One wonders how Her Majesty really feels about the de facto change in her legal status. Surely she knows that a single European state makes a mockery of her sovereignty over her realm? That, should it arrive, our ancient constitution will no longer be worth the paper it isn’t written on? That, if our spivs’ frantic efforts to rig the referendum succeed, such a state definitely will arrive?
Of course she does. Of course she hated every vapid word put into her mouth by a PM with the puny intellect and petty selfishness of a child and the moral sense of a skunk – and I hope my neighbourhood skunks won’t take too much of an offence at this comparison.
How Her Majesty must have suffered delivering her Queen’s Speech just five weeks before becoming, in all likelihood, at best part of the stage set in the Ye Olde England sideshow. Leave, Remain or Other – there’s only one thing our monarch should be talking about shortly before our monarchy disappears in all but name.
Yet, instead of our right to sovereignty, she talked about our right to high-speed broadband.
Instead of lamenting her leaderless government, she hailed the advent of driverless cars.
Instead of protecting our borders from aliens, she talked about protecting our children from porn.
Instead of regaining full control of our taxes, she talked about the vital importance of introducing a tax on foods deemed harmful this week.
Instead of putting criminals in prison, she talked about giving week-long releases to those already in.
Instead of stopping the influx of millions of migrants, she talked about charging some of them for some public services.
And oh yes, she did mention “taking steps” toward replacing Blair’s EU-imposed Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights. That’s another Dave gimmick inspired by the EU, akin to replacing the European Constitution with the Lisbon Treaty: a cosmetic change in words masking essentially the same message.
In fact any such act, whether originated by the EU or its British quislings, would be redundant and therefore potentially tyrannical, as all unnecessary laws are. For the way our rights have been protected by our ancient laws stacks up rather well against the record of continental Europe.
Since 1688, when the English constitution adopted its modern shape, France has been ruled by several variously carnivorous monarchies (constitutional or otherwise), an ad hoc revolutionary committee, a Directory, a military dictatorship, an emperor, five different republics and, from 1940 to 1944, by the Nazis, first de facto and then de jure. And Germany… well, we all know about her. Throughout that time, England’s legal system, her sage, moderate and balanced constitution, was the envy of the world, including such Enlightenment figures as Montesquieu and Voltaire.
Signposting the organic development of England’s constitution have been written documents, such as the 1215 Magna Carta, the 1679 Habeas Corpus Act, the 1689 Bill of Rights (that inspired a similar American addendum to their constitution), the 1701 Act of Settlement — well, this isn’t the place to get into the minutiae of constitutional history. This is a place, however, to suggest that we don’t need another document, inspired as it’ll have to be by foreign powers whose record in the area ill-qualifies them for providing such inspiration.
The Speech did include a few reasonable housekeeping details, but no one should be concerned about reducing the gas bill when his house is about to be repossessed. For a house to be kept, it has to be there, and ours is about to be taken away.
I haven’t had the honour of meeting Her Majesty and, should such an unlikely get-together occur, she wouldn’t divulge her innermost thoughts anyway. But it doesn’t take an expert psychologist to guess what they must be.
Instead of acting as the dignified regal personage she is, she came across as a woman forced to do something she abhors. My heart goes out to her.