{"id":15458,"date":"2020-12-28T18:40:03","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T18:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=15458"},"modified":"2021-02-21T11:36:48","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T11:36:48","slug":"what-is-the-crown-and-what-is-republicanism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/28\/what-is-the-crown-and-what-is-republicanism\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is The Crown And What Is Republicanism?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnnie Gallacher of the Republican Socialist Platform<\/a> has written an article updating some of the postings made earlier in our blog. We are posting this article along with a a list of other articles on the E&L<\/cite> blog addressing the issue of republicanism.<\/h2>\n

This article is a synthesis and summary of several articles originally published in Emancipation & Liberation:
\nSOCIALIST REPUBLICANISM AND THE DIAMOND JUBILEE<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What is the Crown?<\/h3>\n

If you were to ask a few randomly selected person to define the Crown, they would no doubt mention the Queen and royal family, encouraged in this regard by the misleadingly named popular Netflix biopic. Similarly, if you were to ask for definitions of Republicanism, you would no doubt hear about toothless debates about whether the Queen costs too much money, or whether or not she attracts tourists and thereby generates national income. .<\/p>\n

In both instances, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the distinction between the monarchs themselves and the actual Crown Powers. It is common to see the Queen as just a wee auld woman who through an accident of birth is grandmother to the entire British nation; and to see Prince Charles as just a daft old man who is somehow the nation\u2019s strange spiritual uncle. There is an illusion that the royal family are above and beyond the corrupt and dishonest parliamentary politicians and profit-obsessed capitalists. There is a pretension of powerlessness and an irrelevance to real life. However, the modern monarchy is merely a camouflage for the Crown, and the unaccountable Crown Powers are wielded everyday by a predominantly unelected political class.<\/p>\n

Despite the existence of a parliamentary democracy centred on Westminster with its newer devolved offspring at Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont, our democracy has very real limitations. Senior civil servants, judges, officers and ranks in the armed forces all swear their allegiance to the Queen, not to Parliament, and certainly not to the people. The ruling class may require their services, acting when necessary, against the interests of the people, or even Parliament. It is not the Queen herself who wields this power, but the Prime Minister, acting on behalf of the ruling class. This is all done under the unaccountable anti-democratic powers of the Crown which are yielded everyday by a predominantly unelected political class.<\/p>\n

Examples of Crown Power interference.<\/h3>\n

The British Labour premierships of Harold Wilson (1964-70, 1974-76) were repeatedly run into the ground through state interference. This was dramatised in the excellent roman \u00e0 clef<\/em> novel\/film A Very British Coup<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In 1975, Australian Labour prime minister Gough Whitlam, following his attempts to stop the US navy from docking in Australia, was removed from office by the Australian Governor-General (the queen\u2019s representative). The premiership then passed to the right-wing opposition party without the electorate ever having been consulted. (And yet many English-speaking liberals around the world label the Australian people as inherently backwards, even though it was outside British interference which sent them down that path of political deformity).<\/p>\n

From 1968-73, the native people of the Chago Islands were illegally cleared from their Indian Ocean archipelago by British forces, at the request of the United States, in advance of the American militarisation of those islands. In 2000, the British High Court granted the islanders the right to return home, but this was subsequently overturned by the Crown powers, and the islanders were stopped from returning. In 2019, the United Nation\u2019s International Court of Justice at the Hague called on the UK to \u2018withdraw its colonial administration \u2026 unconditionally within a period of no more than six months\u2019. <\/em>On the orders of the Crown, these calls have been completely ignored by the UK government.<\/p>\n

The Crown Powers have also been used by Prime Ministers to declare wars without parliamentary sanction, and to mobilise troops to break strikes.<\/p>\n

What is Republicanism?<\/h3>\n

Having distinguished the nature of the Crown from the celebrity-culture\/state-religion distraction of the royal family, clearly to define Republicanism merely as a desire to unseat the royal family at an unspecified future point in time is to sell Republicanism short. Let us consider Republicanism in its purest form: an immediate Republicanism which upholds \u2018the sovereignty of the people\u2019 in the here and now against the UK state\u2019s sovereignty of the Crown-in-Westminster and its anti-democratic Crown Powers. Republicanism is about the maximum level of participation in any action with democratic control at the grassroots level. It seeks to develop a programme for expanding democracy as far as it can go under capitalism.<\/p>\n

Republicanism and the Scottish independence movement<\/h3>\n

The SNP is a not a Republican party. It seeks an end to the outdated 1707 Union of the Parliaments, only to return to the even more antiquated 1603 Union of the Crowns. Whilst there are individual Republicans inside the SNP, their Republicanism is merely a sentimental idea for the future, rather than a democratic recognition of the sovereignty of the people in the here and now.<\/p>\n

In full conformity with the Crown Powers, despite recent developments in the United Nations regarding the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the SNP has fallen silent about the Trident nuclear missiles held at Faslane. The SNP also continue to affirm their support for participation in the NATO military alliance, which obliges member states to follow the USA and Turkey into war.<\/p>\n

