While it may seem offensive to talk about the survival and abolition of the British monarchy at the moment Queen Elizabeth II has just passed away, after Crown Prince Charles automatically became King Charles III of England, his A highly controversial past suggests that it will not be smooth sailing at the helm.
The "Last King of England" a hundred years ago
As early as around 1909, under the antagonistic atmosphere of the British Liberal Party's constant criticism of the British aristocratic landlord class, it is said that Queen Elizabeth II's great-grandfather, King Edward VII of England, once told the Secretary of State for War that "England's last A king" to introduce his son George V.
Edward VII died under the constitutional crisis, and after George V succeeded to the throne, the British Parliament passed legislation to seize the veto power of the House of Lords on the fiscal bill and further seize the power of the aristocracy (the royal family is the nobles among the nobles).
George V died in 1936. After his son Edward VIII succeeded to the throne, he was forced to give up the throne in order to marry the twice-divorced American Mrs. Simpson. name or infamy.
At this moment, the father of Queen Elizabeth II, who was naturally stammering and unwilling to be king, succeeded in the name of George VI.
At the time, there was also fear that the Edward scandal would undermine the British reverence for the royal family and lead to the collapse of the monarchy.
After the baptism of World War II, the throne passed to Queen Elizabeth II in 1952. In the era of the "Empire on which the Sun Never Sets", this queen who does not talk about politics and loves dogs and horses like her life has become a British queen. The longest reigning monarch in history.
Despite the extramarital affairs and divorce scandals of Princess Diana and then-Crown Prince Charles in the 1990s, as well as the PR disaster after Diana's death in a car accident, Queen Elizabeth II's reign has undoubtedly made the British royal family experience a long period of time. A 70-year period of stability helped Britain through the difficult process of entering modern times after the fall of the empire.
Feeling that his insistence on marrying Wallis Simpson would cause a political upheaval, Edward VIII decided to abdicate and his younger brother George VI succeeded to the throne.
Edward VIII reigned for 326 days, becoming one of the shortest reigning monarchs in British history. After abdication, he was named Duke of Windsor and married Wallis Simpson in France in 1937.
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As long as there are monarchs who shouldn't do things
After 70 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II's popularity exceeds 80%, which is beyond the reach of any public figure in politics.
Even the British republicans who opposed the monarchy, when calling for the overthrow of the monarchy, also added that they would not overthrow the monarchy during their term of office.
Queen Elizabeth II's success lies in her lack of political involvement and inaction, in line with royal expert Dermot Morrah's description of a constitutional monarch: the monarch's responsibility is to be, not to do.
During her tenure, almost all of her quasi-political actions were exploited by then-British Prime Ministers - a more recent example being David Cameron's 2014 Scottish independence referendum in which the Queen made a public call for Scots to "serve the future" Think carefully", and even in 2019 was asked by Boris Johnson to suspend Congress (a move that was eventually ruled illegal by the Supreme Court).
The Queen's own political opinions have hardly been made public in the past 70 years.
Although the Queen has been accused of supporting Brexit, seeing Scottish independence as the greatest threat, and once opposed to Margaret Thatcher's support for apartheid in South Africa, her political attitudes can often only be glimpsed in a very hidden way.
For example, she awarded a higher-than-normal knighthood to a governor-general in Rhodesia (now known as "Zimbabwe") who tried to kick out a pro-apartheid prime minister, considered anti-apartheid statement.
Balmoral Castle in Scotland was one of Queen Elizabeth II's favourite residences and the place where she died.
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Charles' love of politics
Compared with Elizabeth II, Charles III was not only keen on political and policy issues, but also riddled with various indelible scandals.
Princess Diane's 1995 "three people in marriage" interview, the two divorced the following year, to Princess Diana's death in a car accident in 1997, to Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles' marriage in 2005, needless to say Charles' biggest stain.
However, in addition to this, what is more worthy of attention is that Charles has always had strong political opinions in the past, and even used his crown prince position to win over officials for this.
As early as 1970, Charles has called attention to the environmental problems caused by pollution, plastics and overpopulation, and since the 1990s has talked about the need for action against climate warming.
At the time, people thought his interests were bizarre, but now he seems to have a sense of being ahead of the times. He has also spoken at the United Nations climate conference many times in recent years.
