Democracy, monarchy, republicanism

Here is some material about the monarchy, its character, history and the history of struggles against it that we have published, republished or shared recently. Speak out against the monarchy , by Sacha Ismail (September (2022) "Used by the profit mongers to blind the people": Labour's founder Keir Hardie on the monarchy (from 1897, September 2022) "Heeds not the shriek of penury": Percy Bysshe Shelley on the monarchy (from 1813, September 2022) The death of Queen Elizabeth is being used to delegitimise republicanism , by Martin Wicks (September 2022) Monarchy, capitalism, democracy: the...

An illustration of the 1647 Putney Debates between the New Model Army leaders and representatives of its rank and file Before the early capitalist class of England could firmly establish its political supremacy, its leaders had to fight a civil war against King Charles I, following which they felt compelled to execute the king and abolish the monarchy. In this extract from her book Liberty and Property , Ellen Meiksins Wood (1942-2016) discusses how the conflict generated and was shaped by an unprecedented third force, a popular lower-class movement for democracy. Between late October and...

The arrest of anti-monarchy protesters is indicative of the growing authoritarianism of the British state and of absurd attempts to enforce an unchallengeable pro-monarchy consensus . The wild reaction to (sadly) small demonstrations surely reflect the fact that, with the queen's death, the monarchist establishment can feel the ground shifting beneath its feet and is nervous for the future. Reports say the police have used the new Police Act and the 1986 Public Order Act . The labour movement must demand repeal of these and other laws restricting the right to protest, including the anti-strike...

On Friday 23 June the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the first time in history the Supreme Court has overturned one of its own rulings in order to roll back the rights of citizens. Roe v. Wade was a 1973 ruling that established federal protection for abortion rights on the grounds that abortion is ultimately a private decision between a patient and healthcare providers. The right to privacy is widely recognised as being implied by the liberty clause in the 14th amendment of the US constitution, so the right to abortion must also be protected at the federal level. The 1973 court ruled...

Labour leader Keir Starmer with Charles Windsor, or as Starmer calls him His Majesty the King Why do we oppose the monarchy? See here , here and here ; and more articles here . The UK population is being bombarded with the idea that everyone supports the monarchy and that calling for its abolition is a marginal position. It’s simply not true. Generally speaking, people should argue for what they believe even as a tiny minority. That’s a precondition for any honest and therefore meaningfully democratic politics. Many times in history minorities have become majorities through campaigning...

In the 1640s a clash between England's Parliament and Kings Charles I developed into a civil war and then a revolutionary upheaval, resulting in the overthrow of the monarchy and the execution of the king. The monarchy was not restored until 1660. These extracts from socialist historian Christopher Hill's The English Revolution 1640 try to explain both the civil war and lower-class democratic struggles during and after it. Later Marxists, notably Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood, developed alternative understandings of the class configuration of Tudor and Stuart England and how it...

Although past propaganda painted the USA as “the greatest democracy in the world”, that claim was always highly questionable. And more so now. After the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v Wade, the availability of contraception is also on the hit-list. The 1967 Supreme Court ruling which banned laws against inter-racial marriage could even be reversed. Even that extreme can’t be ruled out given the present climate. And what exactly is that climate? People have actually asked on Google whether The Handmaid’s Tale is a true story. It’s beginning to look like becoming one. Testimony before the...

Forty five years ago in 1977, during the Queen’s 25th jubilee, many thousands attended a republican People’s Jubilee organised in North London by the Communist Party. This year, for the 70th jubilee, republican events will be low-key to the point of non-existent. That isn’t because support for the monarchy is stronger today. In fact there are signs of it approaching a serious crisis. In 2021 Barbados, one of Britain’s first colonies, dropped the British monarch as head of state , ramping up discussion of other countries following. Australia has moved up the list since it elected republican...

Proportional representation (John Roberts’ letter, Solidarity 634) is more democratic than first-past-the-post, which disadvantages relatively-evenly spread minorities relative to localised ones, and skews political campaigning to focus on a minority of marginal seats. It doesn’t follow that PR is a magic key to progress. We push for the labour movement to have independent politics, not for a coalition or semi-coalition government of Labour and Lib-Dem and SNP because it might bring, or arise from, PR. Germany, Israel, Ireland, the Netherlands, Brazil and many other countries show that PR is...

In Britain today we’re not in Russia January 1917 when Lenin famously said that he wouldn’t see a socialist revolution in his lifetime, only to get into power ten months later. Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, does not have the charisma of Tony Blair, and it is unlikely that Labour will win a landslide in the next general election given its lack of policies. More likely is that Labour will be the biggest party dependant on support from the Lib Dems, the Greens, and the SNP, probably in a confidence and supply arrangement. This would be the best outcome for socialists. The Lib Dems, the Greens...