Prince Harry ‘Paki’ video: making the republican case

Posted on Sunday 11 January, 2009
Filed Under Society

 


god%20save%20the%20queen%20cover.jpgMONARCHY is all about tradition, as Prince Harry – who likes to dress up in Nazi uniforms and diss Asian army pals as ‘Pakis’ – seems all too well aware.

After all, his great granduncle was an open fascist sympathiser suspected of passing secrets to Hitler’s Germany, while his granddad routinely berates Chinese people for their ‘slitty eyes’ and Indians for their inability to wire a fusebox.

Attitudes bordering on the white supremacist are truly second only to a collective lack of education attainment as distinguishing characteristics of the House of Windsor.

Yet only last year, a report written by Lord Goldsmith, on behalf of Gordon Brown, argued that all school-leavers should swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. Even by New Labour standards, that is one seriously dumb idea. How can any Asian teenager be expected to hold anyone from that family in any real respect?

However, republicans do themselves a disservice if they restrict any critique of the monarchy to the foibles, gaffes and idiosyncrasies of individual royals. To do so misses the crucial political point.

Britain’s unwritten constitution is centred around the notion that ‘the crown’ – to which Harry Wales is third in line – is sovereign. Accordingly, the government is ‘Her Majesty’s Government’, representing the interests of Elizabeth Windsor rather than the people that elected it into office.

Using the so-called royal prerogative, ministers can conclude treaties, appoint anyone they please to any public position, award honours and peerages, manage the civil service, introduce delegated legislation and even declare war without approval from parliament.

If demonstration be needed that Britain is a long way from being a meritocracy, the constitutional monarchy provides it in full. Our racist royal family’s continued existence – as an institution rather than as individuals, I should stress – is an insult to democratic and egalitarian values. I only hope that I live long enough to see this country become the republic a forward-looking and self-confident nation would have declared itself decades ago.


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Comments

21 Responses to “Prince Harry ‘Paki’ video: making the republican case”

  1. john
    on January 11th, 2009 at 18:04

    ” I only hope that I live long enough to see this country become the republic”.

    My thoughts exactly! Only I am not too optimistic!

  2. carrion
    on January 11th, 2009 at 18:13

    There’s a case to be made that the royal family is one of those institutions which, in the mind of many Britons, has a subconscious association with Britain’s former greatness and so forth. A forward-looking nation, yet to reach its zenith, would not behave in the way we do towards outdated institutions such as the royal family. It is a nostalgia for past greatness that makes people cling to symbols of a bygone era.

    On the question of the royal family’s personal character, Paine makes the point in his Rights of Man that the republican objection to monarchy is emphatically Not anything to do with the personal character of individual monarchs; it is the principle of heredity that is unacceptable. If it becomes a battle over whether the nation likes Elizabeth II, republicans will, i fear, lose. Indeed, one of the main lines of monarchist defence – from Burke to Peter Hitchens – is to extoll the virtues of the present monarch and take republicanism as merely an attack on them.

    That said, the greatest asset to the republican cause in Britain would, i suspect, be for Charles to ascend to the throne.

  3. Rob
    on January 11th, 2009 at 18:55

    I fail to see how invoking the royal prerogatives is particularly useful for a republican case. Firstly, many of the actions carried out under the auspices of a royal prerogative are carried out by the executives of other countries. Secondly, just because they are called ‘royal prerogatives’ it doesn’t mean that they can only be changed by scrapping the monarchy, indeed, the courts have moved from a position of arguing that there could be no review of royal prerogatives, to arguing that they be subject to rigorous review. Thirdly (and connected to the second point) abolishing the monarchy wouldn’t necessarily mean that we would have to rethink the system, considering these prerogatives are royal in name only, why would abolishing the monarchy mean that the executive no longer has these powers?

    There are lots of good reasons for getting rid of the monarchy, and one of them surely is that the existence of a monarchy offends the principles of even bourgeois equality, but I don’t really think the royal prerogative is a particualrly strong one.

  4. Fellow Traveller
    on January 11th, 2009 at 19:06

    Even by New Labour standards, that is one seriously dumb idea. How can any Asian teenager be expected to hold anyone from that family in any real respect?

    For an authoritarian state worshipper respect travels only in one direction: upwards from the people to the sovereign. The monarch doesn’t have to respect you in return.

    I wondered about Lord Goldsmith’s advocacy of an oath of allegiance to the Crown while reading about the English Civil War last night (God’s Fury, England’s Fire). For a start, I pondered how they would enforce it among the Irish republicans in the province. I imagined they’d create a special exemption for that corner of a foreign field that is forever England much as they did with abortion. It interests me that during the entire recent period of difficulty in Ireland, the British state didn’t try to make the population swear such an oath, presumably because the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.

    In many respects, Britain seems headed for the 17th century, given that religion has become a prominent political issue, with the state deciding what radical preachers can tell their congregations and, like the Puritan martyrs, imprisoning those who refuse,. What will it do next, introduce a new act of conformity?

    “There’s no future in England’s dreaming.”

