 So yeah, there was a similar talk to this last year. A comrade gave a lead off on this subject. And he made a joke at the beginning that he was wearing all black in preparation for the queen dying. And look what happened to me, a few short months later on. She kicked the bucket. Luckily for Charles, I'm wearing a nice yellow shirt right here. So I think he's safe for now. But I think the death of the queen couldn't have come at a worse time for the ruling class in Britain, as if they didn't have a bad enough. The economy is in turmoil. The class struggle is at its most intense in about 30, 40 years. A Tory party is rife with divisions carrying out suicidal economic policies. The legal system is grinding into a halt. You've got barrisons on strike and stuff like that. Conflict within the civil service. And every other pillar of the state basically. And in fact, the one institution of the British establishment, which has seemed relatively stable over this period, was the monarchy, right? Queen Liz, may she rest in peace. She reigned up to 32 sovereign states for over 70 years. She was a real paragon of stability and national unity. And now she's gone. And the funeral itself, far from being this spontaneous outpouring of grief where the nation put aside its differences to celebrate the life of this wonderful woman, was actually a bit of a damp squib, to be honest with you. The number of people in the so-called great queue was greatly exaggerated. The media often said that the figure of over a million people were in this queue to see this big box in, I don't know, Westminster Abbey or something like that. But actually, even the Tory culture secretary let slip that it was barely even a quarter of that. The reality is it was probably actually a lot less. And it was nothing on the same scale as the sort of the mass hysteria that really gripped the country, the world in fact, following the death of Princess Diana, who herself was a pariah of the royal family, who got pretty much castigated from the royal family. And that really shows you something. Obviously there were paltry crowds of monarchist headbangers at the funeral procession. I think apart from that, for most people, life really just went on as normal. Nonetheless, the Queen was still a popular figure in Britain. On the eve of the Platinum Jubilee, for example, just earlier this year, an Ipsos survey found that 86% approved of her as a person, as a figure. This is no surprise, really. I mean, she managed to cultivate, successfully cultivate the image of being the nation's man, pretty much, right? She has largely been quite a reserved figure, who's never really been involved in any of these scandals, rarely gets involved in politics, although she does sometimes, as we'll go on to discuss. She's best known for her charity work and stuff like that, opening buildings and bizarre appearances in Paddington Bear films and stuff like that, I don't know. But of course, this image is far from the truth, as we'll come to discuss. But the personal popularity of Queen Elizabeth will bring little joy to the crown and to the establishment now that she's gone. Quite the opposite, in fact, because the popularity of the monarchy became so deeply tied up with Liz as a person, that the succession of Charles now really sort of poses problems. And I'll quote now from the Guardian, you wrote an article about this around about the time of the state funeral. And they said, the reign of the more divisive, less historically resonant sum, mere cause, the temporary surge in support after the funeral to fade and the decline in world popularity to resume or even accelerate. And it goes on to say, the poorer country that the UK is likely to become over the next few years may also be less tolerant of one of the world's most lavish monarchies. I think this is certainly true. I mean, I've read recently that Charles III has actually now hired a full-time bagpiper as an alarm clock. So this is definitely a very lavish thing, lavish spectacle to have in front of us. And they sort of conclude this article by saying that the monarchists between now and Monday, which was the end of the morning period, may be as good as it gets. So they're basically saying that the monarchies in for a bad time over the next few years. And indeed, you know, Elizabeth enjoyed a reign of stability because she ruled in a period of general upswing, of a general upswing of capitalism, but things have really started to unravel for British capitalism. And with it, the monarchy has been in decline for quite a long time now. It's an institution that's really mired in scandal and sleaze. I mean, I'm just gonna list a few of them now. I can't really go into much detail about them, but you have, for example, back in the 90s, the messy public affairs and divorces of Charles and Diana and other members of the royal family. The horrific treatment of Diana Spencer as well, leading up to her death, which I would say is in the very mysterious circumstances. But more recently as well, you've had the mexit debacle where Harry and Meghan basically left the royal family and quit their royal duties, revealing a lot of racism and prejudice in the royal family itself, right up to the top. And you also have, of course, the Prince Andrew scandal. He's accused of having sex with a 17-year-old woman or girl trafficked by the sort of disgraced billionaire pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein. And there's a really public court case about this and everything. He's really disgraced as a figure. He's really hated, I would say. But far from being exiled and stripped of all of his titles, he's actually now still a counselor of state, which means that he could take on royal duties if Charles, for example, was unable to. I think all of this really shows that the monarchy, like every other pillar of the