Analysis: Elizabeth knew how to remain formally impartial even about crucial UK decisions

Two behaviors are essential for someone, in the 21st century, to maintain the privilege of reigning over his people. And that he can, supported by the population and without major opposition, wear glittering adornments, inhabit castles and travel by carriage. In the first place, it is necessary to avoid deciding the fate of this same people. The second requirement is to be worthy.

Elizabeth II, who died this Thursday (8), at the age of 96, fulfilled the two preconditions with honor, thus preserving her position and that of her family throughout her seven decades of reign.

He managed the feat of keeping the monarchic regime standing and mostly popular in iconoclastic times of rapid and profound changes as never seen before.

Elizabeth embodied political discretion, knowing the examples of the kings of the past, who accepted, from the 17th century, the progressive decomposition of monarchical power in the country. William IV, who reigned from 1830 to 1837 and was the last king to attempt, without success, to openly meddle in government, once said: “I have my vision, and I report it to my ministers. I can’t do anything”.

More than a century and a half later, Elizabeth would speak of her role in a more positive light, as Jeremy Paxman recounts in the book “On Royalty”. “I think it’s quite pleasant to feel that you’re a kind of sponge, and everyone can come and tell you things”, the sovereign would have said, noting that “occasionally you can put a point of view that, perhaps, they hadn’t seen for that angle”.

“They”, in this case, are the prime ministers of the United Kingdom, who have weekly meetings with the monarch in charge. The hearings are confidential and their content is not recorded, which allows many premiers to use them as a therapy session. Fourteen of them, from Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson, passed Elizabeth’s divan—Liz Truss barely had time to be sworn in. The meetings yielded results that were unlikely at first, such as the particularly friendly relationship with Harold Wilson (1964-1970 and 1974-1976), her first reigning Labor prime minister.

The good relationship with Wilson contributed to the queen, coming from a lineage with an expected history of not exactly progressive opinions, to have more contact with agendas on the left.

Not many topics are known about what Elizabeth really thought, and when she did, she was always featured in the news. One of her last speeches with political repercussions was in October 2021, when a broadcast recorded her criticizing, in a private conversation during an event, the inaction of world leaders in the face of the climate crisis – an agenda, by the way, embraced by the now King Charles III and by Prince William, first in line.

On issues that are less consensual in public opinion, the breach of the sovereign’s neutrality caused a stir even when committed in a calculatedly insipid manner. On the eve of the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, Elizabeth declared these few words: “I hope people think very carefully about the future.”

The statement was interpreted as critical of the separation, and Buckingham Palace had to deny that there was any voting guidance there. Whatever the royal intent, the breakup of the United Kingdom was ultimately defeated, and the Queen avoided the inconvenience of having her favorite summer retreat, the Scottish castle of Balmoral, located in a foreign nation. It was in this place that she died on this farm, serenely and surrounded by family members.

Other opinions of the sovereign would only become known through the backstage of the press, such as her opposition to Turkey’s entry into the European Union or her irritation with Margaret Thatcher’s resistance to imposing sanctions on the racist apartheid regime in South Africa.

But the truth is that, except for occasional cases, Elizabeth knew how to remain formally impartial even about crucial decisions in her country’s trajectory, such as Brexit. She thus proved to have been a diligent student of the teachings of the Victorian-era essayist Walter Bagehot, who wrote that in a constitutional monarchy the king or queen has only three rights: to be consulted, to encourage, and to warn. “And a king of great sense and sagacity would not desire any others,” she asserted.

Building a barrier between the right to reign and the right to rule was crucial for the British monarchy and a handful of other European dynasties to survive. More complex and educated societies would no longer accept the risk of seeing their rulers being decided by a genetic roulette wheel. Leaving the real decisions to politicians who can be replaced when the weather turns sour is a protective factor of the throne.

And it’s not enough not to govern. It is necessary not to do it in a respectable way, second requirement for the sustainability of kings. After all, once again in Walter Bagehot’s definition, monarchy is an adornment that ensures that people give government the reverence it needs to function. An effort to anabolic or crown the credibility of institutions.

While family members collected gaffes or scandals, Elizabeth, who came of age under the stoic years of the Second World War and immediately after the conflict, did not create great embarrassment.

It developed form and (understated) content consistent with the general idea of ​​a monarchy: distant, cold, solid, traditional, predictable and, for its enthusiasts, reliable. A kind of institutional grandmother, a figure that seemed to have been there forever, Elizabeth merged with the country’s imagination and with the very image of the British Crown, which would have been more contested under a loud and extravagant king.

Along with castles and works of art, this is the legacy that their descendants receive. From now on, we will know if the new King Charles III, known to be less convinced in the art of being restrained, will be as competent as his predecessor in preserving the regime that benefits the family so much.