  5. BrightonGeoff
    on January 11th, 2009 at 20:11

    I can’t maintain optimism of the will on the possibility of ridding ourselves of the royal welfare scroungers any time soon. Our political landscape is so barren even something as mild as a republican model looks as far away as the next ice age.

  6. Robert
    on January 11th, 2009 at 20:52

    Calling a Pakistani a Paki, it’s not the calling of the name but the way in which it’s used.

    Thick F*cking Irish Paddy hey paddy what you doing mate, you Welsh sheep shagging bastard only last week on TV a joke was used about sheep and the welsh. Jocks, Krauts, Frogs, all seen as being well part of our love affair with the EU so whats the difference with Paki is calling a German a Kraut any worse then saying Paki.

    I do not know because I do not use any of those words. perhaps because I’m half German 1/3 French and the rest Irish.

  7. Miller 2.0
    on January 11th, 2009 at 21:38

    Technical foul: The Crown in Parliament is Sovereign.

  8. Sue R
    on January 11th, 2009 at 22:34

    Seeing the quality of some of the poeple that Labour has put in the House of Lords, I’m beginning to wonder if the heriditary principle is such a bad thing!!

  9. Sue R
    on January 11th, 2009 at 22:55

    I don’t suppose Prince Harry will be inviting Capt Ahmed Raza Khan round for tiffin now. Interesting that this happened three years ago, but only now has someone in a fit of righteous anger and indignation released it to the nation. Who filmed it, who has kept it and who released it? Let’s not forget as well, that Prince Harry’s own mother wanted to marry a Pakistani, Dr Hasnat Khan, so really, is a) Harry harbouring deep Oepideal hatreds towards people from Pakistan, or, b) has a belief that they are part of his own family, and thus can be treated like brothers?

  10. Sean
    on January 12th, 2009 at 08:12

    You are – a stuck up leftie ponce. Ex punk my arse!! LEFTIE PONCE mate!

  11. Letters From A Tory
    on January 12th, 2009 at 09:59

    “Using the so-called royal prerogative, ministers can conclude treaties, appoint anyone they please to any public position, award honours and peerages, manage the civil service, introduce delegated legislation and even declare war without approval from parliament.”

    All true, and all can be dealt with without too much fuss. This brief list hardly represents a strong case for abolishing the monarchy.

  12. Andrew Coates
    on January 12th, 2009 at 11:39

    One of the many reasons to loathe Charles is that he want to be the King For (or is it ‘of’) all the Faiths. He rather likes Islam, and no doubt Scientolgy and Shaminism. Truly multicultural.

    As for Harry: it was said a while ago but with my extensive experience of gutter-snipe language I would say that anyone who goes around talking of Pakis is such a piece of racist gobshite that he is unfit to walk into a Pub let alone be our Sovereign.

  13. Marcus
    on January 12th, 2009 at 11:45

    Not bad Dave. But still Labour republicanism, not working class republicanism. Look at France and the US… their republicanism was turned into its opposite… elected monarchies. Down with the monarchy… but what sort of republic?

  14. ChandaImmaddy
    on January 13th, 2009 at 09:00

    I think you are thinking like sukrat, but I think you should cover the other side of the topic in the post too…

  15. MJW
    on January 13th, 2009 at 09:55

    Always good to see someone blowing an incident out of proportion as a flimsy pretext for an altogether different agenda.

    Personally I’ve decided to prove how PC I am by getting all offended on behalf of the Harry’s mate. To give a bit of extra leverage I’m going to pretend that this was a malicious event rather than crude (and tasteless) banter between mates.

  16. Enlargement
    on January 16th, 2009 at 21:40

    I am amazed with it. It is a good thing for my research. Thanks

  17. Janine
    on January 16th, 2009 at 22:06

    Coatesy, It’s ‘Defender of Faith’ that Chas wants to be. The existing moicker is ‘Defender of the Faith’. The Faith, of course, being the Church of England.

    I fail to see how defending several varieties of superstitious crap is any better or worse than defending one variety of superstitious crap.

  18. Lobby Ludd
    on January 16th, 2009 at 22:41

    It struck me when Mr Windsor made that statement about being ‘defender of faith’ that he again revealed how fundamentally stupid he is. He doesn’t even understand his job spec. (‘Defender of the Faith’ refers to being the head of the Church of England – as Janine notes.)

    Lucky for him that he doesn’t have to apply for his ‘job’.

  19. Natural
    on January 19th, 2009 at 08:32

    I think you are thinking like sukrat, but I think you should cover the other side of the topic in the post too…

  20. Sue R
    on January 19th, 2009 at 09:51

    I’m sure that Prince Charles is well aware of the provenance of the title ‘Defender of the Faith’. Getting rid of an inconvenient wife is something he shares with the original title holder. (Incidentally, Henry was given that title by the Pope, but hung onto it when he establish the C of E). Charles is just doing his bit for the multi-cultural multi-faith melting pot that this country is nowadays.

  21. RonendampVada
    on January 21st, 2009 at 00:52

    I am unable to understand this post. But well some points are useful for me.