British establishment, is in crisis and right to be overthrown, basically. But in order to overthrow it, it's necessary to have a correct understanding of what the monarchy actually is and the role that it plays in Britain. Because on the left, there seems to be some confusion on this score. I mean, yeah, I think most people, most sane people, I would say, not the likes of Kea Starmer and Paul Mason and the rest of the right-wingers in the labor movement, they would agree that the monarchy is bad and should be removed in some sort of way. But the problem is that a lot of people view the monarchy nearly as an expensive, anachronism, basically, as a hangover from feudalism, something that should be removed because it's exuberant, expensive and a symbol of wealth and privilege. And of course, all of these things are true. But this isn't the essential reason why we should oppose it. Would we, for example, support the monarchy if it brought in money, if it was profitable? For example, from tourism, which is something that a lot of the defenders of the monarchy tried to claim incorrectly, of course. I like to quote Rosa Luxembourg, who wrote on this very subject. She said, we oppose the monarchy, even if it were to cost half as much as it does, we would not want it even if it were free. We prefer the most expensive republic to the cheapest monarchy. It is not a matter of money. The monarchy is the most backward tool of class rule. I think that is definitely a very good summary of our position. So the view that the monarchy is inexpensive, but otherwise pretty harmless kind of quirky institution doesn't really get to the heart of the matter, you know? It doesn't really answer the conundrum as to why the capitalist class even bother funding the monarchy in Britain anyway, if it's just merely window dressing, basically. You know, the capitalist class is generally a very shrewd and calculating class. They want to return on their investments, you know? They certainly don't want millions flying out of the window for no reason. We have a Tory government that's been imposing harsh austerity for 12 years now. If they wanted to save a few quid, they'd get easy. Just shave a few extra, you know, hundreds of thousands of pounds from the monarchy, basically, right? So clearly it does serve some purpose, and Marxists need to explain that purpose. And above all, the workers movement needs to be armed with a clear understanding of how the British state, the tool of our class enemy works and also how its component parts work and how it can and will be mobilized against us in the struggle, basically. So it's clear that the monarchy does in fact play a very important role in, you know, behind the scenes in British politics. It is central to the British constitutional system. It's no coincidence that it's called Her Majesty's government, Her Majesty's opposition and so forth. All laws, for example, must be signed by the crown. In fact, the king's consent has to be sought before laws even reach parliament, if those laws are relevant to the crown and its states and so on. And this is no ceremonial ritual. In fact, you know, civil servants sought the queen's consent for laws before they ended up in parliament on over a thousand occasions during Queen Elizabeth's reign. And on numerous occasions, they actually have been blocked from going to parliament. It's usually when it affects, you know, taxing her estate or, you know, uncovering the crown's real love, they're funnily enough. And, you know, another example, you know, the king and the prime minister called weekly private meetings to discuss things and to offer advice and so on. You know, Queen Elizabeth described these meetings as her sort of being a sponge, you know, just like sort of soaking up all of the problems that the prime minister had, giving them a spaced event and so on. But this is obviously, you know, it's nonsense, right? The crown has a considerable influence over parliamentary politics, you know? We'll get into that in a bit. But far from being a sweet and innocent old lady, our late monarch, may she rest in peace, was actually a very well-versed advisor. You know, she received weekly intelligence summaries, daily accounts of parliamentary activity, an immediate report on all important overseas matters from the foreign office, right? And the same is true of Charles as well, right? And the main point here is that these people aren't just out of touch, you know, doddering buffoons, doddering around on the sidelines, right? They are deeply connected to British politics and Charles actually wants to be even more involved. But to really understand the role of the monarchy, it's essential to sort of go back and delve into a bit of its history and its development over the course of the class struggle. And for that we need to go back a few hundred years. So apologies for the diversion, but you know, it will be worth it definitely. Defenders of the monarchy often, you know, try to give it an air of legitimacy by saying that it's steeped in a thousand years of history, you know, and that's before Britain or even before England were even, you know, formed. And that sounds really impressive, isn't it? But the truth is, it's just not true, right? The monarchy underwent a dramatic transformation in the period of Britain's transition from feudalism to capitalism. You know, the monarchy of Richard the Third and Henry the Eighth and so on that we learned about in history lessons is not the same as the monarchy did there. Because the monarchies of the feudal period, they did a key role in upholding the feudal system. These were absolute monarchies who ruled by decree, whose monarchs had unlimited power invested in them by God, and ultimately they acted to defend the interests of the declining feudal nobility. And this was not really well suited to the early