The Freedom of Information Act never applied directly to the monarchy, despite the royal household receiving at least £40 million of public funds each year. Moreover, any correspondence between the royals and government departments that were covered by the Act was also specifically exempted.

But that exemption was not absolute. Requests for correspondence between royals and ministers were subject to a ‘public interest test’. If a request passed the test then the documents could – in theory at least – be released.
The situation changed with the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, brought in by the Labour government. It amended the Freedom of Information Act so that all correspondence from the monarch, the heir to the throne and second in line was added to the list of absolute exemptions, alongside information related to national security.

The effect was to remove all possibility of disclosure during the specified time limit – normally 20 years, or five years after the death of the member of the royal family concerned.

These amendments required a statutory instrument to be brought into effect, which justice secretary Kenneth Clarke duly issued in January this year.
One effect of the monarchy’s total exemption from the Freedom of Information Act is that the public is prevented from accessing detailed information on how the royal household spends public funds. Revelations about waste and greed at the palace would certainly be damaging to the monarchy – and the government – at a time of rising prices, drastically reduced public services and widespread unemployment.

But more significantly, the exemption conceals the extent to which members of the royal family, particularly Charles, influence government policy. And that is probably what it’s designed to do. The government’s official justification of the exemption is that it will ‘ensure the constitutional position and political impartiality of the monarchy is not undermined’. In other words – those of the Times – the exemption is a ‘gagging law to protect Prince Charles’.

From Walter Bagehot to Vernon Bogdanor, establishment constitutionalists have argued that the political impartiality of the monarchy is the glue that holds the parliamentary process together. The appearance of neutrality is so important, the argument goes, that it must be protected at all costs – and royals should be free to meddle in politics without fear of being exposed.
It’s an argument that has been comprehensively rebutted by Professor Adam Tomkins, legal adviser to the House of Lords select committee on the constitution. ‘You cannot preserve the reality of something that does not exist,’ he told a freedom of information tribunal last September, when the Guardian launched an appeal over the government’s refusal to release some of Charles’s correspondence. ‘If that political neutrality has already been surrendered, as is clearly (if regrettably) the case with regard to the Prince of Wales, the “good constitutional reason” for the rule disappears.’
Put simply, if our constitutional arrangements are threatened by greater transparency, then that is an argument for a new constitution – not more secrecy.

The fact that the exemption was introduced by Labour and brought into force by Conservatives and Liberal Democrats demonstrates clearly that this is not an issue that divides along party lines – it’s a case of the political establishment looking after itself. Anything that weakens the monarchy also jeopardises the great swathes of unaccountable powers exercised by the prime minister and cabinet on the monarch’s behalf.

The political class may disagree on the ends to which those powers should be used, but rarely questions their moral basis. ‘Openness and transparency has the potential to transform government,’ the Cabinet Office tells us – just as long as that transformation is on the establishment’s terms.

‘Ministers and royals alike believe that the interests of the royal family are above and beyond those of the public,’ explains Graham Smith, campaign manager of the pressure group Republic. ‘That is a contemptible attitude that demonstrates much of what is wrong with the monarchy.’

So as things stand, Charles’s attempts to influence government policy on health, architecture, education, agriculture, the environment, even war and peace, will now remain secret until years after his death.

But there is hope. Republican MPs, possibly including some recalcitrant Lib Dems, plan to table amendments to Nick Clegg’s Protection of Freedoms Bill – which, despite its grandiose title, is currently little more than a reaction to right-wing media scares – which would not only reverse the absolute exemption but also define the monarchy for the first time as a public authority.

Republicans may yet get their chance to let daylight in on the hidden operations of the monarchy’s influence on public policy.

