 Good morning comrades. Those of you who know me might be wondering why I'm so dowally dressed today. Well the thing is I've been reading a lot about the Queen and she's been in the news quite a lot in the past two weeks and the poor woman is is really quite unwell. She's had to take two weeks off work and I've really been hoping that she will die in time for my talk. So just in case there's still time you know I've got about another 40 minutes I'll keep an eye on my phone until I did to dress all in black today you know just as a mark of respect in case our dear monarch should pass. So fingers crossed everyone. I did check just now and apparently Boris Johnson spoke to her yesterday and she's doing well. She's working at home from her desk. Now when your job entirely consists of shaking people's hands I'm not sure how you can do that from a desk but you know she's a hard-working lady. I'm sure she will find a way. But anyone who's grown up in this country will be familiar with the story that we're told about the monarchy. It's a very familiar fairytale you know the story goes that the monarchy is nothing more than a ceremonial role in modern society that the Queen is just a powerless figurehead a lovely figurehead but one without any power who represents kind of thousands of years of wonderful British tradition and exists to unite the nation. So you know things like the Queen's speech, state-opening a parliament all of that we're told is just harmless pompery you know it's the equivalent of a shiny ornament atop the wonderful Christmas tree that is British democracy and the British state. It's just there to look nice but it doesn't actually affect how the country is run after all we're a democracy and the people make the decisions and of course the Queen is a very lovely lady who works very hard and this is the same story that the royal family themselves put forward so if you were to look on the Queen's website yes she has a website I have looked at it it gives the following explanation of the role of the monarchy it says the monarchy is the oldest form of government in the United Kingdom. In a monarchy a king or Queen is head of state the British monarchy is known as a constitutional monarchy this means that while the sovereign is head of state the ability to make and pass legislation resides within elected parliament although the sovereign no longer has a political or executive role he or she continues to play an important part in the life of the nation. As a head of state the monarch undertakes constitutional and representational duties which have developed over 1,000 years of history. In addition to these state duties the monarch has a less formal role as a head of the nation the sovereign acts as a focus for national identity unity and pride gives a sense of stability and continuity and officially recognizes success and excellence and it supports the idea of voluntary service so I think we can agree you know the Queen is doing a really excellent job Britain is a wonderfully stable country under her leadership you know no one's been queuing for petrol there hasn't been running out of food in the shops and I feel a really strong sense of pride that a gang of Nazi sympathizing racist pedophiles stand at the head of this country. Of course I'm joking but I think we can see from these you know recent scandals that Georgina referred to all the way back really actually to the to the death of Princess Diana to the recent revelations of Meghan Markle and the abuse allegations leveled against Prince Andrew we've been afforded a kind of a glimpse at the rotten stench that lies at the heart of this institution and I think the sinister truth about the monarchy can't be further from from the myth and the lies that are peddled by the ruling class so in this talk I will try to explain why the monarchy is actually an important reserve of power for the bourgeoisie it's a tool that has been purposely maintained as a counter-revolutionary weapon that will undoubtedly be deployed by the ruling class in their fight against the working class and their fight against socialism so it's elementary really that any consistent democrat let alone a revolutionary socialist such as ourselves should stand firmly for the immediate abolition of this rotten relic but I think in order to understand the role of the monarchy we actually have to look back at its history and chase its development as a modern institution so there being kings or queens in this country that we to take all Britain in one form or another since even before the Roman conquest in 55 BC when Julius Caesar defeated King Cantor-Venny but despite the propaganda that the monarchy puts forward that's over a thousand years old etc the institution that we know today really dates from 1688 and what's called the Glorious Revolution this happened when James II the last Stuart King was unceremoniously kicked out and replaced by the Dutch adventurer William of Orange but as we'll come to learn this this sordid palace coup was neither glorious nor was it a revolution in fact 46 years earlier there'd been a genuine revolution in England in what historians prefer to refer to as the English Civil War the young English bourgeoisie had come into conflict with the absolutist monarchy of Charles I which was standing in the way of the further development of capitalism it become a fetter on the growth and profits of the young English capitalist caste and as such came into a conflict with the with the majority in Parliament representing the English bourgeoisie and the city of London and so they mobilized an army to fight against the king events got out of hand it stirred up the masses as all revolutions do the independence and then the levelers and the diggers represented the democratic and socialist aspirations of the masses