I came across this excellent heat map representation of a large opinion poll on support for the monarchy, sampling 22,000 people all across the UK, taken in 2018 by focaldata.
Red tones indicate net disapproval of the monarchy and green tones indicate net approval. It is worth noting the quite astonishing, and detailed, degree of correlation with this heat map of the Brexit referendum. Annoyingly I cannot find the actual datasets for the focaldata survey.
Among other things, that rather puts to bed the notion of a significant left wing Brexit vote. Brexit voters are indeed mostly highly traditional British Nationalists who love the Queen.
All of which underlines the obvious point that Scotland has a very different political culture to England. It also ought to cast some doubt on the triangulation methodology so favoured by gradualists. I find that speaking to SNP branches is no different to speaking to any other Yes group, in that abolition of the monarchy is overwhelmingly popular, and virtually nobody at meetings is a monarchist. I have never detected any generational difference in this. Scottish Republicanism tends to link in with views on much more radical land reform, which is so desperately needed. A campaign for a Scottish Republic would have majority support. Yet we are told that openly to advocate a Scottish Republic would alienate voters. No it would not, most people would support, and you are not going to convert a great many diehard monarchists to Independence anyway.
I strongly suspect that this extends to other areas, particularly foreign policy. I simply do not believe there is a large well of support in Scotland for UK neo-con foreign policy, nor that it is necessary to support UK foreign policy to maximise support for Independence. Neither Russia nor China is the enemy of the Scottish people. The problem is, that those with the finances to commission opinion polls have every interest in keeping support for such opinions hidden. I have always found the argument that people will only vote for Independence if they think nothing will change rather amusing; if nothing will change, why vote for it?
Anyway, while on the subject of British nationalism, I have a unifying solution to the culture wars question of singing Land of Hope and Glory and Rule Britannia at the Proms. Rule Britannia has no musical virtues and in my view should never be sung or played anywhere; it is a horrible bit of doggerel laced with ugly baroque frills. Land of Hope and Glory however is sung to a genuinely great piece of music. The answer is perhaps something like this:
The truly wonderful Patrick Fyffe is no longer with us, but George Logan is and for £20 I’ll slip on a frock and do it myself.
In childhood we always watched the Last Night of the Proms with my mother, and enjoyed it greatly. In those days there was no doubt at all that the patriotic singing was taken with a huge dose of irony. Britain had decolonised almost entirely in a remarkably swift quarter century, and there was a presumption the process would be completed. The state was properly social democratic; all utilities were in public ownership as were all the largest industries. All public provision really was provided by the state, not through profit making private agencies. You could not only go to university for nothing, you were paid to go. Post Suez Crisis, the idea the UK would ever invade anywhere else again seemed wildly improbable, and more importantly, nobody wanted to invade anywhere.
There were still American dictated blights, like the Chagos Islands, but very few were conscious of it. Public discourse was left wing. TV had A J P Taylor, not David Starkey, and Bertrand Russell popped up regularly. The BBC showed Ken Loach and “The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black Black Oil”.
In these circumstances, some singing of “Wider still and wider Shall thy bounds be set” seemed harmless, given that the exact opposite had plainly been in full train. The promenaders were determinedly silly. One year there was a large banner saying “Eat prunes they make you go”, which we children thought hilarious and became a joke in our house.
I suppose that it was Thatcher and the Falklands War that changed all that, and made British nationalism start to be sinister again, even though most of the promenaders themselves remained the same knowing sceptics. Blair then took it to another level, with his promotion of “liberal interventionism”, the doctrine that bombing BAME people is good for them. That was and is a direct and unreconstructed revival of “liberal imperialism” of a kind that Elgar would recognise and support. Suddenly the Last Night of the Proms went down another notch in the irony scale and up another notch on the jingoism scale, as Blair started to invade countries left, right and centre.
Now with Brexit, Johnson and Farage there seems to be a point of no return where British nationalism is too toxic to be adopted ironically. I am not sure the Last Night of the Proms will survive Scottish Independence. Would they still mark the Imperial nostalgia with the old butcher’s apron from Imperial days? I think it is probably time, absent Patrick Fyffe, or me in a frock, to put this grand old lady to rest.
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Dear Hinge and Bracket. Many years ago, the Town Clerk in a small Ayrshire mining town, who ran the local music club, booked Hinge and Bracket to appear.
He was in on the joke, but, very few of the audience, who took them at face value, got it.
A brilliant ploy.
Please tell me it was auchinleck
I could imagine the reaction
No true Scotsman ever found that tiresome pair even remotely amusing. As cringe inducing as Mr Bean or so many other varieties of so-called mirthmakers who have left us perplexed over years of British broadcasting.
My father used to sum up English humour thus – “all you have to do is shout ‘KNICKERS!’ and they’re rolling about the aisles”.
Would you be suggesting that there is a true “nationalist” sense of humour then?
What about that Aussie Plantagenet Earl of Hastings, or the (Stuart) Prince of Liechtenstein?