__________<\/p>\n

2. EMANCIPATION & LIBERATION \u2013 REPUBLICANISM COVERAGE,\u00a02002-20<\/h3>\n

1. REPUBLICANS ADDRESS THE \u2018NO TO THE COUP\u2019 DEMOS IN DUNDEE AND EDINBURGH ON AUGUST 31st \u2013 Mary McGregor and Allan Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n

2. PROMOTING REPUBLICANISM \u2013 Murdo Ritchie<\/a><\/p>\n

3. THE ROYAL WEDDING \u2013 PROVIDING POLITICAL COVER FOR THE UK STATE\u2019S CROWN POWERS \u2013 Eddie Ford<\/a><\/p>\n

4. LONDON \u2013 THE NEW HANSEATIC LEAGUE \u2013 John Tummon<\/a><\/p>\n

5. THE CROWN CORPORATION AND THE ROYAL FAMILY LIMITED – John Tummom<\/a><\/p>\n

6. THE COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND \u2013 Steve Freeman<\/a><\/p>\n

7. FOR AN INTERNATIONALIST REPUBLICAN POLITICS THAT ADAPTS TO 21st CENTURY TERRAINS OF STRUGGLE- John Tummon<\/a><\/p>\n

8. REPUBLICANISM AND DEMOCRACY \u2013 Allan Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n

9. DEFINING REPUBLICANISM \u2013 John Tummon<\/a><\/p>\n

10. PROMOTING REPUBLICANISM \u2013 Murdo Ritchie<\/a><\/p>\n

11. THE IMPORTANCE OF REPUBLICANISM –\u00a0Bernadette McAliskey<\/a><\/p>\n

12. RIC \u2013 A SCOTTISH REPUBLICAN MOVEMENT IN THE MAKING? – Allan Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n

13. REPUBLIC DAY SPEECH- Allan Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n

14. GENUINE SELF-DETERMINATION MEANS ACTING AS REPUBLICANS NOW – Allan Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n

15. SOCIALIST REPUBLICANISM AND THE DIAMOND JUBILEE- Desmons Greaves, James Connolly, Bob Goupillot, Allan Armstrong, Steve Freeman, Phil Vellender, Barry Biddulph<\/a><\/p>\n

16. ENGLISH REPUBLICANISM – Steve Freeman, Phil Vellender, Terry Liddle<\/a><\/p>\n

17. TWO ROYAL WEDDINGS\u2026 AND A REPUBLICAN FUNERAL FOR THE UK?- Allan Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n

18. NEW REPUBLICANISM PAMPHLET – RCN<\/a><\/p>\n

19.\u00a0SOCIALISTS AND THE REPUBLIC (SSP website)\u00a0Allan Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n

20. THE CROWN POWERS AND THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST AGENDA \u2013 John Mitchell<\/a><\/p>\n

21. RIGHTS FOR THE PEOPLE, NOT ROYAL PREROGATIVES \u2013 Cardiff Social Forum<\/a><\/p>\n

22. TWO WORLDS COLLIDE \u2013 REPUBLICANISM AND NATIONALISM\u2013 Allan Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n

23. THE DECLARATION OF CALTON HILL, 9th<\/sup> OCTOBER 2014<\/a><\/p>\n

24. REPUBLICAN ALTERNATIVE TO THE ROYAL PANTOMIME \u2013 Tommy Sheridan for SSP parliamentary group<\/a><\/p>\n

25. REPUBLICANS \u2018CELEBRATE\u2019 THE JUBILEE \u2013 Allan Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n

26. SUCCESSFUL REPUBLICAN FESTIVAL AND VICTORY AT FREE SPEECH TRIAL \u2013 Cymru Goch<\/a><\/p>\n

27. EMPRESS BROWN\u2019S JINGO JUBILEE \u2013 Terry Liddle<\/a><\/p>\n

28. LINKING REPUBLICANISM AND SOCIALISM IN SCOTLAND \u2013 Allan Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n

29. JUBILEE WALES – Mike Davies (Cymru Goch)<\/a><\/p>\n

30. JUBILEE IRELAND \u2013 John McAnulty (Socialist Democracy – Ireland)<\/a><\/p>\n

31. HOW REPUBLICANS AROUND BRITAIN AND IRELAND ARE \u2018CELEBRATING\u2019 THE JUBILEE -Socialist Alliance<\/a><\/p>\n

32. APPEAL ON THE OCCASION OF QUEEN VICTORIA\u2019S JUBILEE – James Connolly<\/a><\/p>\n

33. RED REPUBLICANS OR JUST RED REFORMERS? \u2013 Mary (Ward) MacGregor<\/a><\/p>\n

______________<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnnie Gallacher of the Republican Socialist Platform has written an article updating some of the postings made earlier in our blog. We are posting this article along with a a list of other articles on the E&L blog addressing the issue of republicanism. This article is a synthesis and summary of several articles originally published…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1873,1874],"tags":[8624],"class_list":["post-15458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-against-unionism","category-republicanism","tag-author-johnnie-gallacher"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":2484,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15458"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17707,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15458\/revisions\/17707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}