and this inspired the ranks of the new model army which was organized by Cromwell along modern lines which made it a highly effective fighting unit and secured the inevitable victory of the parliamentarian forces against the king which culminated in the trial and then execution by beheading of Charles I for treason but after the beheading of this hated tyrant how come we ended up back with a with a monarchy today back with a king on the throne it's very similar to a process we see in lots of revolutions you know in in the french revolution they got rid of their monarchy in fact the monarchy was reinstalled in France too for a period but also you know they ended up with with Napoleon and the restoration of lots of aspects of feudalism and what happens in these bourgeois revolutions is the bourgeois carry a revolution they use the masses to carry out their revolution and when the power is secure they turn against them you know just as Cromwell went on to liquidate the levelers after the revolution and fearing the revolution has gone too far that it's whipped up the masses too much they support a political counter revolution while maintaining the new capitalist relations that have been established by the revolution and the overthrow of feudalism and so after Cromwell's death the fearful english bourgeoisie did a deal with the land of aristocracy agreeing to the return of the monarchy and they installed Charles II Charles versus son at its head but they invited him to become king on the on the condition that there would be no return to absolutism in other words they wanted to maintain the political and economic gains that the bourgeoisie had secured through the revolution and continue to rule through parliament with the king as a simple figurehead but Charles II had very different ideas and immediately began concentrating power into his hands going so far as to attack the bourgeois strongholds in the city of london and other town corporations by revoking their royal charters and purging their governing body of wigs which was the the forerunner of the liberal party and would the main political representative of the english bourgeoisie at the time and packing them with royalist Tories and even for the last four years of his reign Charles II ruled without parliament having dismissed it in 1681 his heir James II continued this campaign of concentrating power in the monarchy's hands and it's culminated in a judicial ruling around him being able to appoint Catholics to position the power that basically transformed parliament into a mere sleeping partner in the constitution in effect the ruling said that the parliament could pass whatever laws it liked but it was up to the king whether they were enforced and this was basically the final straw for the bourgeoisie everything that they had gained through the revolution through the war against Charles I was under threat and actually united the Tories and the wigs in resistance to to the crown they issued an invitation to William of Orange who was a dutch guy who'd married one of James's daughters I think he was technically sixth in line to the throne and they said please come over and invade Britain and get rid of this tyrant which he which he duly did was rewarded as becoming king of England but this was basically a grubby palace coup but we like to call it you know in history the glorious revolution but having handed William the crown the wigs and Tories remained united in an effort to limit the power of the monarchy or any future monarchy could hold and this resulted in a so-called declaration of rights but the rights in question weren't the rights of ordinary people against the state or ordinary people against the monarchy they were the rights of the bourgeoisie against the crown they were the rights of the bourgeoisie against the feudal aristocracy and this is the foundation of the the constitutional monarchy that we have today and there's a very popular myth that you know throughout history the monarchy has always been very popular that you know actually the the king was brought back because we couldn't cope without a king and Cromwell was such an evil man so we had to bring the monarchy back because you know British peasants just didn't know what to do without a king sitting on a throne but actually at this time the monarchy was extremely unpopular and the next hundred and fifty years were full of kind of scandals and upheavals and it was only actually towards the end of of Queen Victoria's reign in the beginning of the 20th century that the ruling class took steps to rebuild the the monarchy as the institution we know it today so they lavished huge sums of money on on spectacles such as Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887 and a lot of the present day kind of like ceremonial pantomimes like the changing of the guard you know the the royal opening, state opening of parliament you know all that stuff with the the shaky of the mace etc you know we think of these as ancient British traditions lots of these were actually invented during the reign of of Queen Victoria as an attempt to kind of build up the monarchy and the consciousness of the masses and this isn't a coincidence it actually flowed from the political needs of the bourgeoisie at the time because during this period you know after pressure from below after pressure from the ruling class there was a gradual opening up of the electoral franchise in Britain the total registered electorate in the United Kingdom grew from 5.7 million people in 1885 to 21 million in 1918 but if the ruling class were going to allow the great unwashed the masses say in how the country was run they needed a guarantee against things getting out of hand against them having too much of a say and turning against the bourgeoisie so then once again