Some weeks ago, I was delighted to receive the following from Philip Benwell of The Australian Monarchist League, and I am very sorry that I am unable to attend:
A Cordial Invitation is extended to attend The Launch of 'The Association of the Commonwealth Realms', the purpose of which will be to work to bring closer together the English Speaking Realms and to defend The Crown of the United Kingdom.
On Wednesday 1 November 2006
Commencing at 7 pm
by courtesy of The Rt. Hon. The Lord Stoddart of Swindon
NO CHARGE
Numbers limited
RSVP: monarchy@westnet.com.au
The purpose of The Association of the Commonwealth Realms is to work to bring together the 'Old Commonwealth' of former Dominions which were settled and peopled by the British and which have continued to exist with British Law and British Justice under The Crown whilst those in the mother country itself are fast being denied their birthright.
The Association will be ardently pro-Crown and aggressively anti-European Union.
However, what of the other 12 Realms which were not primarily settled by the British, but which freely "continue to exist within British Law and British Justice under the Crown", which are also English-speaking, and which, particulary in the West Indies, are not only often "more British than the British", but are now a very great deal more so than can now be said of Canada, Australia or New Zealand? They, too, are part of the family, of Her Majesty's indivisible British People throughout the world, the whole point of which (for this is a key monarchist argument) is that it is not defined by ethnicity, but by allegiance to the Crown.
Nevertheless, this Association is an admirable step in the right direction, and it is good to see that it is being sponsored by a Real Labour (expelled) Peer.
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If I want a peerage, then I'll pay for it in good, hard cash like an honest man.
ReplyDeleteI see that you haven't answered the point: that the monarchy, as well as being the key unifying force among the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, also binds together 16 sovereign states, each of which is a representative democracy, and has freely retained this unifying and stabilising institution long past any period of decolonisation. Only four of those countries are predominantly white.
Compare the political histories of any of the 16 with those of most countries which initially retained the monarchy after independence but later gave it up.
Five of the world's six longest continuous democracies are constitutional monarchies, and four of those have the same Head of State. Guess who?