The crowd in Wellington cheered uproariously when the Deputy Prime Minister announced that the Union Flag had been planted at the summit of Mount Everest by "the New Zealander Hillary". In those days, numerous countries retained a sense of Britishness as an integral part of their respective identities.
And a surprising number still do. The Deputy Prime Minister had to make the announcement because the Prime Minister was in London for the Coronation. It is worth considering that that could still happen today. The 16 sovereign states, including the United Kingdom, that have retained the monarchy have now done so through the era of decolonisation, through the Spirit of 68, through the logically successive and arguably even greater threat of the Thatcher-Reagan years (in which Canada, Australia and New Zealand all participated), through it all. They are not going to cut the ties now. As much as anything else, what would be the point?
But we should be absolutely clear: Hillary was a Commonwealth British hero, a hero of the inner Commonwealth that retains the monarchy. He has nothing to do with any all-white "Anglosphere" including, and thus dominated by, the United States (with its completely different, and in many ways downright hostile, culture) but excluding the wider Pacific and the West Indies.
And as much as - indeed, in close relation to - the monarchy and its Christian roots, the common patrimony of the inner Commonwealth includes the universal and comprehensive Welfare State, and the strong statutory and other (including trade union) protection of workers, consumers, communities and the environment, the former delivered by progressive taxation, the whole underwritten by full employment, and all these good things delivered by the partnership between a strong Parliament and strong local government.
It is no coincidence that the erosion of these aspects took place at the same time, and by the same hands, as the loosening of the ties that bind together Her Majesty's people throughout the world, much to the well-known distress and anger of Her Majesty herself on both fronts.
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Agreed, but do you fear Australia under 'Labor' will go republican over the next few years?
ReplyDeleteNo. There'll be another referendum, and another No vote. People don't like being asked the same question twice. And by rejecting John Howard's globalisation, "meritocracy", and conformity to all the worst features of the United States, Australians have already signalled their rejection of every anti-monarchist argument.
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