capitalist class, who needed to tear away the vestiges of the feudal order so that capitalism could develop freely. And in the 17th century, the nascent capitalist class entered into conflict with the monarchy at the time. It was Charles I at the time, who had parodied parliament for a number of years, and they called upon the masses to wage a revolutionary struggle. And as we know, this ended with, you know, Charles I's head being locked off and a republic being created on the British Isles, you know? This is not an image that keeps our current Charles lying awake at night, you know, tearing his hair out. But, you know, Oliver Cromwell, who was the leader of this struggle and the sort of the plebeian masses that he based himself upon, really went one step too far for the capitalist class. And after carrying out this revolution, sweeping aside the feudal state and all that sort of stuff, clearing the way for capitalism, Cromwell then dissolved parliament and basically centralized all power in his hands. And this wasn't really a suitable arrangement for the capitalist class. So the capitalist basically entered into an alliance with the new sort of bourgeois aristocracy to restore the monarchy. And this time it was a constitutional monarchy whose powers were checked by parliament and whose sovereignty rested in their relationship to parliament. And this culminated in the event of the so-called glorious revolution, which wasn't glorious and wasn't a revolution, as everyone always says, which saw a Dutch adventurer by the name of William of Orange installed on the throne basically, just some random guy just got put on the throne. And this was a monarchy of a completely different type. It rested upon bourgeois society. It was a bourgeois monarchy. And so it remains today actually, you know, the monarchy is enormously, enormously wealthy. It is actually like, you know, bourgeois itself. If the crown, for example, sold all of its lands, it would be one of the richest entities in the world, which is I think quite a standing really. So far from standing above classes, as people often say, you know, the monarchy is part and parcel of the bourgeois class, of bourgeois society and of the bourgeois state as well. And you know, far from being a hallowed institution which commanded the respect of everyone in British society, Britain's new rulers after this restoration, the glorious revolution, they were almost universally mocked and reviled, you know, they were mired in scandals. I mean, just to list a few of them, you know, the first two Georges from the German House of Hanover, you know, they barely understood English, right? They didn't even take any interest whatsoever in British affairs, right? They were just sort of more interested in Germany and all that sort of stuff and, you know, visiting, you know, ungodly establishments in London and so forth, right? George III was completely mad. Actually, he was just, you know, completely, you know, off his rocker basically. And on the death of George IV, the Times, the newspaper The Times, which is like now a serious sort of mouthpiece of the bourgeois, they wrote, "'Never was an individual less regretted "'by his fellow creatures.'" Then that's quite a, you know, quite a diss, really. And, you know, this went on and on, even into the reign of Queen Victoria as well, you know? Victoria, she's touted as one of the more sort of popular monarchs in history. But she was also mocked fiercely by the press and by the public alike. You know, the 1860s in Britain, for example, saw a massive increase in republicanism in Britain, you know, with Republican clubs popping up throughout England basically. And it was partly with this in mind that the ruling class began to basically show up the monarchy, dusting off ancient medieval traditions and ceremonies, you know, things like the Jubilee, for example, that was actually introduced quite late on in Queen Victoria's reign. In fact, most of these so-called ancient traditions of the monarchy, which the monarchy sort of cloaks itself in, they're actually sort of, you know, from the time of Marx and Engels, you know, which makes it seem actually very young, you know? So, the biggest factor really, though, I think in the increased role of the monarchy in British society was the growth of the industrial working class. And along with it, the widening of the franchise that came with it, I think, undoubtedly the experience of charitism as well, the first independent movement of the working class, which was revolutionary in some cases, definitely played a role in this as well. Because this already sort of spooked the bourgeoisie, right? They needed a symbol of stability and another tool in its arsenal, basically, to keep the classroom within certain limits, to kind of act like a counterbalance to parliamentary politics, which is susceptible to being, you know, sort of seized by other classes, basically. And it's with this really that we see the role of the monarchy and its modern sense take shape. So, it was around this time that perhaps the best city of the British monarchy, and monarchy, in general, I would say, was penned by a man named Walter Badger, who some of you may have heard of. In 1867, he wrote a text called The English Constitution. Now, this man was no Marxist, right? Although his study is thoroughly materialist, and I think Marx himself probably read his work as well. This guy was a defender of capitalism. I mean, he was even the editor of The Economist magazine for God's sake. But he wrote this book as an honest description of the British state and how it can be wielded in the class struggle. I think Marxist can learn a lot from it, actually. Now, as any other defender of capitalism, Badger viewed the masses with this thing, you know, he, you know, thought that the uneducated, unintelligent, unintelligent