Is This The Beginning Of The End For The Royals?

In the wake of Gordon Brown’s appeal to Labour’s ‘grass-roots’ at their party conference, anti-monarchic sentiment appears to be emerging in the Government. In a move that has been compared to the seven year ordeal of banning fox-hunting, news has broken that plans to amend the 1701 Act of Settlement have been passed to Downing Street by Labour backbencher Chris Bryant. Any amendments would see the Labour party returning to its path of constitutional
reform, begun in the government’s first and second terms of office with devolution and House of Lords reform.

The proposed amendments include abolishing the priority of male succession to the Crown, and any discrimination against Roman Catholics. This will mean in practice that if Prince William’s first child is a girl, and she ends up marrying a Catholic, she will still be allowed to become Queen; even if she has a younger brother who hasn’t married a Catholic.

Reactions to the plans have been polarised; with the tabloid Daily Mail calling them a ‘crowning insult’, resorting to questioning the trustworthiness of Mr. Bryant by showing a picture of him posing with swimsuit models. Those on the traditional political ‘left’ have congratulated the move; Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat spokesperson on equality issues said: “This is an overdue but welcome move. Whilst the hereditary principle itself is obviously still a bit dodgy, at least this modernisation ends the outrageous discrimination against Catholics and women.”

Further questions have been raised as a result of the possibility of change in the monarchy. Writing in the Guardian newspaper, Geoffrey Robertson has questioned the very idea of a hereditary head of state: “The laws which define and protect the Royal Family breach at least four articles of the European convention on human rights.” This convention, now incorporated into UK law under the 1998 Human Rights Act, states in Article 14 that “The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this [Act] shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.” It is the last attribute mentioned that interests us on this occasion. Whether the current government, or any other in the future, will choose to recognise that the very existence of the monarchy contravenes laws made by their supposed Parliament is something we may have to wait a long time for, given the delay between 1707 and 2008.

D.J. Austin

Tags: Queen, Royal Family