Well well. This is the cover of the latest issue of The New European: “Monarchy. RIP.” The actual headline is “Does The Firm have a future? In a jubilee year, the Queen is hugely popular. And yet the monarchy’s future is uncertain once she departs the stage.” The piece is by Clive Irving and you will be surprised by how critical it is. Irving compliments Queen Elizabeth II, of course, but he also makes her sound like a relic of a world which does not exist anymore. The point of the piece is the same point that many have made in recent years: when QEII is gone, the British monarchy will go through some things. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:

The Queen’s health: The Queen’s health suddenly became an issue. And concerns about the mortality of the monarch have inevitably led to questions about the mortality of the monarchy itself. In November, the Queen was driven from Windsor to the King Edward VII hospital in London where she was detained overnight for unexplained “preliminary investigations”. After that, the palace seemed evasive about her condition. And it was nearly five months before she was able to make another public appearance, at Westminster Abbey for a service of thanksgiving for the life of her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip.

The re-emergence of Prince Andrew & the disastrous Flop Tour: The consequences of that appearance were, to say the least, unfortunate, particularly abroad. After months of banishment from public life, Prince Andrew re-emerged as his mother’s escort, supporting her in and out of the abbey as she walked with the help of a stick. While it was good to know that she was mobile again, the apparent rehabilitation of Andrew sent a message that the Windsor court, if not the Queen herself, did not care that, for most of the world, Andrew’s banishment for his entanglement in the sex-trafficking network of Jeffrey Epstein was well merited and should have been permanent. This, along with the fiasco of a royal tour of the Caribbean by Prince William and Kate just days before that at times resembled a rerun of a 1950s grand imperial progress through the colonies, suggested that the House of Windsor did not understand the peril it faced once the Queen was gone.

Does Charles actually know how to modernize? Whether Charles has the kind of executive grasp to carry out such a task is questionable. The Queen’s move to permanent residence at Windsor Castle has exacerbated the impression that the management of the firm is unravelling. There were already failures of communication and coordination between the Queen’s court, now split between Buckingham Palace and Windsor, and the one established by Charles at Clarence House, which seems to think and behave like a restless new court-in-waiting.

Everything changed in 2017: Internecine tensions have gone unchecked since the departure in 2017 of Christopher Geidt, who in 10 years as the Queen’s private secretary was said to have been “the safest pair of hands” she ever had. His rule ended because of complaints to their mother from both Charles and Andrew. Charles wanted to take over more of the Queen’s work than Geidt thought appropriate, and Andrew complained that Geidt was too keen to police his business projects and spending habits.

Bad management: Clarence House said that Charles “had no knowledge of the alleged offer of honours”. There were echoes here of the claim, following Meghan Markle’s complaint about racism and the lack of diversity in the staffing of the royal household, that this had come as a surprise to the family. In this case, the “no knowledge” defence is similarly self-indicting. When a business has your name on it there is a fiduciary duty (if not a moral one) to keep an eye on it. You can’t just slink away into the bushes when it blows up.

KP is a minor player?? If Charles is serious about bringing about significant systemic change to the apparatus of the monarchy, he could start by consolidating the management around one court, not three (the third, the Cambridges’ at Kensington Palace, is a minor player).

The collective monarchy: Once this set-up becomes clear, with tentacles sliding into many corners of the nation’s business, it becomes obvious that diminishing or abolishing the monarchy in one clean and bloodless strike wouldn’t be easy. “The collective monarchy” has a mutual interest in the continuity of the crown. One of the most consequential things to understand about Elizabeth II’s reign is that she has had so long in the job that she fully mastered all the levers of this system, covert and public. Unfortunately, this included allowing herself and her family to work in some shady places on behalf of what was perceived as the national interest.

What’s to be done? But isn’t a “modern monarchy” an oxymoron? You can’t modernise something depending so much for its authenticity on archaic symbolism without greatly weakening its appeal. The so-called bicycle monarchies of Holland and Scandinavia are neutered to the point of irrelevance. One option would be to “neutron” the show by removing all the royals and leaving the opulence – the palaces, the pageants – as the most potent revenue-raisers of the British tourist industry. But that wouldn’t work because the royal family are themselves the gift that keeps on giving to the global celebrity industry, which is basically writing the daily click-bait narrative that pulls so many visitors to our shores.

[From The New European]

Irving’s point – which, again, has been made before – is that the idea of ending the monarchy makes sense in many different ways, but that it wouldn’t be as simple as crossing King Charles off a list. The monarchy is too entrenched and there are too many people who “benefit” from the status quo, and the people who benefit from it are the very ones who are in a position to turn Britain into a republic. I’m left with the impression that when King Charles accedes the throne, what will actually happen is that the bureaucracy of the British government will just weaken the monarchy gradually, to the point where the royals are basically powerless, an inbred sideshow soap opera. I also think it’s notable that Irving basically doesn’t even give William the time of day – William is largely a non-entity in the larger political throne games being played. Which in itself is notable.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red.