Plainly part of the nonsense of monarchy is that you end up with the “wrong” monarch. If you take illegitimacy into account, probably the line had broken numerous times. But I don’t think anyone except extreme cranks want a different monarch; they either support the Saxe Coburg Gothas or want no monarch at all.
As I keep reminding everyone, England has been a republic since 1688. The Windsor crime family are the latest in a long line of Potemkin royals, glorified attendants of the toilet that is the British state.
PS in 2001 that ghastly dirge played to them ad nauseam was replaced with something altogether more edifying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4n27JuJhXc
And the United States has been an elected Monarchy, with people with enough money taking it in turns every four years to be King or Queen in the guise of President.
“As I keep reminding everyone, England has been a republic since 1688.”
Amazing. Hold the front page!
Read the Coronation Oath Act 1688 and all will be revealed.
Damn, I seem to have mislaid mine. Could you remind us briefly what it reveals?
“they either support the Saxe Coburg Gothas or want no monarch at all.”
Or maybe get a proper Stewart back again, just like the old days.
– “Rule Britannia has no musical virtues and in my view should never be sung or played anywhere”
😀 😀 😀
Best wishes to you Craig.
Craig, I was with you 100% up until the words :
“Blair then took it to another level, with his promotion of “liberal interventionism”, the doctrine that bombing BAME people is good for them.”
You of all people should know that issues pertaining to interventionism (whether for actual humanitarian reasons or for resource control reasons) are a lot more nuanced than “bombing BAME people for their own good.”
I spent some time working in the House of Commons and was a researcher for the Labour front bench foreign affairs team in the early 1990s. One of the areas I was covering was Yugloslavia, just as it was breaking up. As it required unamimity to act, the EU was paralysed and various EU states acted in different ways according to their own interests. As a result, Milosevic, Karadic and Mladic were able to commit acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide more or less unhindered until the USA stepped in, bombed the Serbs and forced them to the negotiaing table. I would cite this as an example of a humanitarian intervention that was i) well motivated and ii) successful. What happened subsequently in Kosovo, whereby NATO intervened to prevent a reoccurance of Bosnia was also successful (though some of the targetting in the bombing campaign was wrong).
You will also no doubt be aware of the intervenion in Sierra Leone when Robin Cook was Foreign Scretary.
“There was no strategic or commercial interest in the adventure, and none among the British public; this was the Blair/Cook “foreign policy with an ethical dimension” in its purest, most altruistic form. But the Sierra Leone intervention worked – uniquely well, in the history of modern military interventions in Africa.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/18/sierra-leone-international-aid-blair
Steven,
I disagree with you entirely. I suggest you read my book “The Catholic Orangemen of Togo” and look at the characters who ended up in control of the world’s most profitable rutile mine – including Valerie Amos. Everything you think you know about Sierra Leone is wrong.
Craig,
I have read The Catholic Organgemen. I can’t recall it addressing the motivation for the intervention but was more an amusing collection of anecdotes about your involvement in the peace negotiations. Perhaps you could articulate why you think I’m wrong ?
You didn’t address my example of Bosnia / Kosovo. Am I wrong there too ?
Perhaps it’s also worthwhile remembering what happened in Rwanda when there was no intervention.
That has been the argument for Imperialism from time immemorial. “Look what these savages will do to each other if we do not take military action”.
Whereas when we do take military action, in Iraq or Libya or Afghanistan, for example?
It is not our role to invade other countries to stop their civil wars. Which you very often discover have our earlier Imperial displacement of people or seizure of resources as the root cause. Which was certainly the case in Sierra Leone.
In your own words Craig :
” But our policy in Sierra Leone was bedevilled by thegreat fallacy of the Blair years – that foreign conflicts can be seen in blackand white, as goodies versus baddies; therefore all we have to do is sidewith the goodies and join in. Even the most complex conflicts were sim-plified in this way.”
Indeed, Foreign Policy is rarely (perhps sometimes) a black and white issue.
Through your reasoning, you are happy to sit back and allow genocide to take place. This is what happened in Bosnia and Kwanda. The West was concerned that Bosnia might be repeated in Kosovo and intervened to stop it. Perhaps tens of thousands of lives were saved, lives that were lost in Bosnia.
Yes, ethnic conflicts in Africa have (at least in part) their origins in colonial times. But not always. African people do have agency and are quite capable of behaving in much the same way as tyrants and dictators of other races without the need for westerners to blame.
I note your refusal to address the issue of Bosnia / Kosovo. If we adopt your line of reasoning, we should have continued to step back and allow Milosevic, Karadic and Mladic to continue with their genocidal campaign for a Greater Serbia, including Kosovo. Do we have an imperial history in the region that mitigated against our intervention ?
Do we only intervene when our direct interests are threatened ? Seems like quite a selfish worldview to me. Don’t we have some element of responsibility ? Perhaps particular in light of our troubled imperial history ?
