Queen Elizabeth was 21 when she delivered the words many of her subjects think of as the mission statement that has guided her ever since.
“I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong,” she said.
Next week when she celebrates 70 years on the throne, she should perform one last act of service by announcing her retirement.
At 96, the queen is reported to be in good health but she is frail and what her courtiers call “episodic mobility issues” have left her unable to perform most public duties. Her surprise appearances this month at the Royal Windsor Horse Show, the Chelsea Flower Show and the opening of a new London underground train line were exceptional. She has had to pull out of so many events at the last minute that the palace no longer announces the queen is going anywhere until she actually turns up.
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Prince Charles has taken on an increasing number of the monarch’s duties but his role is very much that of a stand-in, a fact that was underscored with exquisite absurdity at the state opening of parliament two weeks ago. Dressed in the uniform of an admiral of the fleet, his chest freighted with medals, Charles sat on a golden throne in the House of Lords as he delivered the queen’s speech outlining her government’s legislative programme. But on a table next to him sat the imperial state crown his mother wears for the occasion, a symbol of the sovereign’s authority and a reminder of who remains boss.
There is some chatter in London about invoking the Regency Act to hand the queen’s powers to Charles on the grounds of the sovereign’s incapacity due to infirmity of mind or body. But that would be almost as undignified as the current, ghoulish speculation about the queen’s health and it requires a committee of senior figures to certify her incapacity. It also creates uncertainty because it can be reversed.
The better course is for the queen to abdicate, making clear to the public that it is her decision and setting out the reasons why. She has already taken some steps towards planning for the future beyond her reign, including her statement declaring that she wants Charles’s wife Camilla to have the title of queen.
Abdication has been a dirty word in the British royal family since the queen’s uncle Edward VIII handed back the crown in 1936 so he could marry the divorced Wallis Simpson. The queen’s mother apparently blamed the burden of being king for the early death of George VI.
The idea of retirement may be seen by some in Britain as inconsistent with the queen’s promise to devote her whole life to service but after 70 years in the job, it would be cruel to hold her to a promise she made when she was 21. And abdication, which is commonplace in other European monarchies, would allow the queen to prepare the British people for the fact of her own mortality.
Few people in Britain can remember anyone else as head of state, but that could itself become a problem if the public cannot imagine anyone else enjoying full legitimacy as their sovereign. The queen’s longevity has allowed her to be a living link to “the greatest generation” who fought the second World War and rebuilt Britain afterwards.
But that generation and the era they recall no longer serve primarily as an inspiration to Britain but as an obstacle to the country gaining a clear view of itself. The myth of Britain standing alone against the tyranny of Hitler’s Germany has nourished the sense of national exceptionalism that has informed much of the country’s recent history.
It was one of the reasons Britain could never find its place within the European Union and it is behind much of the irrational conduct of the British government since Brexit. The national preoccupation with the second World War has made it the prism through which all contemporary events are viewed. And it has left many in Britain with a yearning for a land of lost content when their country was happy and powerful, and admired everywhere.
By announcing her abdication, the queen would declare an end to the post-war era and by following her counterparts in the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, she would signal that she is part of the European mainstream. Some of Europe’s most progressive countries, including Denmark, Sweden and Norway, are monarchies but they have avoided the culture and infrastructure of deference that survives in Britain.
The slimmed-down royal family envisaged by Charles requires a reduction in the number of royal patronages and other links that will have the effect of reducing the monarchy’s reach. And as Prince William discovered when he faced protests during a recent Caribbean tour, many of its former colonies are rethinking their relationship with Britain.
The significance of the queen’s abdication for the institution of the monarchy matters less than what it would mean for Britain as a whole and for its understanding of itself. The decision of a woman approaching 100 years-old to stop working would be a striking act of rationality in a country where public policy is increasingly untethered from reality.
A middle power that has diminished in influence with its withdrawal from the European Union, Britain continues to drape itself in the garments of an imperial power. The fantasy of Global Britain puts London at the centre of a network of democracies, with former colonies such as Australia acting as subalterns.
This trompe-l’oeil superpower can send an aircraft carrier to patrol the Pacific but it must scramble around among its allies to find aircraft to put on board. It can declare independence from EU customs and goods regulations but it has been unable to introduce a functioning system of checks on its own borders.
This is the context in which Johnson can negotiate and sign the Northern Ireland protocol, pretend that it does not create a goods border in the Irish Sea and try to rip up the agreement when the EU seeks its implementation. And this is the disposition that can encourage resistance in Northern Ireland, reward intransigence and then claim that the protocol is undermining the Belfast Agreement and its institutions.
By encouraging the British people to acknowledge her own physiological reality, the queen might encourage them to take a clearer look at their country. If they did, they would see an economy that is stalling but is still substantial, with particular strength in financial services and life sciences and some of the world’s leading universities. But they would also see a society where the social safety net is so thin that millions risk destitution if their economic circumstances change just a little. And they would see a country that Brexit has left vulnerable to buffeting by the economic giants of the EU and the United States on either side of it.
In her speech 75 years ago dedicating her life to service, the queen expressed the hope that Britain would become “more free, more prosperous, more happy and a more powerful influence for good in the world”. It is a fine ambition that is more likely to be realised if the country first tells the truth about itself. She should take the first step next week.