they turned back to the monarchy is that a guarantee and the reasons for this are very clearly set out in a marvelous book by Walter Baghott which he wrote in 1865 called The English Constitution and it's really it's very much an astounding read because he clearly you know he was writing for people of his own class and it probably didn't even into into his head that it was possible for a working person to ever read his book and therefore he was remarkably frank and honest you know it was basically a manual for the bourgeoisie about how the British state was run and how it functioned and so important is Baghott's book that actually generations of British monarchs have been instructed to read it as part of their education on how they rule so I've never watched it but if you do season one of the crown apparently has a scene in which the young Elizabeth is read aloud from Baghott's book by her tutor so according to Baghott England has two sets of institutions there's what he refers to as the dignified institutions which are there to impress the many and then the efficient ones that are there to govern the many and the main dignified institution is the monarchy and he explained that it played an essential role in winning and sustaining the loyalty and the confidence of the masses of ordinary people helping the state to gain authority and legitimacy his message was very clear you know the masses don't understand politics they can't be really trusted to vote the right way but since they conquered the right to vote the ruling class had to devise a royal pantomime to distract them while the the real exercise of power is kept firmly in hands of the bourgeoisie so he writes it should be evident that the monarch does no wrong he should not be brought too closely to real measurement he should be a loof and solitary as the functions of the English royalty are for the most part latent it fulfills this condition it seems to order but it never seems to struggle it is commonly hidden like a mystery and sometimes paraded like a pageant but neither case is contentious the nation is divided into parties and we would say the nation is divided into classes that he means the same thing but the crown is of no party its apparent separation from business is that which removes it both from enmities and from desecration which preserves its mystery which enables it to combine the affection of conflicting parties to be a visible symbol of unity to all of those so imperfectly educated as to need a symbol so as he notes the powers of the monarchy are latent and that means in normal times normal times of constitutional rule the monarchy seems to have no real power and purposefully maintains a visage of innocuousness and mere ceremony but should the establishment require it in times of crisis the monarchy can legally assume almost unlimited powers so it's more than a feudal anachronism it's more than just a a pantomime for the people of Britain it's actually a reserve weapon in the hands of the ruling class because behind the curtain behind all these stories that we're told we should never forget that it's her majesty's government it's her majesty's loyal opposition it's her majesty's civil service it's her majesty's armed forces it's her majesty's inspectorate of constabulary to which all the police forces in the country are accountable the election of a government itself in britain is dependent on the monarch to call on her majesty's prime minister to form a government and any legislation that is passed in this country requires the queen's approval through the royal assent process before it can come law in essence the monarchy is actually constitutionally the source of all power in the british government and these powers aren't just theoretical as we're told the queen has exercised and many times herself throughout her reign for example there's the the little known process called queen's consent which was revealed last year and it's a convention whereby ministers and parliament allow the monarch to exercise consultative and veto powers over laws affecting the monarchy's interests so previously secret documents have disclosed that the queen has vetted more than a thousand parliamentary bills during her reign and in fact used the procedure to secretly lobby for some laws to be altered to benefit her private interests so for example she used the procedure to instruct government ministers to change a 1970s transparency law in order to conceal her private wealth from the public the same procedure actually applies to to to to prince charles and he's used that procedure hundreds of times throughout the last few decades to protect his interests the interests of the duchy of cornwall for example amending laws to prevent tenants on his land from being able to buy their property for example and this this is just the tip of the iceberg so for example when when the queen paroled parliament in 2019 she actually revealed that she is an unelected head of state has the power to side with a minority in parliament and bypass the scrutiny of britain's elected representatives against the wishes of the parliamentary majority you know if you cast your mind back to that time it feels like a long time ago lots has happened since you know Boris Johnson couldn't get his Brexit deal through parliament there was a deadlock the the majority of of MPs were against the government and so to solve this he merely asked the queen to suspend parliament to side with a minority in our democratically elected institutions against the wishes of a majority and she was perfectly capable and constitutionally able to do so and at the time it was reported that the queen was furious about this because really it revealed her her true power and there was a fear on behalf of the monarchy that it could undermine her support