Until now, there has never been a platinum jubilee in British history for the simple reason that no monarch of England or Scotland has ever reigned long enough. That is about to change. In six weeks’ time, on 6 February 2022, Elizabeth II will have reigned for 70 years. It is a formidable feat of longevity, and of much else besides. And the royal record book is not full yet. If she remains on the throne until the summer of 2024, the Queen will become the longest-reigning European monarch of all time, eclipsing even the 72 years of the Sun King himself, Louis XIV of France.
The Queen’s anniversary will be marked by events throughout 2022, in much the same way as the silver, golden, diamond and sapphire jubilees were marked before it. The climax, during a four-day bank holiday weekend at the start of June, will be comfortably familiar and a great public attraction: street parties, a televised concert, a thanksgiving service, a pageant, a flypast and a royal visit to the Epsom Derby. It promises to be an outpouring of national affection for the Queen and a feelgood event for a country that has been noticeably deprived of fun recently.
And yet, although the jubilee formula is well established and well liked, there should be no mistaking that this one will be different. The central difference concerns the part that the Queen herself will be able to play. By the time of the bank holiday weekend, she will be 96. Though she has been, until recently, one of the most active nonagenarians imaginable, she is now clearly slowing down. The House of Windsor’s private motto is said to be that the monarchy must be seen to be believed; the platinum jubilee may be a celebration of a monarch who may be scarcely seen at all.
Break the taboo
There is no reason why any of this will or should detract either from the 2022 jubilee itself or from the public’s enthusiastic celebration of the Queen over the coming months. But the difference from earlier jubilees underlines that the old order is passing. The overwhelming majority of us have no memory of anyone other than Elizabeth II on the throne or of anyone other than a matriarch embodying the monarchy to Britain and the world. Yet it will not be long before there will be a new monarch, a king, who will face the task of remaking the compact between the crown and the public in his own way. The British monarchy is therefore on the threshold of a new phase after this long, stable – and feminised – period in its history.
This is something that those who are directly involved have been quietly discussing and planning for years. The expectation is that this jubilee is likely to be the last major royal occasion before the death of the Queen and the succession of King Charles III. The detailed manuals for these events exist and have been regularly revised. Yet this official preparedness for change in the monarchy does not extend, and is generally discouraged from extending, to the British public.
This newspaper believes that Britain needs to talk more – and talk more publicly and seriously – about what should come next. As a nation, we are not good at doing this, partly out of deference to the Queen. The family dimension of the Windsors’ lives is endlessly reported and discussed in the media, while television dramas like The Crown generate vast audiences. But the practical constitutional questions about how this monarchy should work in a modern democracy are still treated as almost completely taboo.
This is a humiliating situation. The role of the monarchy and its place within democracy, the state and the rule of law are serious questions. They are, in their way, as important as questions about the electoral and parliamentary systems, the powers of government and how laws are made and changed, all of which intersect in various ways with the monarchy. The monarchy enjoys enviable public support, in part as the embodiment of national stability, but the public also wants it to be a modern monarchy, embodying today’s values. There is a need to talk about all this, and to talk about it before the change happens, not after it has already happened.
A question for modern Britain
The best way for this to start is in Britain’s parliament, through a select committee – possibly specially convened for the purpose – that can take and collect evidence in public, including from members of the royal family and household if necessary, about a large range of issues. These could include the appropriate constitutional, political and military roles of the monarch, including with other nations; the regulation, financing and accountability of the monarchy; the size of the royal household maintained by the state; the laws of succession and the appropriate ceremonies for the inauguration of the new monarch, including their religious dimension, the coronation and the coronation oath.
These issues are an important case in point. The next coronation will be a tourist money-spinner for Britain. But it will also have immense constitutional meaning. The oath that the new monarch swears embodies issues of church and state that are especially problematic in a nation with an established church, and in which less than half of the public describe themselves as religious believers of any kind. The sacral anointment behind a screen of the monarch as a person set apart from the nation and its laws is an especially remarkable challenge for a multi-faith and often largely secular nation. No other constitutional monarchy in Europe attempts all this any longer. Most have decided that the succession is for parliament to decide and administer. Why not Britain too? Let’s at least talk about it.
If there is not a serious effort in the very near future to formulate and discuss these questions about the new reign in public, we will one day find that they have already been answered pre-emptively by the monarch-to-be and senior civil servants, but without any public involvement. That contains risks, including for the monarchy, which Britain is unused to confronting during the Queen’s long reign. What should happen in future to our constitutional monarchy is an entirely proper question for modern Britain to consider, especially now and during the celebrations of 2022. The questions are parliament’s business and they are the public’s business too. They should not be concealed or brushed aside as something that is nothing to do with the rest of us.