Britain hasn’t had a foreign policy since American Caesar said “Nein!” in 1956 over the Suez conspiracy. If you think that the crimes against humanity in Rwanda occurred because there wasn’t intervention, you’re in cloud cuckoo land. If you are against massacres, I suggest you set an example by superglueing the locks of your friendly, neighbourhood abortion factory.
> Perhaps it’s also worthwhile remembering what happened in Rwanda when there was no intervention.
A poor example, many have argued that the situation there was created by imperialism, that the so called “ethnic” civil war was not ethnic at all.
Jugoslavia didn’t break up, the Americans dismembered it.
This started with the unilateral recognition of Croatia by Germany and the Vatican at a very labile juncture. This poured fuel on to the tinder box.
The US had been undermining Jugoslavia for years.
Yugoslavia was dismembered. Cui bono ? Did Finance Capital in Frankfurt and London benefit ?
Quite, it’s easy to point out the later events as proof of the barbarity of one group of people or another while completely ignoring the carefully orchestrated pressures and interventions which led there. The deliberate destruction of Yugoslavia is a prime example.
Brirain is providing Saudi Arabia with the bombs they are dropping on kids in Yemen. The liberal interventionist Blair wing of Labour knows Yemen is the worst humanitarian crisis on earth, yet all abstained on a parliamentary motion to stop the conveyor belt of bombs to the Saudis.
We see them.
– “Britain is providing Saudi Arabia with the bombs they are dropping on kids in Yemen.”
…and the sales intermediaries to the al Sauds are none other than the subject of Craig’s post, the Saxe Coburg Gothas.
Exactly clark
And also the beneficiaries of the poppy harvests in Afghanistan
In Afghanistan the NATO forces supported the installation of Karzai, whose brother-in-law Dostum industrialised to isomerise Afghanistan’s opium into diamorphine, more commonly known as heroin. Of course it can have a legitimate market in medicine and especially palliative care, but most of it ends illicitly up on the streets of Russian cities.
Labour, either Blair or not Blair, have nothing to do with Britain’s participation in the Saudi assault on Yemen. It was the Tories in power, and Joel’s blaming Labour is fatuous.
– “It was the Tories in power…
But did the Blairites abstain, as Joel claims? I’d expect them to have done. The voting record can be found at theyworkforyou or publicwhip.
You start out talking about nuance, and then parrot the self-serving Western imperial propaganda for every conflict you can think of.
Happy news for your sort: There will be a meeting next week in Washington at which, with luck, Serbia will finally be strong-armed into renouncing its territory guaranteed by the U.N. Charter and reaffirmed in Security Council Res. 1244, and recognizing the U.S.’s criminal protectorate in Kosovo as independent, thus giving Trump another Israel/U.A.E.-style “peacemaking” photo op for his campaign. If all goes well, Pristina could be getting a Donald Trump Boulevard to join the thoroughfares named for Clinton and George W. Bush.
The liberal altruism will be raining down like NATO bombs. Enjoy!
There is no doubt that “ethnic cleansing” was not a Serb policy but a policy practised by Croatian and Bosnian/Al Qaeda militias against Serbs.
The destruction of Yugoslavia, perhaps the most multi-ethnic state in the world at the time, by NATO, employing militias-armed secretly by Germany and the United States- largely financed by former Nazi emigre communities- and large numbers of Islamic Mujahideen imported to Bosnia was carried out in a blitz of propaganda blaming the Serbs, essentially, for not being obsessed with ethnicity and religion (Croatia also benefited from Roman Catholic extremists battling Orthodox traditions).
The truth about this war, which set the stage for the imperialist aggressions which have characterised and marred the current century, is to be found, for example in Diana Johnstone’s “Fools Crusade”.
The role of the Labour Party and successive British governments in producing propaganda to excuse the creation of the very nasty nationalisms in the Balkans was an early warning of the self degradation to come.
Thanks for the recommendation, re Fools Crusade.
“There is no doubt that “ethnic cleansing” was not a Serb policy but a policy practised by Croatian and Bosnian/Al Qaeda militias against Serbs.”
Incredible right-wing revisionism for a supposed socialist. The ethnic cleansing and genocide came from Bosnian Serbs, who were fascistic..
Could be Trotskyist revisionism.
But somehow Croats and Muslims commanders landed in The Hague as well. One leader was Islamofascist 2 others were extreme nationalist/fascist. All 3 would had happily “exchange” ethnic situation on the ground. If you have a stomach find a documentary ” Srebrenica a town betrayed”
Steven, you seem to believe that when people in Nation A disapprove of how people in Nation B conduct their affairs, they are not only entitled but obliged to attack nation B, kill many of its people, destroy its cities and infrastructure and overthrow its government.
Whereas I believe that the people of any nation are entitled to run their affairs as they see best, without any interference – let alone violent aggression – from outside.
May I point out that I have the Nuremberg Principles and the UN Charter on my side.
I voted to remain, and I’m not a Republican. Long live HM, Princes Charles, William and George! 🙂
That’a remain in the EU.