millions were wide open to all sorts of demagogues and agitators and so forth. In fact, he described the population as being divided between the ignorant, unintelligent millions and the educated thousands, basically. Now, for the educated thousands, parliamentary democracy offers an efficient aspect of governance, right? It's complex, but the educated of the classes can, of course, keep up with it and partake in it and so forth and so forth. But for those, you know, there are uneducated masses who are too stupid to understand politics. The monarchy therefore offered a dignified aspect. It provides the kind of the theatrical, the religious, the mystical elements, which are easy to follow, basically. He says that, you know, the monarchy delights the eyes, stirs the imagination, supplies motive power to the whole political system, and yet never strains the intellectual resources of the most ignorant or the most stupid. And therefore also answers the distraction as well from the vicissitudes of parliamentary politics, allowing a quiet change of real rulers behind the scenes. But in passing, I would note that this aspect of the monarchy has long been in decline, actually. I mean, it is still used as a sort of a tool for sort of distracting people and stuff like that. But I would say that even as far back as budgets climb, English workers and British workers proved themselves to be very capable of partaking in politics. I mean, look at the Charter's Movement, which I mentioned as well. But notwithstanding this, you know, the widened suffrage, widened education and so forth, the rise of mass media and the general development of the working class movement means that now, you know, millions of workers now follow politics quite closely, largely with disgust, I would say. So perhaps the most important and enduring role of the monarchy that Badger wrote about is this. It is an insurance policy for the ruling class in case things go badly wrong with ordinary parliamentary democracy. And Badger speaks about this with surprising honesty. You know, he reveals all of the ruling class's secrets. I'm going to quote now a bit of length, but you know, it's worth it because it is very, very, very honest, I would say. He says that it may perhaps be replied that if a majority in the houses of commons wanted a revolution, they ought to have one. But is there any ground for expecting that our cabinet system admirably fitted to adjust political action to the ordinary oscillations of public opinion could deal with these violent situations? Could the cabinet system, could parliamentary democracy survive the shocks of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary violence? I know not, the experiment has never been tried. So there it is, in a plain as day, the monarchy isn't just some strange but harmless hangover from the days of yore. It plays a definite role in British politics as a reserve power of reaction, a reserve weapon of the ruling class basically to be used against the working class in struggle. Now think about it, right? You've got the army, the judges, the magistrates, the police. Everyone, right, they all swear an oath of loyalty not to parliament but to the crown. They are, after all, Her Majesty's courts, Her Majesty's prisons, Her Majesty's civil service, Her Majesty's inspectorate of the constabulary which runs the police and Her Majesty's armed forces, of course, which is the most important one, I'd say. Laws need to have the crown signature to become ratified. Without this, it would cause a constitutional crisis. And this is the question, this is the key question. To whom would the levers of the state obey? The crown or a radical left-wing government? The answer to this is quite simple. I mean, in the case of the army, the king is literally the commander-in-chief of the army. Of course, they're gonna, or a decisive amount of them are gonna follow the crown basically. And what's more than that, the crown can actually suspend parliament just like we saw, for example, with the prorogation of parliament back in 2019 over the Brexit crisis. Let's speak more on that in a second. And once it suspended parliament, it can literally, if it chose to, and if it had the strength to, it could literally rule through an unelected executive privy council. This is a body that sort of usually acts behind the scenes, but it could actually sort of take on the executive role, basically. The crown even has the power within the sort of the informal constitution to actually suspend laws altogether and institute martial law. So it's clearly, I think it's quite clear to see actually that the monarchy is the very mechanism which would allow the ruling class in Britain to seamlessly transition from a parliamentary democracy which we have today into something that looks like a military police dictatorship. I think Leon Trotsky summed this up very well in his writings on Britain, which I would recommend all comrades to read. He said that royalty is weak as long as parliament is the instrument of bourgeois rule and as long as the bourgeois have no need of extra parliamentary methods. But the bourgeois can, if necessary, use the royalty as the focus of all extra parliamentary activity. That is to say, the real force directed against the working class. But surely, you know, the royals would never actually do this, right? I mean, don't they usually stay out of politics as much as possible these days? But the fact is that the royal family has used its hidden powers, its reserved powers to intervene in politics multiple times in the past century, actually, to varying degrees. I'm just gonna go through a list of examples pretty much and just sort of give you an impression of the role that they actually play. So in 1931, in Britain, it was a time of crisis, unemployment and class struggle, not unlike our own