Music can be a powerful medium to convey the anti-monarchist message, but with John Lydon’s disappointingly sycophantic comments in the Sun about the wedding couple, it is clear that a genuine punk antidote is needed. Filling the gap is someone whose politics are a world away from those who, like Republic, want to replace the Queen with a democratically elected head of state. Anarchist, musician and writer Ian Bone – once labelled ‘Britain’s most dangerous man’ by the tabloids – will be making his sentiments loud and clear by releasing a remix of his ‘Better Dead than Wed’ CD on 5 April.
Originally released in 1986 to coincide with Andrew and Fergie’s wedding, he plans a new version with updated lyrics especially for Will and Kate. The song contains many catchy and colourful lyrics about the royals, including:

‘We’ve got a wedding present,
On this we’re very keen,
It’s built to last for frequent use,
It’s called a guillotine.’

Bone is well known for his direct militancy mixed with humour and was a founding member of various anarchist groups, such as Movement Against Monarchy (MAM), which was heavily involved with protests around the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations. Gawain, a member of the London-based Whitechapel Anarchist Group, says that they will also be taking to the streets again: ‘We would love to see a return of MAM and have been in talks with other anarchist groups to try to revive the movement in time for the wedding day.’

Anti-royalists in Scotland and Wales also have alternative events planned. The Scottish Socialist Party plans a public rally on the day of the wedding with an array of speakers and musicians yet to be finalised. It also plans to relaunch the Declaration of Carlton Hill event in Edinburgh, which originally took place as an alternative republican celebration to the opening of the Scottish Parliament. The declaration calls for an independent socialist Scotland, free from the ‘hierarchical and anti-democratic institutions of the British state’.

In Wales, the nationalist cultural group Balchder Cymru (Pride of Wales) is planning an alternative five-day celebration called the ‘Escape the Wedding Camp’, at a campsite near Machynlleth in north Wales. It is also considering planning a march through the town on the day of the wedding.
Organiser Adam Phillips explains that this location was chosen as it was the seat of Owain Glyndw^r’s independent Welsh parliament: ‘We are giving people an opportunity to escape the razzle dazzle and media hype. Not everyone will be celebrating this wedding because the taxpayer is footing the bill during a time of recession and cutbacks.’

Indeed, many will be simply outraged by the massive public cost of the wedding, estimated at £20 million.

Then there is the matter of the guest list. Among the usual dignitaries and celebrities will be the monarchs of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, both of whom have brutally oppressed their own people as they bravely rally for democracy.

George Galloway, among others, has made his feelings clear: ‘The king of Bahrain presides over a dictatorship which cuts down demonstrators, including a two-year-old child. The king of Saudi Arabia rules over an outfit where people are executed on a Friday afternoon and women are not allowed to drive cars or go out without a male relative.

‘What do these despots have to do with a wedding in Britain at the taxpayers’ expense? If the monarchy wants to remain meaningful it has to relate to our society, not a fellowship of despotic kings.’

As the government takes the spending axe to public services, is it not time that we rid ourselves of the most wasteful, archaic and undemocratic institution of all? As Sue Townsend, author and republican campaigner, proposes: ‘Perhaps one day Britons will take a lead from the Egyptians and congregate in Trafalgar Square and march down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace – hopefully without a shot being fired or a taser being employed – to demand that the monarchy be abolished and sent to live among the people.’

The ‘Love Republic’ event takes place from 7:30pm on 29 April at Borough Bar, 10-18 London Bridge Street, London SE1. www.republic.org.uk

This article is part of our series on emerging political movements, made possible with the help of the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust

Certainly, the more visible parts of the role of the monarchy (extending to the royal family as a whole) can be regarded as within the ‘dignified’ constitutional category – opening and addressing parliament, carrying out royal visits, taking part in public ceremonies such as weddings.

But should we be led to conclude, as Bagehot did, that ‘a Republic has insinuated itself beneath the folds of a Monarchy’, and that the UK is, in his words, a ‘disguised republic’? Or does the sovereign possess powers that make the monarchy part of the ‘efficient’ constitution as well as the ‘dignified’?

The view from Whitehall

Late last year, the government published – in draft form – a document called the ‘Cabinet Manual’. It is likely to be the closest the UK has come to possessing something it famously lacks – a ‘written’ constitution.
The manual provides us with the Whitehall view of many different features of the UK settlement, including a portrayal of the role of the monarchy. We are told that:

‘The UK is a parliamentary democracy which has a constitutional sovereign as Head of State.’

