Royal baby doesn’t relieve Brexit blues
Big news flash seen and heard quickly ‘round the world: Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, has just given birth. The newest member of the Royal Family of Britain (excuse me that should be the United Kingdom) arrived April 23 in good form.
Meanwhile, in news barely recorded by the world media, the House of Lords in the United Kingdom has handed a major setback to the tortured efforts of the government to withdraw from the European Union. On April 18, the senior house of Parliament voted to demand that the government negotiate a customs union with the EU as part of departure, known as Brexit.
The supranational European organization began as a unified trading zone in the 1950s. This has served as the basis for continuing increasingly complex political as well as economic integration.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s hardline government plans a sharp break with the EU. This would facilitate negotiating trade accords in other parts of the world, without lingering bureaucratic ties.
Over the past century, the House of Lords has slowly but steadily lost power to the “lower” house of the bicameral Parliament. The House of Commons can overturn the vote of the Lords, but may not.
Meanwhile Queen Elizabeth II is the head of state of the United Kingdom and plays important if subtle governmental roles. Royalty and representative government have important complementary functions. Walter Bagehot’s important 1867 book “The English Constitution” brilliantly analyzes the “efficient functions” of Parliament and the “dignified functions” of the monarchy.
The former manages the government. The latter performs the ceremonial activities of the nation, by so doing insulating national institutions from the passions of party politics.
Since World War II, the American media and public have paid considerable attention to developments in the British monarchy — the happy, the tragic, and the scandalous. That war helps explain why this is true.
Before the U.S. formally entered the global war, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and government colleagues gave priority to forging close alliance with the Americans. FDR and colleagues reciprocated. Britain’s King and Queen visited the U.S. in June 1939, just before the war began in Europe.
Our strategic partnership reinforces joint influence in the extensive areas where interests, commitments and policies overlap.
Collective British voter movement away from the Conservative and Labour parties is a long-term trend.
Yet no one doubts institutions of government will endure. Queen Elizabeth, prudent and responsible head of state, deserves some credit for that — shared credit.
Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College. Contact acyr@carthage.edu.