Tag Archives: Charles III

Positioning for the next election

Posted on by

Today, the Unit published Monitor 85, providing analysis of constitutional events over the last four months. It covers a continuing crisis of parliamentary scrutiny and political standards, a string of avoidable by-elections, the continuing stalemate in Northern Ireland, SNP travails in Scotland, electoral reform in Wales, and a failed referendum campaign in Australia. This post, which also serves as this issue’s lead article, outlines how the government and its opponents are starting to draw the battle lines for the next general election against a background of constitutional change and challenges throughout the United Kingdom.

Rishi Sunak marked his first anniversary as Prime Minister on 25 October. The legacy of his predecessors continued to dog him over the summer. Boris Johnson’s resignation from parliament in June – covered in the last issue of Monitor – triggered a by-election in his constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. The Conservative Party hung on there, but lost four other by-elections in safe seats, three of which were called due to reasons related to Johnson’s departure. Meanwhile, the Covid-19 inquiry revealed what many saw as chaos at the heart of government.

Sunak sought to reset his image in September, as a Prime Minister focused on making the right long-term decisions. He acknowledged that ‘people in our country are frustrated with our politics’, saying, ‘I know that they dislike Westminster game playing, the short termism, and the lack of accountability.’ He pledged ‘a wholly new kind of politics’ with ‘space for a better, more honest debate about how we secure the country’s long-term interest.’ Announcing a shift in net zero policy, he added, ‘in a democracy, we must also be able to scrutinise and debate those changes’.

These were virtuous sentiments, chiming strongly with much of what defenders of core democratic and constitutional principles have been pressing for in recent years. But aspects of the speech appeared to undermine them. Some dropped policies had never actually existed. Sunak’s call for accountability and scrutiny was delivered on the first day of a parliamentary recess, leaving MPs unable to question him on his plans for almost a month. The Commons Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, responded with a sharply worded rebuke.

Continue reading →

Church and state in European monarchies

Posted on by

At his coronation, Charles III will swear an oath to uphold the Protestant religion in a ceremony overseen by the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, while many European monarchs retain a link to their national church, the UK is alone in continuing to have a coronation ceremony. Frank Cranmer discusses how monarchies throughout Europe have attempted to reconcile their historical religious traditions with the reality of modern multi-faith societies.

In addition to the United Kingdom, there are 11 other monarchies across Europe, with varying constitutional arrangements when it comes to religion: Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden – and, of course, Vatican City, where the Pope is head of state. In Andorra, the Bishop of Urgell and the President of France are co-Princes and its constitution gives special recognition to the Roman Catholic Church. Under the constitution of Liechtenstein, the Roman Catholic Church is the ‘National Church’, while the constitution of Monaco declares Roman Catholicism ‘the religion of the state’.

Under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1700, the monarch of the United Kingdom may not be a Roman Catholic, and the relationship between church and state means, in effect, that he or she must be a member of the Church of England as established by law. Uniquely in Europe, the British monarch is also the Supreme Governor of the Church: a title that goes back to the Act of Supremacy 1559, when the Protestant Elizabeth I succeeded the Catholic Mary. Henry VIII had declared himself the ‘Supreme Head in earth’ of the Church, but Elizabeth chose a less confrontational title.

The monarch also has a unique association with the Church of Scotland, appointing a Lord High Commissioner to the annual General Assembly of the Church who makes opening and closing addresses to the Assembly as the monarch’s representative and carries out a number of official functions while the Assembly is sitting. In 2002, Queen Elizabeth II attended in person rather than appointing a commissioner.

Scandinavia also preserves a Protestant succession. The Church of Sweden was disestablished on 1 January 2000. Furthermore, ties between church and state in Norway were somewhat loosened by an amendment to the constitution which came into effect on 1 January 2017, which removed the previous reference to an ‘official religion of the State’. However, both countries still require their monarch to be Lutheran. In Sweden, for example, under Article 4 of the Act of Succession 1810, ‘The King shall always profess the pure evangelical faith, as adopted and explained in the unaltered Confession of Augsburg and in the Resolution of the Uppsala Meeting of the year 1593’. Likewise in Denmark, Article 4 of the Constitution maintains the establishment of the Evangelical Lutheran Church and Article 6 requires that the monarch shall be a member of the Church.

Continue reading →

The monarch’s role as Defender of the Faith in an increasingly secular society

Posted on by

The role of the Church of England in the British state will be front and centre at the coronation of King Charles III, which takes place on Saturday. Catherine Pepinster argues that Charles and his mother, Elizabeth II, have reinvented the monarchy’s relationship to religion in twenty-first century Britain. Quite where that leaves the relationship between the monarchy and the more secular in society remains open to question.