Focal Point – who they are – based in Tampa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_Point_Data_Risk
Support for royalty is very strong among the liberal remainers I know. Not sure how representative they are but I don’t remember a whisper of abolishing the monarchy through all the New Labour years and the BBC is probably the most fanatically pro-royal media institution on earth.
Support for the monarchy among younger generations is the most baffling thing; really don’t understand why this one, rather dull, unexceptional family tickles people’s excitement so? Maybe grovelling before one’s betters is ingrained in the English psyche? The Mirror’s associate editor Kevin Maguire dubbed future king, William, the ‘dreariest man in Britain’ and it’s hard to disagree with that description. The way the tabloids, particularly the Sun & Mail label the royal kids ‘cutie pies’ is sickeningly saccharin, not healthy at all.
And as for ‘not the sharpest tool in the shed’ Harry’s escapades with Meghan, a woman who clearly thought royal life would be the Disney version of monarchy, only to find cold aloofness, well I’m not surprised. I quite like Meghan Markle, her emotional interview outburst complaining there had not been anyone in the family offering words of comfort, or a simple comforting hug, revealed much about the nature of monarchy and the unhappy toll stultifying royal life and its formality has on all its members, she’s the most real, grounded one of the lot tbh.
I find the monarchy a useful gauge for judging the degree of cultural drift between Scotland and rUK (apologies to Wales). There was no mass hysteria in Scotland that I was aware of following the tragically premature death of a young mother called Diana Spencer. When Phil the Greek pops his clogs, expect the entirety of the MSM to full Pyongyang. Pyongyang on steroids when Brenda draws her last cheque from the Civil list. Expect Scotland to shrug its collective shoulders and look on in bewilderment.
And what’s to follow the current monarchist regime? Even the DM and the Express can’t summon up enthusiasm for Brian and Camilla.
I expect Canada, Australia and New Zealand to become republics with Scotland to follow in short order.
In an “irresistible force meets an immovable object” sort of way, I’ve wondered what would happen if the Queen “drew her last cheque” during coronavirus lockdown. Which irrational imperatives would win out (in London, not enlightened Scotland)?
When I was growing up in Rothesay, there was a strong consensus of support for the monarchy. Partly because of the obvious virtues of the present Queen and her parents – and Prince Philip – but also because Scots in those days were well enough educated to appreciate the technical and political benefits of constitutional monarchy.
It has nothing to do with “grovelling before your betters” as some cynical republicans like to say. (When my father received his OBE from the Queen, he merely bowed his head slightly, which most citizens of most nations would do when meeting their – or any other – head of state).
The point of constitutional monarchy is that the head of state is entirely outside the political arena. People could hate Mrs Thatcher or Tony Blair, while still feeling respect for the Royal family.
“Among other things, that rather puts to bed the notion of a significant left wing Brexit vote. Brexit voters are indeed mostly highly traditional British Nationalists who love the Queen.”
Well quite – Brexit voters are natural labour voters but not left wing voters.
It is driven by inequality.
Goodhart’s Somewheres vs Anywhere analysis explains this clearly. The Somewhere (seeing themselves as local, not international) are Economically liberal and labour voting (Spend on NHS, tax the rich) but socially conservative eg on the QX… part of LGBTQX…)
The confusion is entirely within the Labour Party leadership which combined a wise Corbyn who recognised where the support came from, mostly Blairite soft labour MPs and a stupid left wing that thought a people’s vote (ie. “you got it wrong, try again”) was somehow democratic.
IMHO many Brexit voters are either old enough or educated enough to understand the advantages of living in an independent sovereign UK; and to know that the UK is a perfectly viable nation.
That tends to go hand in hand with appreciating the advantages of constitutional monarchy and the rest of the unwritten British constitution.
“Anyway, while on the subject of British nationalism, I have a unifying solution to the culture wars question of singing Land of Hope and Glory and Rule Britannia at the Proms. Rule Britannia has no musical virtues and in my view should never be sung or played anywhere; it is a horrible bit of doggerel laced with ugly baroque frills. Land of Hope and Glory however is sung to a genuinely great piece of music.”
I was sure I read somewhere that Elgar, who wrote the melody that became “Land of Hope and Glory”, came to hate the words. I found this:
https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/jgx48k/land-of-hope-and-glory-culture-wars
There’s an interesting reference to an Elgar speech which apparently caused some tension:
““The commonplace mind can never be anything but commonplace, and no amount of education, no polish of a university, can eradicate the stain from the low type of mind which is the English commonplace,” he declared to a shocked room. “An Englishman will take you into a large room, beautifully proportioned, and will point out to you that it is white – all over white – and somebody will say, ‘What exquisite taste.’ You know in your own mind, in your own soul, that is not taste at all – that it is the want of taste, that it is mere evasion. English music is white, and evades everything.””
A still much misunderstood man Elgar.
people all over the world, even in countries like Ireland that fought so hard for their freedom from British rule, are enthralled by the personal lives of the British royals which are presented like a soap-opera. And people love story-telling. The British Royal Family rule the UK, using myths to cement their popularity among their people.