today, actually, I would say. Thank you. And the ruling class needed the government that could implement a harsh austerity policy to stabilize capitalism, basically, to claw back all the value from the working class after the crisis in 29. And the later party, which was in power at this time, was right with divisions between the left and the right. And the left seemed to be gaining overhand, actually. The ruling class were really worried. And so what happened was a national government was formed with Ramsey McDonald, the labor leader at its head, with the express purpose of basically steamrolling the working movement and carrying through policies of economies, basically. And the liberals and Tories and this right-wing labor split off, they all joined forces, basically, to attack the working class. But the key thing is who was there to broker the deal to form this coalition? It was King George the Fifth himself. He sat there with all the leaders of the party and sort of hammered out a deal between them, basically. So right there, you can see the King played a very, very definite role in politics. Let's skip forward a few decades. In the 1960s, for example, when I left leaning labor government under Harold Wilson, came to power in 1964, the ruling class were faced again with industrial unrest, a powerful trade union movement. And what's more, the CIA had actually been whispering to British intelligence that Harold Wilson was a Soviet spy, apparently. I mean, the truth is that he was more than happy to defend capitalism and carry out a capitalist program, but that's by the by. Because importantly, this was a situation of decline and anxiety for the ruling class. They really yearned for some stability and therefore, a senior member of the royal family, a guy called Lord Mountbatten. I'm pretty sure he's like the Queen's uncle or something like that, I don't know. He took it upon himself to begin organizing a conspiracy to launch a military coup in Britain. Now, this sounds quite far-fetched, but he actually did sit down and speak with a number of city bankers and media mobiles and so on, other members of the establishment, to actually talk quite openly about the idea of basically having a military coup in Britain to put the royal family in power basically, to put the Queen in absolute power basically. This is dramatized in the Netflix series, The Crown, if anyone's seen it. I haven't seen it, but I've heard it's very good. I plan on watching it quite soon. But the Queen caught wind of this and stamped it out basically. And since then, this whole saga has remained shrouded in secrecy. It's very shadowy. No one really knows exactly what happened. Many try to claim that it never actually happened altogether, but the more and more revelations are coming out that a real conspiracy was organized by a high-ranking member of the royal family to organize against a democratically elected labor government to basically launch a military coup basically. So I think that is quite illustrative, I would say. And we also have examples from the Commonwealth as well. Let's not forget that the King and the Crown in general is also the head of state in over a dozen countries right now. It's no wonder that there are movements springing up all over the Caribbean, for example, to kick out the Crown, if this is how they act. But in the 70s, for example, in Australia, there was a labor prime minister, Go Wittlin, who came to power on a reformist program expressing a sort of new radicalization in Australian society, right? And he was attempting to carry out certain nationalizations. Nothing too radical, it was just nationalizing a few big companies and so on. But this wasn't in the interest of British imperialism. And therefore, he was basically ousted. He basically got maneuvered against by the Crown appointed governor general who plays quite a big role in Australian politics and also in Canadian politics as an equivalent of that as well. And yeah, he was ousted basically in favor of a right wing, I think it was a liberal government, or perhaps I'm not sure exactly which government it was, but yeah, that's what happened. The British Crown conspired against an elected government once again to protect the interests of British capitalism and British imperialism. And this isn't even going into the abominable role played by, for example, the colonial administration, which is tied very intimately to the Crown as well. A lot of high ranking members of the royal family used to be high up in the colonial administration, putting down national liberation struggles like the Malmau rebellion in Kenya, for example, and communist insurgencies in Malaysia, for example, in the 20th century. These counterinsurgencies, which some members of the royal family were involved in, involved like bloody massacres and concentration camps and so forth. The Crown is steeped in blood and they wouldn't hesitate to use this force against a revolutionary movement or even a radical reformist movement in Britain if they had to. And the bourgeois are aware of this power, of this hidden power. For example, a Tory strategist by the name of Ian Gilmour ruled in 1977 in a book called The Inside Right. And again, he says quite honestly, right? A second chamber is not much of a bulwark against the revolution, right? So the House of Lords is basically not enough to contain a revolutionary struggle in Britain, right? He then goes on to point out how the monarchy is the only institution that is strong enough to prevent revolution. So there it is, a Tory strategist saying that right there. Elsewhere, the Times, which is again, a serious mouthpiece of the British bourgeois published an article back in 1973 defending General Pinochet's military coup against the democratically elected, sort of left-wing figure, Savadoyende in Chile. And this coup and this junta