Thirty years ago, many Australians wondered if it was logical for their country’s head of state to be a foreign monarch, the heir to the British crown. They saw it as a colonial relic. Isn’t it about time Australia had an Australian Head of State?
The debate took off. The Labor Party declared in favor of a republic. The Prime Minister, Paul Keating, was in favor of calling a referendum so that the people could have their say.
He visited London and decided that if he was going to call a referendum, he should tell Queen Elizabeth first, if only as a courtesy. She remained the country’s head of state. It was only logical that he should explain it to them personally.
Keating went to see her at Balmoral and explained to her that, in Australia, many people thought it was better for the head of state to be Australian and that the Government was proposing to call a referendum so that the citizens could decide whether they wanted him country was a republic or they preferred that it remain a monarchy and that the head of state be the king or queen of the United Kingdom.
It is said that Queen Elizabeth listened to him attentively, in silence. Keating insisted that it was nothing personal against her, but the desire of many citizens to have an Australian head of state. The queen listened to him, without saying anything. The silence was increasingly uncomfortable. Puzzled, Keating explained that his government thought a referendum was the best way to make a decision.
Finally, the queen smiled:
“Thank you very much,” he said. Fancy a gin and tonic?
And they spoke no more of the matter.
The anecdote – impossible to verify – says a lot. It sounds like a joke, but it’s not, or not at all. It is a sample of the temperament of the British monarchy. Offering him a gin and tonic, the Queen was telling Keating that he had earned it because of the paperwork he had to do. But he was also telling her that since there was nothing she could do about it, it was better if they had a gin and tonic and talked about other things.
In other words: with great subtlety, I was telling her that thank you very much for explaining all that to her, but that she was a constitutional monarch and that her obligation was to respect the will of the citizens, and that the decision to call a referendum belonged to her to him, as Prime Minister, and that it was up to her to accept her and accept whatever the Australian people decided.
It is this attitude that allows, in the 21st century, the British Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and members of the British Parliament, against all odds, to accept that they are subjects of a hereditary monarch and that that monarch is the head of State, approves laws, announces the political measures the Government proposes to take, declares wars and grants honors and titles of nobility to citizens.
Many British people think that one of the advantages of the monarchy is the continuity, the succession of monarchs for more than a thousand years, only interrupted during the eleven years of the revolutionary hiatus of the seventeenth century. If they were more fond of intellectual constructions they might talk about the sense of identity that the monarchy gives the British people, but because they live on an island and are very clear about who they are, they prefer to talk about tradition and a sense of permanence that the crown procures them.
Elizabeth II reigned for over seventy years. During his reign, the private life of the royal family and the public existence of the institution experienced moments of discordance.
It is possible that during the reign of Charles III there were also contradictions and turbulence, and for biological reasons it is highly unlikely that Charles III reigned for as many years as his mother. But this will not be of much importance as long as the crown continues to encourage the adhesion, with more or less enthusiasm, of the majority of citizens.
In the UK, members of the royal family are more popular than politicians. I wonder if one of the secrets of this membership is not the attitude of not having a say in anything – not even whether Australia should be a monarchy or a republic – the discipline of accepting at all times what the citizens decide.
The United Kingdom does not have a written Constitution, but the crown that since yesterday formally encircles Charles III is one of the key foundations of the country’s constitutional architecture.
It is most likely that it will continue to be as long as its holders understand that it is not a magical institution, but an earthly one at the service of the citizens, subject to their will. The strength of the British monarchy lies not in the power it has, but in what it has deprived others of having. Due to its existence, it has helped to prevent the rise of dictators, as in other European countries, during the last three centuries.
The Australians, by the way, held a referendum in 1999, decided that Australia would remain a monarchy and accepted Charles III as the country’s new head of state.