Think about not paying them any attention or giving them rent-free space in your head.
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2020/01/17/and-they-lived-unhappily-ever-after/
Roseanna Cunningham is the last SNP(MSP) to really put forward the case for an elected head of state, latterly a Scottish republic, on BBC QT, and that was many, many years ago, I’ve read she’s stepping down as an MSP, another loss to the party. The SNP really needs to break free of this Westminster consensus/conformity, on pretty much everything, and start thinking for themselves. As things currently stand you can well imagine the SNP winning independence, only then to be promptly kicked out of office for becoming so out of touch with Scottish public opinion.
“Among other things, that rather puts to bed the notion of a significant left wing Brexit vote. Brexit voters are indeed mostly highly traditional British Nationalists who love the Queen.”
And this post shows the limitations of rationalist “analyses”.
Ideology is sui generis a reality distortion effect. In the case of the present conjuncture, the role of capitalist ideology is to prevent the most exploited in society from accurately identifying the source(s) of their exploitation. To this end, false targets are established (race, religion, etc.) and false “idols” created (nations, monarchies, etc.). It is therefore no surprise that manual working class/least educated areas of the UK “fall for” the most “vulgar” aspects of this ideology.
But hold on a minute. Just because an individual is “well educated” does not mean that they are in any way less subject to the power of capitalist ideology than the “pig-ignorant” hoi polloi. The whole range of idealist-based ideologies (since philosophy is merely systematised ideology) that we are obliged to regard as the “history of philosophy” testify to the role that the intelligentsia play in “correctly educating” future generations. The confusion that they cause amongst their fellow “middle class” constituents is played out in blogs like this, where superficial and irrelevant considerations on nationalism sit uneasily alongside those on the more heinous, i.e. real, aspects of Capitalism.
The “education system” does its job well!
An elected head of state? There already is one who carries the ironic title “Prime Minister”.
‘An elected head of state? There already is one who carries the ironic title “Prime Minister”.’
————
The Prime Minister is not the head of state but head of government who, technically, is appointed by the real head of state, currently Queen Elizabeth.
That is a decorative part of the constitution, the head of state is Boris Johnson; Elizabeth Windsor makes the tea.
The working class “Outez!” vote was a protest which exploited the only democratic state vote since the previous EU referendum. The refusal of the northern working class to vote Liarbour in 2019 was a larger version of the protest vote and abstentions of 2010.
I completely agree, as I have posted here before. However, very few of them were Marxists/Communists and so their motives were “tainted”, to a greater or lesser, extent by capitalist ideology, manifesting on the fringes as nationalism, racism, etc. It is this role/effect of ideology that rationalism ipso facto ignores, the classic formulation being “People who voted for Trump/Johnson are stupid; people who voted for Clinton/Corbyn are clever”. Doesn’t work that way.
I should have added that, in its methodology, it is a classic example of empiricism.
Hinge and Bracket (‘Bracket’ is sadly no longer alive) appeared at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford. They took the mickey out of the audience mercilessly but the audience, mostly Tory, did not get that they were being mocked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinge_and_Bracket
http://hingeandbracketofficial.co.uk/AboutGeorgeLogan.html
The very proposal that someone is royal is an affront to society, centuries of enforcement by those who believe that royalty somehow matters’ has left some still to believe that they do matter in this modern age when that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m pleased that Scots are beginning to see past this brain clouding notion of Ruritanian bollocks.
I wouldn’t be so confident Scots are immune to royal fawning. Another plausible explanation is what’s reflected in those surveys highlighted above, is simply the reach of the tabloid press & TV, Scotland having its own distinct media identity. Despite declining circulations due to changing age demographics, the tabloids are still, by far, the most powerful propaganda vehicles in the UK.
‘Scotland having its own distinct media identity’. Jesus fucking Christ.
Scottish Sun , Herald , The Scotsman , BBC Scotland.
Gotta agree with Gordie, there is no distinct Scottish media identity, they’re all unionist orientated and owned.
@RoS
Still, it’s not the media monoculture England has.
Maybe if not that then, it’s the fact the monarchy is seen/identified as very much English and associated with Englishness? The English football team’s supporters singing the national anthem is probably enough to put most Scots off.
I agree with that Goose.
The SNP are afraid to challenge the landed privileged classes in Scotland, Andy Wightman’s determination on the subject almost bankrupted him in the process. Sturgeon’s recalcitrant attitude towards tackling this important issue has led to our indigenous wildlife being slaughtered en masse every year so a few chinless wonders can blast game birds till their hearts are content.
Indeed with the inclusion of the Duke of Buccleuch’s financial manager Benny Higgins into the SNP’s fold, one could easily imagine that Sturgeon has moved further towards the landed gentry than she has towards what the people want.
You forgot the Sunday Post and the People’s Friend. Arf arf.
The faux royals are like the zionist antisemite occupiers of Palestine, they wouldn’t last five minutes if they had to stand on their own feet.