that took place after it basically, you know, imprisoned and tortured and executed thousands of socialists and communists. But this is what the Times wrote. They said, the circumstances were such that a reasonable military man could in good faith have thought it was his constitutional duty to intervene and do what General Pinochet did. Again, here we have it, play on his day. For these ladies and gentlemen, there's frankly little difference between the workers of London and the workers of Santiago or anywhere else in the world, right? They would quite happily use such brutal militaristic methods at home if they could get away with it. And elsewhere, where monarchies exist, their role is even more sharply revealed. I can give a couple of examples, but I hope we can maybe just go into the discussion and talk a bit more about monarchies around the world. That would be quite interesting. But, you know, for example, in Thailand, there have been, where there is a royal family which has been in place for quite a while now, there have been 10 military coups since 1947. And each and every one of them was sanctioned and backed by the royal family. I mean, coincidentally, after we're not coincidentally, but after each one of these coups, the popularity of the royal families goes deeper and deeper down. In fact, the last one, which was I think in 2014 or around about that time, a few years later, you saw a mass struggle against the monarchy in Thailand. So you can see that each time this happens, the monarchy discredits itself even more. But again, I mean, in Spain, where there is also a monarchy now, the monarchy was actually used as a tool by the fascistic dictatorship of Francisco Franco. You know, Franco, when he was coming to the end of his life, he actually basically groomed Prince Juan Carlos at the time to take over as the king when Franco died. And that is, of course, what happened. And Juan Carlos played quite a big role in the consolidation of power over the Spanish bourgeois after the fall of the fascist regime and the democratic transition and so on. And he actually remained in power until 2014. He was appointed by a fascist and he remained there until 2014. Elsewhere, not just in Britain, we can see that the monarchy is often the first available material of any ruling class, which needs to preserve law and order and to prevent the working class from overstepping its limits, overstepping the limits of democracy and overstepping the limits of the parliamentary system, basically. But I would say there is an important limit to these reserve powers as well. See, the monarchy can only ever be used as a reserve weapon, as a last-vitch attempt at restoring power and order. This isn't just something the ruling class can just whip out when it pleases them whenever they like, basically, right? Once the royal reserve powers have been used and the veil has fallen, it's not really that much good anymore. It's like single use only, like a plastic straw or something, one of those paper straws that they give you in McDonald's. Because this applies, especially in a country like Britain, for example, with long-standing democratic traditions. I think if there was a serious kind of mobilization of the monarchy by the ruling class to be used to attack the working class, it would appall people, I think. It would really shock people. I think it would irreversibly paint the royal family in the eyes of the public. I mean, there are examples of this throughout the world as well. I mean, in Italy, for example, the monarchy basically appointed Mussolini as the prime minister or the premier of the coalition government back in the late 1920s, as we discussed in the Italy session yesterday. And basically, the monarchy just handed power to the fascists. And this really sort of incensed that the workers and the sort of broad masses in Italy. And actually, after Italy was defeated in World War II, the monarchy was swiftly abolished actually by a popular referendum straight after the war and it was never basically seen again. It just sort of like left. Because, you know, I think of how much it would shock people to see that role sort of played out very, very openly. It's a massive gamble to do so, I think. I think this is the reason why, for example, Lord Mountbatten's coup back in the 1960s, the plan to sort of for a coup to place the monarchy in charge in 1968 did not materialize because not because the Queen's sensibilities were offended but because it would have backfired massively. The balance of class forces was not in their favor. You had a large organized and militant working class movement which was capable of toppling governments basically, you know. A few short years later, Ted Heath's government was basically kicked out by the labor movement. And, you know, a similar situation faces the ruling class today. So it would be a real gamble for them to sort of mobilize this reserve weapon. A premature attempt at like launching some sort of coup would have blown up in the monarchy space basically and therefore this tool will only be brought out when the ruling class feel really, really threatened. And once they've used it, there's no putting the genie back in the bowl basically, it's there for good. And this brings you to another point which Walter Badger made. And I think this is very relevant to the monarchy today. Badger understood that the monarchy must retain a sense of mystery and aloofness in order to be effective. It needs to appear as being of no party, of doing no wrong and to act as a symbol of unity. He continues again, I'll quote at length, secrecy is essential to the utility of the English royalty. Above all things, our royalty is to be reverenced. And if you begin to poke about it, you cannot reverence it. When there is a select committee on the queen, the charm of the royalty will be gone. Its