The last monarch?

By Graham Smith

The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, currently fighting a close election against her conservative opponents, has reignited debate in her country about the future of the monarchy. She has said that the current Queen should be the last monarch to serve as Australian head of state, and after her death the country should move to become a republic.

This is the latest installment of a long running issue that simply refuses to go away in Australia. Its contemporary origins lie in the 1975 constitutional crisis when the Queen’s representative, the governor general, sacked Gough Whitlam as Prime Minister. The Labor government of the 1980s and 90s ended with Prime Minister Paul Keating promising a referendum on the issue of a republic, a referendum held instead by his pro-monarchy successor John Howard. That vote was defeated for a number of reasons, not least of which were the divisions within the republican movement caused by a Howard-inspired choice between the status quo and a deeply flawed alternative model (a lesson there for electoral reformers perhaps).

Now the issue is back on the agenda, although whether or not it stays there hinges on the result of Saturday’s Australian election. If Gillard’s Labor government becomes the first in 80 years to lose after just one term in office then the issue of a republic will once more be pushed into the long grass by a pro-monarchy conservative Prime Minister. But if Gillard turns things around and pulls off a win then all bets are off for the future of the royals.

This time around it could get really interesting back here in Britain too. The Queen is much older, the British people a lot less deferential and considerably more jaded about the royals. And the question a Gillard government would put to the Australian people would be simple and, for many, more palatable: should the monarchy go when the Queen goes? It’s a question many in the UK ask themselves from time to time, and which I believe could gain real traction given the right push.

The popularity of the monarchy in Britain has been on a slow puncture for years, not with support shifting decisively toward republicanism, but moving to a middle ground of shoulder-shrugging indifference. Gone are the days of universal and automatic deference for the Windsor clan, today voters and the press increasingly wonder whether the palace can go on as it has done for so long, and are quite happy to question many aspects of monarchy. Many assume the palace lives on borrowed time, with a sense of inevitability about the monarchy’s demise showing clearly in polls. That may explain the apparently contradictory polls that show a majority in favour of keeping the monarchy (why change something you haven’t thought about?) but also a majority opposed to the monarchy receiving any public funds (why pay for something you don’t care about?).

Coupled with that is a now widespread view that British politics is deeply dysfunctional and disconnected with the views and aspirations of ordinary people. Constitutional reform has become a legitimate political issue for mainstream politicians, whether on the Lords, a written constitution, electoral reform or a bill of rights.

Unlike in Australia, republicanism in Britain goes deeper than simply replacing one figurehead with another – it is the elephant in the room in the broader constitutional debate. A serious debate on the monarchy is an opportunity to abolish the constitutional and legal instrument of the Crown, which grants so much power to our government and which ensures there are no limits on the authority of parliament. It is a chance for a genuine repatriation of sovereignty to the people, limiting the power of politicians, diluting the power of the executive and putting constitutional red-lines down over which parliament and government cannot cross without the express consent of the people in a referendum. And it is a chance for the British people to elect one of their number to represent this country as head of state, to create a public office that can be held to account and which can play a constitutional function, rather than simply act as a puppet for a centralised government.

So if Gillard wins this Saturday, and Australians return to the question of the monarchy, it would be a good time to follow suit. The debate down under is bound to trigger debate here, a successful win for republicans in Australia is bound to boost the cause here. Now is the time to take the constitutional debate to its natural and logical conclusion and finally take Britain, along with our Commonwealth allies, firmly into the twenty first century.