‘Ow dare you! I’m an anarchist and I voted “Outez!”.
O/T.
Starts at 2.30pm BST.
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/08/28/watch-the-war-on-journalism-the-case-of-julian-assange-930-am-saturday/
According to the linked WalesonLine link
‘The Focaldata poll questioned 21,119 people between January 15 and November 4 2019 ‘
and from source
https://election.unherd.com/home/
‘ For this study we collected data from 21,119 respondents between 15th January and 4th November 2019’
I think Craig has got the 2018 date from the copyright on the map. Presumably that copyright is just for the map template not the data.
Very disappointed to see only see one Scottish constituency that opposes the monarchy.
Glasgow Central 34% support 36% against monarchy (although it was the least supportive in UK after Liverpool, Riverside)
The next was Edinburgh East 36% support v 31% against monarchy (5th least supportive in UK)
Good to see Aberdeen north is 9th and Glasgow north is 10th (least supportive).
Other than Liverpool, Riverside and Glasgow Central there is only one other anti-royal constituency in whole of UK!
Manchester Central (36% v 34%),
https://election.unherd.com/home/
Incidentally this question on Royal Family was at least fairly clear. The other questions from this website are terrible
https://election.unherd.com/
‘All morals are grounded in religious teachings’. Agree or disagree.
Does this include historically? It certainly doesn’t exclude it.
,
‘It is acceptable for adolescent children to make their own decisions about their gender identity’ Agree or disagree.
Surely that depends on the type of decisions. By the way, strong Scottish colour purple on this.
‘There should be no limits on free speech, even if this enables people to voice offensive views’ Agree or disagree.
No mention of inciting violence.
Big concentrations of Irish descendants?
Good point.
That frock idea sounds good. Won’t hurt your chances of being selected as a PPC either!
Minor point.
You say “All of which underlines the obvious point that Scotland has a very different political culture to England.” I don’t disagree, but in wording it that way ( and you’re not alone in this) it rather suggests that it’s Scotland that is out of step , while I would contend that its England that’s out of step with Scotland, Europe and so much more.
The British National anthem was once rightly described as a funereal dirge. When Corbyn was called out for not singing it, he should have revelled in the fact. The faux patriots like Farage et al, lecturing others on ‘British values’ and while prostrating themselves before their US overlords are truly the real British clowns.
That was the beginning of the end of Corbyn.
Funny really, because how many of those who jumped on him over it know all the words of the British NA, do you reckon?
All hypocrites.
I don’t know all the words, do you?
Isn’t there something about crushing rebellious Scots in it?
Rule dum te dum te dum,
something, something, um…
there are a few more words after that.
He’ll squeeth and squeeth until we’re thick!
Ask people, do you support the British class system and aristocracy, and I reckon all the UK would become shades of pink. People don’t seem to be able to make that association however. The monarch is on our money and the propaganda/brainwashing starts early, even those who claim they’re not susceptible, in reality are/have been affected.
This just shows how unrepresentative the monarchist SNP Scottish government is of people who actually live in Scotland.
I am an SNP member and like almost all other members anti-monarchy (and not a supporter of the current SNP leadership). The SNP policy on the monarchy could be described as this – ‘The monarchy will remain head of state in an Independent Scotland unless the Scottish people decide otherwise’. A fudge based on an outdated perception of the reasons why people might or might not vote for Independence. There is negligible support for the monarchy in the SNP even amongst the small but rank careerist cabal that kisses leadership arse. That’s a fact.
What you see when you witness SNP leaders and reps ponce around the question of monarchy and plod along to the latest world war commemoration is a show of timidity in the face of established power and a reluctance to act on principle. Why? Your guess is a good as mine on the why of it. If i had to guess I’d say that they have too cosy a relationship with the people in Scotland who act as agents of the status quo (press, unionist political parties, PF office, landowners, various plants in the unions, banking, industry) and rather than be given a hard time by these people they choose to keep their generous wages while having an easier time of it.
Some people would call that corruption rather than monarchism. The longer it goes on the more difficult it can be explained away as ‘governing for everyone’.
A fair assessment I think.
Yep, It’s probably a position based on pragmatism and maximising the inde vote. Though all SNP policies are beginning to look a bit like that.
One thing to consider, is how support for the union and monarchy is concentrated in the older generation of Scots. The SNP should definitely keep an eye on the situation, because a polling will obviously change.
I’d agree that older folk might feel more for the union than younger folk in Scotland Craig’s article above and maps tends to show a shift in older folks attitudes towards the monarchy. I hope the shift includes the union as well, I wonder if they go hand in hand.
I voted for independence but would have supported the continuation of the monarchy not least because it reminds me how I see the afterlife. No EU because it contradicted self determination and at its core its evil along with One World movement which will lead to the complete subjugation of the many by the few.
I would not vote for independence now. The SNP, which kind of reminded me of old labour in someways, has turned very bad and it probably seems an irrelevance anyway in this ocean of chaos in which the entire West is going under fast and only divine intervention can save and reform it. For all its history and grave failings I am sure that what replaces it will be far worse.
