The Queen
I genuinely don’t care about the British royal family. The UK needs to be a republic. Because I don’t care, I can’t connect with people getting angry about them either because, they just do not matter to me. I’ve ignored them as much as possible my whole life.
I’m also learning from people around the world about crimes of the British Empire- that I suspected in various ways but never had enough knowledge of because- no Empire teaches that to its own subjects.
The UK is experiencing pervasive non-stop propaganda, it’s unavoidable. I tried to find out some information about Manchester airport to pick up my relatives yesterday and I had to get through a splash screen about the Queen just to get to the website. It’s insane.
At the same time as I’m learning from other people, hearing their anger and what it all means for them, there’s also this weird thing going on with the nation that I’m not a part of. This death has a big influence on the UK. My parents have lived their entire lives with the Queen being head of state. 70 years. She’s been head of state so long that it had this kind of feeling of permanence, that it would always be that way. Like she wasn’t going to die.
It’s hard to explain what the monarchy is to British people, it will mean very different things to different British people but, it’s all very weird and this is another part of it. When I was a little child in infants school, about 6 years old, I remember being taken by the school, all of us to the main road to wait for an hour to wave little flags while the Queen was driven past at 40mph. I can still remember the black Rolls Royce, but I barely saw anything else. I explained the story to my Dad recently and he sat there and said- he remembers doing exactly the same thing 60 years ago when he was a child. That’s the depth we’re talking about- millions of very young children brainwashed their entire lives with the same thing, for decade after decade. What do you call a nation scale cult? A religion?
A friend and I talked months ago about how when the Queen dies, it will be a referendum on the royal family and this country becoming a republic. Charles isn’t popular and nor should he be. We expected a huge onslaught of propaganda, the last big huge attempt to save the monarchy vomited up from the British establishment- then, when it fades- people seriously asking the question that surely it’s time to look at getting rid of it. Except, the Queen died one day after electing a dangerously stupid new Prime Minister with the whole country on the edge of widespread disaster.
The UK government is being suspended for another 2 weeks, but it’s already been in suspension for months while the country slides into an abyss. All around Europe countries had their emergency sessions and already made emergency budgets in preparation for a winter crisis (of their own making). Not in the UK. Boris Johnson resigned but refused to leave office shutting everything down while he went on several holidays. Everyone else has been holding their breath wondering how they’re going to survive into the next financial year.
The new leader Truss did her first speech saying she would cut taxes. THE NEXT DAY she announced a plan to spend £150 billion on energy bills and told everyone she would explain the details tomorrow.
The day after they’ve said they’re going to implement the plans but not explain them, while they disappear for two weeks, meaning there may never be any scrutiny. They’re going to tax every citizen in the country the £150 billion like another mortgage- and hand all the money to the private energy companies. At the same time as Truss did her first speech it was quietly announced the largest donation to the Truss campaign was from BP. Truss used to work for Shell.
The people in Truss’s cabinet are hardcore right-wing neoliberal ideologues who literally wrote a book on how to completely sellout the country. The reason I was on the Manchester Airport website in the first place is that it’s a private airport, the government sold it. You have to pay £5 for 5 minutes to drop anyone off, it’s £6 for 30 minutes to pick anyone up. The airport is understaffed to increase profits, uses robots at passport control that often don’t work, which increases delays which makes them more money in both the car parks and offering things like fast track lanes in passport control- pay £5 to get through quicker. My uncle was delayed an hour in passport control, because I’d planned ahead, I was waiting several miles away with all the other taxi drivers and people on a surrounding housing estate otherwise it would have cost me £20- for the delay, caused by the airport in the first place.
Why was I picking them up from the airport by car? UK rail strikes- the trains, tracks and services are privatised.
Copy and paste this across public life- road tolls, fully privatised healthcare, no employment rights or protections, no housing rights or protections. All the things we have to look forward to under new leadership.
EU flags at half mast- unelected anti-democratic ideologues recognise their own.
So The Queen, something that has been there my whole life, my parents whole life and is a huge part of British identity- isn’t there anymore. The money needs to change, flags, signage, plus international flags, signage, currency…
Meanwhile it’s all being used as a massive distraction to screw everyone over. Also at the same time the event does mean something to a lot of people in this country. Most of them are brainwashed of course but lots of them are just normal people who see a person who they thought was a nice woman and they are sad about the death of a complete stranger they felt connected to. I remember the same kind of hysteria over the death of Princess Diana. Diana never really did much, at all. But she was built into a Mother Teresa figure who was portrayed as a saint. Ironic perhaps, because Mother Teresa wasn’t exactly who she was portrayed as either.
The Queen of England was the figurehead of an extremely evil Empire, but, she did that job very well. And that’s the powerful contradiction that is hard to articulate. To her victims she’s evil incarnate. To lots of British people she’s this weird supreme civil servant who never did any wrong, was always dependable, always discreet, noble, consistent- a paradigm of virtue. She was there but not there, like a benevolent demigod that’s been alive so long it seemed like she wouldn’t die.
And it’s just impossible to reckon with all these contradictions simultaneously right now. Especially for me because I don’t connect to any of it emotionally.
I want the monarchy to end. But hating people as part of that really means nothing to me. At the same time this is only my perspective, and it has nothing to do with all the voices I hear from all over the world who have righteous anger.
It’s a global event, a truly global deep historical event because the Queen echos back into history directly to the British Empire, nobody else does. Nothing else like this does.
Lots of people might ask- why should they care? Well I agree to that sentiment. What I do worry about is that Liz Truss is genuinely reckless in a very real way- she is arrogant and no has no idea how stupid she is. Aggressive, with no comprehension of danger- like a true idiot, blundering in making threats at people as if the UK has any real power in the world whatsoever. It all adds to a hostile global environment already on the brink of war in many places.
The first foreign leader to speak to the newly elected Liz Truss was Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That doesn’t bode well.