and drag her into politics particularly the politics of brexit when of course she is is meant to remain and appear to be a loof in an independent of politics and that's because these powers are meant to remain hidden they're meant to remain a secret they're meant to be held back and used as a last resort by the bourgeoisie against democratically elected governments that threaten their interests that threaten their profits that's why the queen's powers include being able to dismiss dismiss elected governments from office and this is no theoretical power it was this very power was used in a constitutional crisis in australia to remove the elected labor government of gal wittlem in 1975 now wittlem and the labor party had had won an election in 1972 a landslide election after 23 years of liberal party rule the liberals being the australian equivalent of the torries the party of the bourgeoisie the party of the ruling class on the basis of promising substantial reforms and unlike most left-reformists in history wittlem actually started to deliver parts of his program under pressure from the australian working class his government introduced free higher education they increased health spending they withdrew australian troops from vietnam and they introduced equal pay rights for women and granted the first aboriginal land rights in the history of australia but soon after the 1973 oil crisis signaled the end of the post-war boom and it plunged economies the world over into recession the australian bourgeoisie like the ruling class around the world wanted to make the workers pay for the crisis and they demanded the overturn of wittlem's reforms as well as huge public spending cuts it sounds like a familiar story doesn't it it sounds like the story of the past 10 years of Tory rule but it wasn't so much the labour government that the ruling class in australia feared but the organised workers that laid behind them so in 1974 in response to the crisis a huge strike wave had erupted across australia with workers walking out to protect their jobs and interests to put pressure on the government to maintain their reforms and this is what really terrified the the australian ruling class you know the the organised workers exercising their power and this strike wave was threatening you know to grow even further so the bosses wanted the removal of wittlem and they wanted a strong government they could rely on to crush the workers movement to instep the queen liberals manufactured a constitutional crisis in the senate by blocking the labour government's budget and the queen's representative governor general sir john kerr stepped in to remove wittlem and commissioned the leader of the opposition malcom Fraser of the liberal party to act as a caretaker prime minister so this is a piece of history that's not really you know discussed it's not really taught anywhere and in no uncertain terms this was a coup it was a coup carried out by the queen at the behest of the australian bourgeoisie against the democratically elected government and it was a perfectly legal coup it was a perfectly constitutional uh uh uh coup where a government that had been elected by the vast majority of australians to represent their interests was removed at the queen because the representation of the interests of the working class threatened the interests of of the bourgeoisie and that's no small thing and i think we should learn from this incident now you might say that that was australia but of course we have a very similar system of government we have the same constitutional arrangements and the queen plays exactly the same role in the british state she does in fact pay in the canadian and australian states it demonstrates clearly and unequivocally that the queen's powers aren't just theoretical and that the bourgeoisie are fully prepared to deploy them should their interests be sufficiently threatened um the queen not only has the power to to dismiss and appoint governments constitutionally she also has the power to suspend parliament and rule through what's called the privy council is an organ of state that's not often referred to because you know they prefer it to remain uh in in the shadows um until a national emergency requires the the green light to show its real face so according to to a h hansson and malkin malls um experts in the in the british constitution they wrote in their book governing britain there are even some who still think of the monarch as the ultimate guardian of the constitution equipped with powers which although normally dormant might be revived in circumstances of a serious constitutional crisis or incipient revolution so there you have it from the mouths of the bourgeoisie themselves the the queen's powers are usually dormant but we keep them there just in case there's a revolution because she might come in useful um so over many hundreds of years the bourgeoisie have come to realize that democracy was their preferred form of government under capitalism and that's not because they have any faith or belief in democracy in fact they're very contemptuous of democracy but it's because they've discovered it's cheaper it's more efficient it's more reliable um than some totalitarian model where you have to rely on an individual who uh you know could pursue their own interests um against the interests of uh of the ruling class and of course the illusion of uh of control the illusion of uh of of democracy helps to keep the masses in check helps to give them an illusion that they have a say over how their lives are run but should democracy ever produce an outcome that genuinely threatens the interests of the ruling class they have absolutely no qualms in doing away with this and we've seen this many times throughout history you know we've seen it in coups throughout