Thank you for that cheerful little ray of sunshine !
Craig,
Odd thing the ‘ol British Empire when one comes to think of it from my Caribbean perspective.
Trying to reminisce with nostalgia about the Empire, for me, is like asking a Jewish victim of Auschwitz to list all the good which the Nazis brought to the Jewish experience at the time. The equivalent of “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” for the Caribbean is literally (work makes you free). I actually am quite serious, sober and hopefully lucid – while I am typing this.
Well, a significant contrast of two parts of the world does exist – where there is the rejection of the Empire Windrush generation while there remains a presence of the plantation slavery generations still living freely right across the West Indies. The very lands upon which enslaved persons were forced to work remain in the names of persons who, as owners, are the descendants of the plantation owners. This is quite literally true to this day. But, I had promised to write of the good ‘ol days of Empire. I guess I should shut up for the British schooling and university education which I received at London University, being, as Jack Phillips ( law school dean’s husband – in my post-graduate days, for I was a person who had ‘just come down from the trees’ ( see link below for reference to the incident). But, consider the bright side. As a student in London, some mates from Jamaica in the 1970s were heading over to Russia via London, to commence their studies in engineering and medicine, Richard and Clive respectively. Richard is White and Clive is Black; both Jamaicans. Richard’s fore parents came to Jamaica back in the mid-eighteen hundreds from England and the first in that lineage was a missionary and an educator. There had been, prior to his arrival, a school established to educate the male children of the freed Black slaves ; Richard’s fore parent was sent out to establish a similar school for girls, which he did and the school which proved a success still thrives to this day. So, given those sorts of inextricable links, should we not all have great cause to sing ‘Britannia rules the waves…and we shall never be slaves’?
On a quite serious note, reflecting on my British experiences – or – is that – my experiences while living in Britain, after all these years, I have come to two(2) conclusions on the issue at hand:-
1. Many British people do not know their history. By this I mean not that history is not taught in British schools, but where I had in my time to learn not only of the Battle of Hastings and of Boudicea, the equivalent person of my age group in Britain has precious little knowledge of the days of Empire as regards the British presence outside of Britain and what it really meant for Britain. Say, for example, I said the words, ‘Capitalism and slavery’ – many a Caribbean educated person would know immediately that reference was being made to the tome by that name researched and written by Dr. Eric Williams; and likewise – the Opium Wars – the root causes of the Bengal famine or the Irish famine – or of Lord Horatio Kitchener ( great symbol of hope and glory) and the inventor of the concentration camps in the Boer wars, proud and loyal military servant as so depicted on the most famous British army recruitment poster ever produced and was also Secretary of State for War during World War 1. etc. Conclusion: include the entire history of Britain in the curriculum and help the average British person emerge from a delusional state about the ‘glorious Empire’.
2. The outgrowth of parochialism and/or ignorance is racism. Interestingly, by way of conjoiner with my first point, a highly educated man such as Enoch Powell bears out my first point – ironic as that may seem.
https://blog.effectivelearning.net/a-sermon-governor-northam-victor-vanquished-and-the-rest-of-us/
Thank you Courtenay for your enlightening contributions, which make this blog still worth reading. Ignorance of history never turns out well, and it is always the oppressor who is the most wilfully ignorant.
Iain,
Thank you for your kind words.
I do learn a lot from you and others who make thoughtful and informed posts.
Kind regards.
Courtenay
‘… that bombing BAME people is good for them. That was and is a direct and unreconstructed revival of “liberal imperialism” of a kind that Elgar would recognise and support. ‘
——-
Recognised, certainly- but supported?
Elgar’s views changed as a result of The Great War. So much so that a critic of his views, on the same wavelength as Craig, felt compelled to write,
“…. he was never an unthinking jingoist. In the wake of the First World War, he expressed doubts about the continued suitability of Benson’s lyric. Similarly, the sombre, autumnal feel of his postwar cello concerto hinted at the human cost of imperial ambition.”
(Tristram Hunt, The Guardian 3 Jun 2007)
Given that direction of travel in less than ONE decade, is it not unrealistic 7/8 decades forward, to imagine Elgar supporting Blair’s carnage?
Imagination ≠ real. Geddit?
I’m afraid I must disagree on the idea of putting republicanism alongside independence. It wouldn’t gain support, those who want a republic aren’t witholding their support from independence because the two don’t, at the moment, go hand in hand. But, on the other hand, we DO have a surprising level of support from people who are ULTRA royalists but think we could do better on our own and view the potential arrangement as being as with Canada, a country still with the Queen as head of state. I have been genuinely surprised, shocked might be a better word, at the level of support this had from people I knew who were Orange. My cousin (yes, a branch of my family are bigots) was one of them. So, whilst republicanism won’t gain votes it WILL lose us a few. There are also people who I’d call ‘soft royalists’ who may just be uncomfortable ENOUGH for this to put them off. It’s a lose – lose BUT we could do what Ireland did, gain independence and THEN after a couple of years, become a republic.