Bit by bit, drip by drip, Buckingham Palace has gradually been revealing the details of the coronation of Charles III and Queen Camilla. There have been announcements about the crowns they will wear and the music that will be played, as well as commentaries from the press about the King not wanting a lavish ceremony and striving for both continuity and change on 6 May. Then in December 2022, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described it as a unique moment that would ‘allow us to showcase the very best of Britain’.

Amid this chatter, there has been barely any coverage of what lies at the heart of the coronation – religion. Since the time of Henry VIII and his creation of the Church of England, religion and monarchy have been inextricably linked. The sovereign takes the title of Supreme Governor of the Church of England, which is the established church in this country. Long before that, church and monarch were intertwined, with both bestowing different forms of power – temporal, spiritual – upon the other. For more than a thousand years, the coronation of first the English, and later, the British monarch, has been a Christian service, with roots in Biblical ideas of kingship, focusing on notions of service and the importance of the monarch being blessed with wisdom. This is most memorably expressed in Handel’s spine-tingling Zadok the Priest, composed for the coronation of George II and performed at every coronation since. It is expected to be played again in May, including the lines from the Old Testament’s First Book of Kings: ‘Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king’.

Note the reference to Solomon – a byword for wisdom – and note mention of anointing. Most people assume crowning is at the heart of a coronation, and it is certainly the most visually affecting moment. For constitutionalists, the most important aspect of the coronation is the oath-taking. This is when the monarch promises to govern according to laws and customs, honour the legal settlement of the Church of England and its rights and privileges, as well as uphold the Protestant religion. However, for the clerics, Christian believers, and monarchs, it is the anointing, when the sovereign is blessed and the grace of God is called down upon him, that is the key aspect of the ceremony.

Continue reading →

What role should the monarch have in a constitutional crisis?

Posted on by

Robert Saunders argues that the UK cannot rely on a ceremonial monarchy that seeks to remain apart from politics to protect the constitution from attack in times of crisis. For that, he concludes that other instruments will be needed, without which both monarchy and the constitution will suffer. This post is based on material from the Unit’s new report, The British Monarchy, co-published yesterday by the Unit and the UK in a Changing Europe.

For much of British history, it was hard to imagine a constitutional crisis without the monarch at its core. From the barons at Runnymede imposing Magna Carta on King John to the expulsion of James II in 1688, the English (and, later, British) constitution was forged in the collision between Crown and parliament. As late as the nineteenth century, suspicion of royal power pulsed through progressive politics. Victorians may have revered ‘Her Little Majesty’, but they also celebrated a ‘Glorious Revolution’ against royal tyranny and erected a statue of Oliver Cromwell outside Westminster.

With the decline of constitutional politics in the twentieth century, the political functions of the Crown slipped from public debate. Yet recent controversies have redirected attention to the role of the monarch at times of constitutional crisis. More specifically, they have reopened a question that deserves greater public discussion: who wields the historic powers of the Crown once the monarch is no longer politically active? Should there be any limit on their use by a Prime Minister?

An emergency brake

Some of the highest powers of the British state still technically reside with the Crown, including the right to declare war, conclude treaties and suspend parliament. By convention, those powers are exercised ‘on the advice of the Prime Minister’. But they do not belong to the Prime Minister, and might, in theory, be withheld.

Continue reading →

Can muscular unionism save the Union?

Posted on by

Several UK politicians have been described as embracing a ‘muscular’ form of unionism, which includes taking a hard line against the possibility of constituent parts of the UK leaving the Union. As Iain McLean warns, muscular unionism can look like ‘know your place unionism’ and history has shown that such a muscular approach can backfire and hasten the very secession it seeks to prevent.

The phrase ‘muscular unionism’ is new but the concept is not. As Prime Minister, Boris Johnson called Scottish devolution ‘a disaster north of the border’. Liz Truss said while campaigning for the Conservative leadership that she would ‘ignore’ the ‘attention seeker’, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. She was true to her word, never contacting Sturgeon or Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales, during her premiership. Lord (David) Frost, who served as a member of Johnson’s Cabinet, recently wrote:

The Scottish “government” is not the government of a state in confederation with England. It is a subordinate entity within the UK, with powers granted to it by the UK government and Parliament, and ultimately subject to the supremacy of that Parliament.

It does indeed sound muscular, but it ended in tears and self-contradiction last time, and there is no reason to expect differently this time. The UK government would be well advised to become a little weedier than PMs Johnson or Truss. Rishi Sunak contacted Sturgeon and Drakeford on his first full day in office as Prime Minister. Is this a hopeful sign?

Continue reading →