to tackle such questions. But, it is important to understand, any monarch that opens Parliament with a commemoration of a Civil War where her (distant) predecessor was executed for ‘treason’ against his own people (a convenient excuse for a power grab) then that monarch will always be impotent.
But, reader, there is fault to be found with Elisabeth. There have been egregious changes to our society over the past seven decades, and she has done nothing to stop it. She has failed, utterly, to act in any heroic spirit. Desperate to keep a failing country and union together, she has only ever risen to being a tool of those far more powerful and cunning.
‘But, noctorious, that’s the point. It’s a constitutional monarchy! She gives us stability! If she didn’t pass an Act of Parliament, there would be civil war!’ the ‘conservative’ howls. Indeed, and while I doubt that the masses of the country could endure civil strife and the hardships and suffering that would mean, this objection belies the liberal nature of your point of view.
Liberal democracy is an attempt, as far as I can see, to use the traditions of a nation to hide the oligarchic two-party state it creates on purpose, for its own ends. I once bought into this idea. I once thought that team red, and team blue, shouting at each other over how high VAT ought to be (17.5 or 20%), how quickly we should enact gay marriage, how team blue is on the brink of fascism because it doesn’t really understand, or see why, arbitrary quotas of trans immigrants should make up the House of Commons. After all, Parliament should represent the people, right? And soon it will do.
Soon it will be full to the brim - on both sides, on both teams - with trans, queer, ‘persons of colour’, disabled, immigrants (maybe even non-British citizens, wouldn’t that be super progressive guys?) and the like. You can see where I’m going.
And if you have no issue with that, then I suggest you stop reading now. If you think that being ‘progressive’ is desirable, and you honestly call yourself a progressive, then I strongly urge you to stop. And think. If you are a progressive, and your opponents are progressives, what are you arguing about? Tax rates? How many immigrants big business ought to have access this year - one million or two? If you think that you will be able to sustain your opposition to kids being taught they are transgender - think again, buddy.
Don’t bother watching the news or reading the papers. Just listen to the most radical of your opposition, and embrace it. They are pulling you along. Your party pays more attention to them than any annoying constituent, with any bothersome talk about the state of the nation they supposedly represent.
Yet, you may ask, how does this relate to Queen Elizabeth? The Platinum Jubilee, and the merriment and celebrations?
It is relevant, if not entirely fundamental, to reflect on what you are conserving. Protecting. If the only reason you are on team blue is because you want to pay less tax, or want to protect your quiet village from the unwashed hordes north of Watford, then you’re not really very conservative, and I can confidently discount that you pose any political worth or agency.
Now, if you sense that our country is missing something, say a sense of community or if you’re trying to figure what ‘British values’ are, then hear me out.
Maybe, just maybe, our Head of State should embody what we all strive for. Maybe, just maybe, our Head of State ought to underpin our shared national community, the community upon which all are based upon. A true pillar of strength, hope, and example upon which an entire nation may turn to in times of peace and plenty, and war and famine. Not an easy burden to bear.
Yet, dear reader, our Elizabeth, our Queen, stands for nothing. Her defenders say that she is a symbol of unity - of service - of duty - but to what? Our country and very way of life has undergone deliberate, radical transformation. The UK of her coronation - 1952 - is long gone. Why did she not protect it?
The UK of the 60s, 70s, 80s….you get my point. Successive governments and elites have repeatedly changed the country, both economically and socially, to a point unimaginable. I repeat this point because Her Majesty is touted as a symbol of unity, but I do not understand what we have in common? She somehow represents ‘multiculturalism’, does she? LGBTQ+ and British Muslims? Orthodox Jews and Anglicans? Feminists and Roman Catholics? Atheists and Pagans?
No. She represents one thing, and one thing alone. She represents the ‘feels’ of the establishment, and makes their bosoms warm and fuzzy. An excuse to distract the people, a hammer to preserve the status quo. She has protected nothing, surrendering to weakness and helplessness from her first day on the throne1.
There is no animating vision, no reason for being, of the United Kingdom anymore. The Empire is gone. So be it. The Scottish wish to have new masters in Brussels. Very well. There are whispers of English vitality and purpose once again2, but that will have to wait for a different post. What I am trying to get at, is that Queen Elizabeth II is a prop.
She is a brand, something to adorn plates, mugs, and flags. She is no true Queen.
To the conservative still reading, I want you to now take a moment and reflect on the response to this Jubilee. The street parties and flags. The TV programming and attention. The cheers, jets, and parades.
Imagine, just for a second, that this was all put towards the real nation underneath.
Imagine that this energy and passion was put towards breathing life back into our country, pushing it forward, driving to expand. Because great empires are not maintained by timidity.
It is quite curious how Victorian sensibilities - ‘stiff upper lipness’ - has pervaded our national consciousness. We are over a century on from the Victorians. Perhaps we ought to change our thinking? Rock the boat a little?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10831007/PETER-HITCHENS-England-leave-UK-embrace-golden-future.html