mystery is its life. We must not let daylight in upon magic. We must not bring the queen into the combat of politics or she will cease to be referenced by all combatants. She will become one combatant among many. Unfortunately for the royal family today and for the crown today, this ship has long sailed basically. The monarchy has been dragged into politics on numerous occasions, even just in the past few years. I think most glaringly with the prorogation of parliament back in 2019, where the queen basically just suspended parliament at Boris Johnson's bidding so that he could buy time to basically resolve the Brexit crisis and prevent a rupture within the Tory party. Even Supreme Court later on said that this was actually an illegal move. The queen literally did something that was unconstitutional and illegal. Of course, the queen also weighed in on the side of the independence referendum, the Scottish independence referendum that is, back in, I think, 2014, which no doubt I think really contributed to the very low popularity that the monarchy has in Scotland right now. As I said before, countless scandals. You've got the Princess Diana scandal, which I can't really go into too much. You've got the Megsith scandal. You've got the Prince Andrew scandal. All of these things have just heaped dirt and yet more dirt upon the royal standard. I think the Andrew scandal in particular has really, really incensed public opinion. Now, disapproval of the royals among 18- to 24-year-olds is higher than it's ever, ever been. And these things might seem inconsequential when they're taken separately, but together with the explosive mood in society, you've got the cost of living crisis. You've got rising attacks on the working class and you've got this real intense classroom that's taking place. These scandals and these things can really become a lightning rod for sharp feelings of discontent. We just look at what happened in Spain, for example, in 2014. After 39 years of rule, King Juan Carlos was forced to abdicate, actually, following a corruption scandal. He was sort of making deals with, backroom deals with some Saudi businessmen and stuff like that, as well as also like an embarrassing legal case involving a charge of harassment by an ex-lover. And this really sort of incensed public opinion and he was forced to basically abdicate and flee the country and his son basically took over. So, as I said before, everything indicates that Charles wants to shed even more daylight upon what remains of the monarchy's magic. He wants the crowd to be even more involved in politics and this will lead to further and further falls in public support for this rotten institution. Just before I conclude, I'd like to talk about the labor movement briefly. I've got enough time. That's great. Let's talk about the labor movement because given the fact that the monarchy is in decline, given the low popularity that Charles and his coterie enjoys, given the fact that this is an anti-democratic institution and a bulwark of reaction and many people are beginning to realize this, you would think, wouldn't you, that the leaders of the labor movement would be staunch opponents of the monarchy, right? As any socialist should be. Yeah, what do we see? What do we see? At the recent Labor Party conference, I'm sure you were all following it with a lot of attention, you know, Stammer had nothing but gushing praise and sycophancy for his new king. I'm gonna quote here. If you need any sick bags or anything, then be passed out at the back. He said, right, I was proud to underline the commitment of the Labor Party to serve its king. Its king, the Labor Party's king. That's great, I love that. Because service is the permanent bond between sovereign and subject. At a time of uncertainty at home and abroad, the king is ready to renew his bond. Oh, God, that's awful. Politics will unite behind him. I'm certainly not uniting behind him, but you know, he can speak for himself. What he means by this last line, politics will unite behind him. He means that the opportunist labor leaders will unite behind him and the whole capitalist establishment. That's what he's trying to show basically, right? I would say a Labor Party worthy of such a name should stand proudly on a program to abolish the monarchy, to abolish the house of lords and to establish a work as republic. But that's another matter, you know? And sadly, the trade union leaders have also, you know, back down basically following the news of the queen's death. The RMT, for example, and the CWU as well. They had strike action that was planned and voted for and ready to take place. And they called it off last minute, right? Because of the queen's death. The TUC, for example, also postponed its conference right at the last minute because of this. And this really went down like a lead balloon among a lot of rank and file activists. And all of this was in the name of national unity, national unity. This can only ever be the unity of the exploiter with the exploited. Did for example, the network rail or the Royal Mail bosses suspend their attacks on wages and conditions when the queen died, of course they didn't. In the case of the latter actually, in the case of the Royal Mail, they were busy, you know, laying down plans to sack 10,000 workers. So calling off this action in response to the queen's death represented the truce to the ruling class basically, right? Allowing them to regroup and to continue their offensive at a time of rising workers action. I think it's a reminder actually of the negative role that reformist ideas play in the workers movement. And Trotsky again understood this very well. No thing that these opportunists systematically poison the labor movement, clouding the consciousness of the proletariat and paralyzing its will. I think in this sense, the monarchy is