Reforms will greatly improve the Monarchy – but they won’t be enough

After last year’s media circus surrounding the Royal Wedding, the airwaves are already filled with palace propaganda ahead of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, but as a member of a democratic socialist party I see no reason to celebrate.

I have to despair, not just at the media’s fawning and biased coverage of the Royals, but how apparently ‘progressive’ people have similar levels of adoration for the institution which is most explicitly the antithesis of Labour values.

We need look no further than the extract from Clause IV of the party’s constitution printed on the back of our membership cards, to see that the Monarchy is entirely incompatible with the principles we are supposed to stand for. If we ignore the fact that an unelected hereditary head of state can neither be considered democratic nor socialist (some would argue neither is our party) and move on to the rest of the quote, we see that Labour seeks to “create for each of us the means to realise our true potential”. Now unless we, as a party, are going to argue that only members of one family have the “true potential” to be Britain’s head of state, then its clear that our beliefs are not in line with a system which ascribes status on birth not achievement or merit.

In Clause IV’s next statement we see again how Labour values are not the values of royalty. We wish to create “for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few”, whilst the Monarchy needs conserve all three in the hands of just one family.  Nothing better exemplifies Britain’s class system than our Royal family and when we allow this concentration of power and opportunity to persist we will never be able to tackle the economic divides which plague our society. The great wealth the Royal family has accumulated over many centuries and the sums granted to them by the government, means that one family lives in luxury whilst other families go cold and hungry, go without suitable housing, go without dignity.

Ed Miliband has talked of speaking out “without fear or favour” against “vested interests” and this is exactly what he must do when it comes to the Royals. The Labour Party must demand that the Monarchy is opened up to Freedom of Information requests; so we can see how public money is being spent and how royal powers are being exercised. Never again should we have the heir to the throne being offered a veto over government legislation without the transparency of the public being fully aware. We must also call for an end to the ban on Catholics marrying into the royal family and we must also make provision for MPs to be given an option swear an oath to their constituents rather than the Monarch, just as an option currently exists as to whether the pledge makes reference to God.

In a time of austerity, we also have to question the amount being spent on a thousand-boat flotilla on the Thames, a new royal yacht and whatever other extravaganzas are planned for the Jubilee hoopla that awaits us, whilst money is being cut from disabled children, police are being taken off the streets and the finances of our NHS are being stretched to breaking point. Further to this, we must be prepared to negotiate a fair and transparent financial arrangement with the Royal family that doesn’t encourage a dependency culture amongst the superrich and promotes responsibility, not just amongst those surviving on £67.50 JSA at the benefits office, but those living off £32.8m in Buckingham Palace.

Reforms will greatly improve the Monarchy, but we can never transform it into a transparent, accountable and democratic institution, and it will never be something that I can celebrate. To be true to our Labour values, we must accept that Britain has a republican future.