The problem is that today's Conservative government of Liz Truss is skeptical of climate policy, and on the same day the Queen died, it said it would re-examine the government's policy of reaching net zero emissions. If Charles continues his climate activities, it may be possible Will cause a feud between Downing Street and Buckingham Palace.
In the past, Charles used to write to government officials expressing policy preferences.
The 27 correspondence between 2004 and 2005, obtained by the Guardian after years of legal battles in 2015 alone, shows that Charles's policy demands were wide-ranging, including improving British equipment in Iraq, requiring the National Health Service (NHS) Continue to offer herbal remedies that were restricted by the EU at the time, hope that the government will appoint its candidates to deal with the poor treatment of farmers in supermarkets, express dissatisfaction with school meals, ban certain types of fish, speed up the development of a certain hospital land Wait.
In addition to the "homeopathy" and other claims that Charles has also supported until recent years, the above claims may not be obviously wrong. However, Charles's influence on officials behind the scenes has destroyed the British constitutional monarchy tradition of the royal family's apathy, and there are potential conflicts of interest. , and weakened the status of the royal family beyond political disputes.
Camilla: The picture shows that on March 25, 2022, British Crown Prince Charles (right) and his wife Camilla (left) visited Cashel Rock, Ireland.
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The then Labour government of Tony Blair responded enthusiastically to the crown prince's "advice". In a reply, Belliya said that he had always valued the crown prince's views on agricultural issues; the "Guardian" also questioned Belliya The authorities delayed the enforcement of the above-mentioned herbal remedies restrictions because of Charles' intervention; the then Minister of Education wrote back "His Royal Highness's most humble and obedient servant".
Of course, Charles's influence on national affairs is in any case extremely limited, unless Britain is caught in a constitutional crisis that Congress cannot resolve.
But any policy proposition has its opponents, and the monarch's attempt to influence political affairs will not only be an abuse of privileges, but will also create enemies for himself.
In addition, many incidents of accepting donations from Middle Eastern countries broke out this year, which also shows that Charles seems to lack political acumen. He was willing to accept millions of pounds donations from the bin Laden family, as well as from a former Qatari prime minister three times, totaling nearly 250 million pounds. £10,000 cash donation.
Although the bin Laden family broke away from the terrorist Osama bin Laden in 2014, and it is not illegal to back millions in cash, these events seem to show that Charles' judgment is far inferior to his mother's.
Anti-monarchy movement in every country
In terms of popularity, Charles has been far behind the new crown prince William (Prince William), whose support is close to Queen Elizabeth II.
The reason why the Queen of England did not "pass the throne between generations", and even Camilla, who is regarded as the mistress of the crown prince, was only out of consideration for maintaining the tradition of succession to the throne - if the succession of the throne depends not only on blood and family relations, but also on Taking public opinion into account, this would be no different from an elected ceremonial presidential system.
Prince William: The picture shows Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate visiting an environmental company in the Bahamas on March 26, 2022.
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Seeing the weakness of Charles, the Commonwealth countries, which still have the British monarch as the head of state, will have a louder voice to demand that the head of state be brought back to the country.
A group of ex-colonial countries in the Caribbean have this request, and even Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have similar voices.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arderne, and even the new British Prime Minister Liz Truss (in his Liberal Democratic Party era) have had their heads of state localized, republican, Abolition of the monarchy, etc.
(The three did not make such a request today.) And countries including the United Kingdom have organized to re-launch the activities of abolishing the British King after the death of the Queen, including the British anti-monarchy organization "Republic" (Republic), Australian Green Party, etc.
If Charles III is not careful in his words and deeds, it will give these anti-British forces, including Britain, an excuse to overthrow his head of state.
In an interview in 2018, Charles publicly stated that if he were to become the monarch, he would not intervene in political affairs, claiming that being a crown prince and being a monarch were "completely different" situations, "Obviously I will not be able to be my successor. The same thing that the monarch has done," and that he was not "stupid" enough to do things that a monarch should not do.
But at the Commonwealth of Nations summit in June this year, Charles told Commonwealth member countries that whether any country wants to be a republic or a monarchy "is purely a matter for the member states", "These arrangements can Transformed in the face of resentment".
The "member state" here literally includes the UK itself.
An outdated system can often be maintained for a long time by people's inertia, but the premise is that this system does not bring too much trouble to people.
In the future, we will have to see if Charles III, who has had a bad track record in the past, will become this "premise", so that the description of his great-great-grandfather more than a hundred years ago can be applied to himself.
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