It’s no coincidence that the most successful democracies are constitutional monarchies – The Telegraph

My phone started buzzing withmessages as soon as Queen Elizabeth IIs death wasannounced: friends and formercolleagues, politicians and ambassadors, all wanting to express their sorrow and their admiration forour sovereign. AsIwrite, I can count 51 WhatsApps and texts.

All of them are from outside the Commonwealth, and the vast majority from republics. Many of the people sending them, especially the Americans, see the repudiation of monarchy as an important part of their own identity. One friend, an old-fashioned lefty from Vermont, was typical: Even I, a resolute republican, am an admirer of how Elizabeth conducted herself in her anachronisticrole. My condolences.

Americans tend to profess admiration for the woman who wore the crown rather than for the crown itself, much as one might admire the Dalai Lama without being a Buddhist. Yet, the more you think about it, the harder it is to separate the office-holder from the office. Had Elizabeth Windsor had the baby brother she used to pray for as a girl, she would doubtless have lived a blameless life of rural domesticity. The virtues that the world admired in her discretion, dignity and, above all, duty were admirable precisely because they werethe virtues of a head of state.

Republicans might retort that being the head of state in a constitutional monarchy is hardly a demanding job. The role has been filled in Britain by, among others, two foreigners, a rake and a madman. Only one British monarch the late Queens uncle wasdeemed to fall short of the minimal standards required.

Yet this is to miss the point. Aconstitutional monarchy is not theretomagnify the ruler; we leave that sortof thing to peoples republics. No, a constitutional monarchy is there to legitimise the government, to elevate and ennoble the states core functions and, in the last analysis, to forestall the possibility of civil war.

Yes, civil war. Forty-three per cent of Americans, according to YouGov, expect such an outcome within the next decade. Before you dismiss that finding, consider why civil wars happen. They typically begin, not because people disagree over what policies their country should adopt, but because they disagree about who has the right to issue the orders. While ethnic, religious or doctrinal differences might furnish the combustible material, the match is almost always struck when someone disputes the authority of the presumed government. Now ask yourself whether such a scenario is impossible in the US. For atleast 20 years, there has been a growing tendency there for both parties to see elections as contingent, going immediately to court if they lose.

After the 2020 election, the habit of lawfare turned into something altogether more sinister. In defeat, Donald Trump cajoled various state authorities to declare a different result and, later, incited a mob to march on the Capitol in an attempt to stop the vote being certified.

Suppose that, in 2024, Trump stands again and loses again. Does anyone seriously imagine that he would graciously accept the verdict of the ballot box? Of course not. Once again, he would wheedle, threaten and bully in an attempt to get a different electoral college empanelled. But whereas in 2020 patriotic Republican officials stood by their oaths to the constitution, many of those officials have since been turfed out by Trumpians who got elected precisely by denying that election result.

It is no longer unthinkable that some state administrations, alleging fraud, might appoint their own slates of electoral college delegates. It is possible to imagine two rival electoral colleges choosing two rival presidents, and the 50 states dividing over which to recognise.

Yes, that outcome might still be unlikely. But it is no longer inconceivable. Here, by contrast, such a situation simply could not come about. We have an umpire whose authority all sides respect. Whoever the King recognised would be the headof His Majestys Government. That is what a constitutional monarch is: a military commander who is not ageneral, a head of state who is not apolitician, a focus for national loyaltywho is above ideology and beyond faction.

Dont get me wrong: I love the United States with an intensity that even I sometimes find embarrassing. Irevere the US Constitution in a way that only a few Ron Paul-type literalists still do. Nonetheless, at this distance in time, we can surely admit one thing. The American Revolution, however happy its consequences, was based onwhat turned out to be a falsehood.

In Great Britain, as in the Thirteen Colonies, the 1760s gave birth to an odd conspiracy theory to the effect that the Hanoverians were trying to roll back the powers of Parliament andrule as mediaeval despots. How people ever came to believe this of thedim, dull, decent George III is a mystery. In any event, it turned out tobe utter nonsense. Democracy continued to advance in Britain as inNorth America. Far from descending into autocracy, we remained, in effect, a crowned republic.

Indeed, by the time of the American Revolution, we had already had almost a century of parliamentary supremacy. Since 1689, MPs had determined who should be head of state. They did so when they laid out the succession terms for William and Mary, and they have carried on doing so since most recently in 2013, when the 15 Realms decided, democratically, to alter the rules so that elder daughters should inherit the throne before younger sons.

None of the flummery associated with the crown golden coaches, state openings, military reviews detracts from our democracy. Around four fifths of us presently support the monarchy. But if that majority changed, and voters preferred a republic, no one doubts that their wishes would prevail. That is the beautiful contradiction inherent in a constitutional monarchy. The monarch is sovereign, yet serves at our pleasure.

The late Roger Scruton expressed the paradox eloquently when he likened the magic of monarchy to the enchanting light from the top of a Christmas tree, which the British people perfectly well remembered having climbed up and placed there themselves.

In the United States, where there is no such enchantment, there is a growing prospect of political violence. Not so in Canada, distinguished from its southern neighbour largely by the fact of its monarchy. There, the parliamentary system is unquestioned and political disagreements remain civil. And not by coincidence.

To become a Canadian citizen, you have to swear an oath of loyalty to the monarch, and the accompanying literature explains why in language that neatly makes the case for having amonarch above politics:

In Canada, we profess our loyalty to a person who represents all Canadians and not to a document such as a constitution, a banner such as a flag, or a geopolitical entity such as a country. In our constitutional monarchy, these elements are encompassed by the Sovereign (Queen or King). It is a remarkably simple yet powerful principle: Canada is personified by theSovereign just as the Sovereign ispersonified by Canada.

Canada and the United States are, of course, nations that are exceptionally close to us, as well as to one another. Both are old and successful democracies. Consider, though, some of the countries with a less developed tradition of constitutional rule.

Here are the states I can think of thatabolished their monarchies duringthe late Queens 70-year reign: Afghanistan, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Iraq, Iran, Laos, Libya, Nepal, Rwanda, Tunisia, Vietnam, Yemen. Of that list, I reckon only Greece can be said to have made a success of the change. In all the others, there have been times when ordinary people longed for a neutral referee who was neither a politician nor a general.

CS Lewis, as so often, expressed it beautifully: Where men are forbidden to honour a king, they honour millionaires, athletes, or film stars instead; even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny itfood and it will gobble poison.

It is striking to see how many of theworlds most liberal, tranquil, contented and egalitarian countries turn out to be constitutional monarchies: Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway. Even more striking is how many of these states share the same monarch: King Charles III, 34th great-grandson of Kenneth MacAlpin, 33rd great-grandson of Brian Boru, and 33rd great-grandson ofAlfred the Great and, according to some genealogists, the 41st great-grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. Not a bad record, all told.

God Save the King.

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It's no coincidence that the most successful democracies are constitutional monarchies - The Telegraph