a really good litmus test basically, right? Because if the leaders of the labor movement back down at a deference to this anti-democratic clique of parasites like the monarchy, right? What else will they back down for, right? Obviously that the bosses and the government and everything like that, right? So I think this is a very important question for the labor movement to really grapple with, right? So I'll conclude shortly. I'm sure everyone who was here was already convinced they need to overthrow the monarchy. If you support the monarchy, then I'm wondering why you're here, but you know, I hope you enjoyed the talk anyway. But I think I hope now that you have a greater understanding of why it's necessary as a part of the fight for socialism. I'll end on this point actually, I think it's quite important. There is no possibility I would say in Britain of the monarchy being reformed out of existence, you know, for the very same reason that no other essential part of the British state apparatus can be reformed. It must be overthrown through revolutionary struggle. But this revolution can't be aimed at the monarchy alone because this struggle against the monarchy is inextricable from the wider struggle against the whole of British capitalism. Some groups, for example, you know, there are many kind of anti-monarchy groups, you know, dotted around. One of the biggest ones is this kind of ginger group called Republic, right? They're very kind of liberal, very bourgeois. And they didn't even mention, for example, capitalism or class or anything like that or aristocracy at all. All they want to do is just start a discussion around, you know, whether we should have an elected head of state or something. This is obviously never really going to take place, right? Who's going to mobilize for this, right? But even on the left, for example, we have people, for example, the so-called Communist Party who subscribed to the idea that we need to finish off Britain's democratic revolution. Finish off the Britain's democratic revolution, which basically means finishing off what we did about 400 years ago or something by pursuing an anti-monarchy alliance with the liberals, with the progressives, progressives, I don't know what that means, progressives and other sort of bourgeois elements, you know, this kind of broad-church struggle against the monarchy. And the aim of this, this is what they say, the aim of this would be to put an elected head of state in power. This is obviously rooted in the sort of Stalinist kind of two-stage theory and popular frontism. You know, we need to fight for democracy now and then we'll fight for socialism later on. We've discussed this in other talks, you know, China and Spain and so on. And this is a completely bankrupt strategy, but you know, my question is more concrete, right? Where are you going to find this anti-monarchy, liberal sort of bourgeois, whatever? Where are you going to find these anti-monarchy, liberals and progressives and so forth? Because it seems to me, like in Britain, every defender of capitalism under the sun lined up behind the monarchy following the queen's death. Yeah, of course, the economist occasionally, you know, publishes a sharply worded article about the monarchy. But in Britain, every defender of capitalism is also a defender of the monarchy, not because they like the monarchy, but because it is an essential part of the British state. They know which side their bread is buttered on and if there was a mass movement against the monarchy, they would be falling on the monarchy's side. And besides, we don't want a president who will act to defend the same interests as the monarchy does, right? Why would we want to be like France or like Germany or the USA where they've been republics for years and years and the class struggle is still just as intense, basically, right? We want to do away with the whole bourgeois state from top to bottom. But it isn't just a question of what we want, it's also a question of power. The fact is that the working class is the only class in society that can wage a successful revolutionary struggle, not just in Britain, but I would say, you know, everywhere basically. And in this struggle, the question of socialism and the question of workers power will be placed front and center. The abolition of the monarchy is a natural subsequent part of this program. So the fight against the monarchy can only be seen as a part of the struggle for socialist revolution. You know, there's no chance whatsoever of toppling the monarchy without a revolutionary mass struggle armed with a Marxist program ended up rooting the whole of British capitalism. So I will end with the words of Leon Trotsky once again, who said, you know, whoever knows the history of the British people and the British working class, the history of the English Revolution of the 17th century and then British charitism of the 19th century will know that even the Englishman has a devil inside of him. You know, it's not just the French and the Italians and everything, the Englishman has a devil inside of him as well. There have been repeated occasions where the Englishman has taken up the cudgel against his oppressor and there is no doubt that the time is near when he will take up the cudgel against the king, against Lloyd George, or we can say, you know, Liz Truss now or whoever's next, I don't know, whichever creature comes next, against the house of lords and against the cruel, cunning, clever and perfidious British bourgeoisie. And he said, the first thunderclaps of this great storm can already be heard from the island of Great Britain. I would say right now, the first thunderclaps of a great revolutionary struggle can also be heard from the island of Great Britain. So I'll finish by saying, the island of the monarchy and for a socialist republic. Thank you.