latin america and the middle east usually instituted at the behest of of american and british imperialism but we should have absolutely no illusions in the british ruling class um if it came down to it if they were threatened uh with the socialist revolution in this country they would willingly establish a military dictatorship to prevent that revolution and the monarchy would be absolutely central uh to this by using its reserve powers to uphold the constitution for example what would have happened if corbin had been elected do you remember there were there were threats uh from a number of uh shadowy army generals who said if corbin was elected uh the army would step in and carry out a coup and these were you know widely reported uh in newspaper presses and it's not difficult to imagine a scenario you know had had corbin been elected if he'd refused to back down uh to the demands of the bourgeoisie who inevitably would have stepped in to try and prevent corbin from carrying out uh his program it's not a difficult to imagine a scenario where they manufacture a national crisis you know through a strike of capital or or or some other means and invite the queen to step in uh and save the country and now some people might think that such a scenario uh is far fetched you know a bit of uh you know what happened if corbin had won the 27 election fan fiction uh surely such a thing couldn't actually happen uh in in a wonderful democratic country uh like britain in britain where a coup has been seriously discussed uh um uh by the representatives of of big business uh and the military in the last 50 years and that's in 1968 1974 uh and 1979 coincidentally all years in which a labour government uh was in power well obviously not so much uh coincidence so the most famous of these is in 1968 where there were plans to launch a coup uh in britain uh in which a military regime under lord mount batten uh would be established so lord mount batten was part of the royal family he was the uncle of of everyone's uh favorite racist prince philip um he was the chief of defense staff uh until 1965 when his opposition to wilson's labour government uh uh led to his retirement now at this time very similar to australia in the 70s britain was facing a serious economic crisis there was industrial unrest there was the devaluation of uh the pound there was a great dissatisfaction in the ruling class you could feel the decline of british capitalism they could feel their their influence slipping away on a world scale uh even the head of the cia's counterintelligence unit had told ma5 that wilson uh was a secret uh soviet agent and it's it's a fact of history uh you know you can read it in the memoirs of people who were involved uh at the time it's not uh an invention it's a fact of history that a real coup uh plan was hatched uh at this time to overthrow uh the wilson government it involved uh sesal king who was the chairman of the mirror group who writes very candidly about this in his his autobiography and uh the director of the bank of england alongside uh lord mount batten and the only reason that the coup failed at the time was because the queen was not prepared to use her reserve powers they felt that the time wasn't right the balance of forces uh in society would have led to a massive backlash which would have undermined the monarchy and discredited any future role um that's because these powers really have to be held back as a as a means of last resort and as bakeholt wrote uh describing these powers he said the secret prerogative that being the prerogative to to dismiss democratically elected governments is an anomaly perhaps the greatest of anomalies that secrecy however is essential to the utility of english royalty as it now is above all things our royalty is to be reverenced and if you begin to poke about of it you cannot reverence it you must not let daylight in upon the magic we must not bring the queen into the combat of politics or she will cease to be reverenced by all combatants she will become one combatant combatant amongst uh many um what bakeholt is saying here is that you know the what are you saying two things one that uh the queen's powers can only be used as a means of absolute last resort and until this time they have to be shrouded in mystery they have to be hidden uh from the view of public and he's also saying that if these powers are used it's essential that the monarchy commands the respect the majority of the population uh that's why the ruling class puts so much effort into building up uh uh the monarchy by you know spinning this web of lies and these myths of uh of of how wonderful uh the queen is how wonderful the monarchy is how we should all respect her and appreciate the hard work um that she does uh for the nation and it's why the ruling class are in fact so concerned about the scandals that have wrought uh the royal family in recent years because the open conflicts uh the splits and the rules we've seen within the royal family openly paraded across the pages of the tabloid press um have served to seriously undermine uh the monarchy for the for example the revelations of of harry and megan and not just tissel tattle they have a serious impact you know you may wonder why uh why marxists we uh you know are interested in the in the revelations of uh you know these super wealthy and privileged individuals you know talking about how hard their lives are on uh on uh opal winfrey's um show but actually you know they they do play an important role in society um you know lifting the lid on what goes on uh uh behind the scenes showing the reality uh of of the royal family and of course i'm sure as you all know one of the most disgusting revolution revelations uh included the came uh by megan that won royal um who we don't know who it is but i