Likewise with NATO membership and stating of perhaps not neo-con views but certainly spouting the accepted dogma. I truly believe that to do otherwise would be seen as ‘dangerous’ by some in NATO. We would then ALSO have to contend with the CIA working against us as well as MI5.
But thank you for understanding, where many newspapers didn’t, that the objection to Rule Brittania was not ‘Britons never never never shall be slaves’ but rather ‘Wider still and wider Shall thy bounds be set’ I’m not sure whether their ‘misunderstanding’ was deliberate in order to maximise the frothing at the mouth of middle England before the backlash set in.
Thanks again for another marvellous article, this is the sort of thing we should see in our newspapers but don’t. There should be a serious newspaper in Scotland which should have you as a columnist, the fact that they don’t speaks to the chilling effect the state has on reporting in our press..
“I find that speaking to SNP branches is no different to speaking to any other Yes group, in that abolition of the monarchy is overwhelmingly popular, and virtually nobody at meetings is a monarchist.”
Isn’t there a process in the party whereby branches can propose motions to a national conference?
Of course exactly the same point could be made about the Labour party and probably the Liberal Democrats too.
Some of those who say they despise the Tories need to be reminded that the Tories are a deeply, deeply monarchist party, and of the reason why – of what “Her Majesty the Queen” and the monarchy represent in the minds (and hate glands) of Tories.
Last point: you could aim to find some support in England and other parts of Britain too.
Let’s have a Union of Republics.
There’s nothing to stop people in one or more of the republics striving for an independence referendum afterwards if they wish.
But I would certainly vote “Yes” in a single question referendum “Should the monarchy be abolished in Scotland? [Yes/No]
I’d imagine the SNP, to a man and woman, are probably overwhelmingly in favour of a ceremonial head of state, in the mold of Germany and Ireland’s almost unknown recent Presidents.
It’s all about pragmatism though. Adopting abolishing the monarchy as policy, would just allow for real unionist mischief. Basically, it’s about preventing people like the devious, politically crafty Ruth Davidson, claiming Scots will end up with a domineering President Nicola or heaven forbid, a President Blair. Most people don’t understand the difference between powerless ceremonial heads of state Presidencies and full-blown, often scary, executive Presidents, like Trump and Macron.
It’s about denying the unionists a scare-mongering, deceitful attack line.
I’m not sure that many republicans would want a President Thatcher or a President Blair, even as “powerless ceremonial heads of state”. The argument for an elected Head of State is somewhat undermined by the number of truly reprehensible human beings amongst our current elected representatives.
Indeed. Though how many presidents of Germany can you name, or Irish presidents for that matter? People think of the politicians, Merkel and Varadkar, because that’s where power is concentrated.
The SNP are shying away from this issue, just as they decided to park the thorny Nato issue in 2012. This despite many being closet republicans, and many no doubt are still Nato sceptics.
With this vicious unionist press we’ve got, defending leaving Nato and defending becoming a constitutional republic, on top of already difficult currency issue – which unionists like to talk up as an insurmountable hurdle to independence – well, it would be impossible, even for a skilful political operator like Alex Salmond in his prime.
These issues are just too open to misrepresentation and scaremongering by the unionists and their media friends.
“Though how many presidents of Germany can you name, or Irish presidents for that matter?”
Or Scandinavian monarchs?
The key difference being people can vote the president out and/or limit their term in office.
The problem with the British constitutional monarchy however, is in the sweeping powers it grants the govt of the day. There aren’t the checks and balances of a written constitution, as we’ve witnessed all too vividly in recent years, and Craig knows all about the sort of shenanigans PMs can get away with, when they have a big majority and a parliament full of careerists. It’s interesting you raise Scandinavia, Sweden does have a written constitution. Don’t know about the rest.
Hi Craig, I am not sure I share your sense of maudlin nostalgia. Sure there were great moves post war such as the NHS, Open University, and generally a better access to education and enlightenment. A dose of 60’s sense of freedom. I certainly looked at Britain in many positive ways growing up.
However, the Empire never really gave up its old ways. There was the brutal Mau Mau war in Kenya which went on to the 60’s. This then led into the suppression of civil rights in Northern Ireland culminating in a war euphemistically referred to as ‘the troubles’. The Falklands was, I agree, a turning point in rediscovering the power of apparent military success to rouse popular feelings. The British press rediscovered a certain exploitative ugliness in this period. This was weird from me as a young adult.
However, I would contend, the British identification of Greatness in military power is old and has never really gone away. It is deeply ingrained in a brutal and primitive British establishment which exploits the working classes as its fodder. Look at the ridiculous Trident for god’s sake. War has become an extremely profitable enterprise and it has complete support by the press.
The Irish Republic, despite all its faults, shows that it is possible to break away and create a society that does not thrive on Jingoism and that can be economically successful nevertheless. I hope Scotland can follow this path, and with luck without having to fight the Empire or each other in a civil war.