think we can probably all guess had expressed to harry concerns and conversations about how dark their skin uh their son's skin might be uh when he was born um you know for the crime of having a child that was mixed race the royal family took their revenge uh uh by denying him the title of prince and the concomitant prince police protection and megan claimed her general treatment at the time was uh was such that it pushed her to the point feeling suicidal and the picture the couple were presented uh of the family was one of a mean duplicitous racist and vengeful clique the head of a feudal relic that was unwilling and unable to reform itself now who could have faith in such a rotten institution but unfortunately for the royals unfortunately for the ruling class the scandals keep coming you know a few weeks ago uh as georgina mentioned it was revealed that the metropolitan police would take no action over the allegations against prince andrew it's obvious that it's one rule for them and one rule for the rest of us the court case against him however in in the states is is pressing on with andrew now having to accept that he's been served papers by a us court official apparently this followed multiple attempts to avoid being served apparently just turning up at royal palaces uh so you know knocking the doors it's prince andrew there i'd like to serve him a papers accusing him of of being a rapist and a pedophile no sorry prince andrew isn't in today he can't he can't accept that accusation uh but eventually somehow they did uh did serve the papers on him and the queen is actually allegedly paying millions from her private funds to pay prince andrew's legal fees how disgusting is that the queen who is kept in these palaces attacked payers expense is using millions of pounds to defend her son uh from facing the court allegations of raping a young woman it's absolutely disgusting and criminal of course her funds are probably ultimately leached off the public purse in any case and press reports also say that prince william uh who's obviously next in there to the throwing off to prince charles now considers prince andrew to be a danger to the monarchy uh you know they want to keep him hidden from public and apparently they've had they've had a big meeting and they're like prince andrew we're just going to lock him in a cupboard somewhere and pretend he doesn't exist i think this gets to the heart of what's what's this all about you know they have no interest uh injustice they have no interest in in in in uh finding out the truth they want to keep the scandals hidden away under lock and key uh in order to protect the monarchy uh but how long is it till the truth comes out so the monarchy have always been a gang of corrupt parasites but the difference is that now all their scandals and degeneracy uh well probably not all of them you know i'm sure there's there's many more disgusting things that we don't know about yet uh are on display uh for people uh to see in any genuine working class party uh any genuine organization that that represented the interests of of working people in this country would stand for their wholesale overthrow instead sir kias dama sir kias dama lavishes praise uh on the queen and apparently the royal family according to him is a beacon of hope uh for millions i feel very hopeful but in contrast to this obsequiousness to this cowardly position of the labor leaders we must be absolutely crystal clear and un apologetic in our view of the monarchy we demand its total and complete abolition we want to open up their palaces expose their sordid deeds to the public uh for to see and we would nationalize their obscene wealth and put it to use and solving the problems of society and that wealth really is uh obscene and sunday times estimated the queen has a personal net worth of 330 million but the royal family collectively as an institution is worth an estimated 88 billion dollars uh by forbs how many hungry children could we feed uh with that money how many homeless people could we house how many hospitals uh could we build yet despite this enormous wealth uh the estimated total annual cost of the monarchy uh to the public purse is 334 million um around eight times the the official figure that the the royal family uh uh published this is the money that we pay that working people pay through their taxes for the privilege of the ruling class maintaining a reserve weapon to use against us uh should we ever dare to rise up and seriously threaten uh their interests so it's clear you know anybody who actually uh you know consistently believes uh in in democracy anyone who believes in a in a truly democratic state should also believe in the overthrow uh the abolition of the monarchy the abolition of uh of the house of lords of course we don't just believe in that we stand for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and that has to include the monarchy and all its other rotten institutions but in our work um uh in the labor movement our work of building forces of of marxism we need to be absolutely clear of the real role that the monarchy plays it is a weapon in the hands of the ruling class uh that will be used against uh the labor movement that will be used against the uh the workers of britain um as we struggle uh for our interests and we need to disarm the ruling class of its weapons we need to smash those weapons in the process of of taking power uh into our own hands of overthrowing capitalism setting about the genuine transformation of society for completing the task that the bourgeoisie themselves started uh in the english civil war uh the task that was carried to its end uh by cormwell in beheading the king uh the task of overthrowing the monarchy and setting about the trans socialist transformation of britain and the world