In most democracies, a ‘constitution’ means a formally binding set of rules by which all institutions are limited. However, in the UK, there is no clearly defined body of constitutional law superseding all other; and many key features of the political settlement, including those regulating the monarchy, exist only as often vague understandings with little or no legal status, known as ‘conventions’. For instance, the manual states that:

‘By convention, the Sovereign does not become publicly involved in the party politics of government.’

While public political activism is restricted – albeit in a loose fashion – a behind-the-scenes role for the monarch is specifically provided for in the manual. It states that the sovereign:

‘is entitled to be informed and consulted, and to advise, encourage and warn ministers.’

However, it is not suggested that the government is required to act upon the views of the monarch. As well as these entitlements, there are other latent powers, held by the sovereign under the so-called ‘royal prerogative’. A relic of pre-democratic rule, most of the royal prerogative has either been abolished or passed in practice to ministers (for instance, the right to make war). But some of it remains personal to the monarch. The Cabinet Office tells us that:

‘Where a bill has completed all of its Parliamentary stages, it cannot become law until the Sovereign has formally approved it, which is known as Royal Assent.’

The idea that a monarch would refuse to grant royal assent to a bill that had passed through its proper parliamentary stages is all but unthinkable. However, the manual describes another set of personal prerogatives, which it is more plausible could come into play. It states:

‘Although they have not been exercised in modern times, the Sovereign retains reserve powers to dismiss the Prime Minister or make a personal choice of successor.’

The latter of these ‘reserve powers’, to ‘make a personal choice of successor’, could become relevant following a general election that does not produce a single-party majority in the House of Commons, as occurred in May last year. Normally, in recent decades, the exercise of the monarchical power to appoint the prime minister is a formality. However, if there is more than one possible prime minister, a decision has to be made. The manual explains that:

‘Where a range of different administrations could potentially be formed, discussions will take place between political parties on who should form the next government … The Sovereign would not expect to become involved in such negotiations.’

The word ‘expect’ leaves open the possibility of monarchical involvement, and the manual goes on to note that:

‘The political parties and the Cabinet Secretary would have responsibilities in ensuring that the Palace is provided with information on the progress of discussions…’

Since there are grounds for supposing that ‘no overall control’ parliaments could become more frequent in future than in the recent past, the expectation of non-involvement may be tested more often.

Fixed-term parliaments

The personal prerogative of the monarchy is about to be circumscribed in an important way, however. When the Fixed‑term Parliaments Bill becomes law, the requirement for the consent of the sovereign to dissolutions of parliament (ie general elections) will be removed.

When considering these features of the monarchy, some hold that the monarchy is a valuable institution, providing continuity and stability; and that the traditional way of regulating the office has, despite – or perhaps because of – its vagueness, proved effective so far, and can be expected to continue to do so. Others argue that, while the monarchy should be retained, there is a need for a more clearly defined constitutional framework, as operates in countries such as Holland.

But others still have concluded that some of the roles associated with the monarchy require a more democratic basis, and that an undisguised republic would be preferable to Bagehot’s disguised version. If this final option is preferred, certain decisions must be taken.

Having abolished the monarchy, would the UK need a head of state at all? International evidence seems to suggest that it would, with some kind of figure performing both ‘dignified’ and – to a limited extent – ‘efficient’ roles being the norm. If not a monarch, then this person is generally known as a president.

Presidents come in different forms, between which the UK would have to choose. They may be chosen by members of the national parliament, as in countries such as Italy and Germany. Heads of state appointed in this way are not leading political figures. The role would be comparable in its functions to that of the monarch in the UK, although probably more clearly defined and regulated, held only for limited terms, and subject to indirect democratic accountability.

The alternative means of filling a presidency is through direct election. This method tends to produce an office holder with a strong popular mandate for personal government: a political leader. If the UK opted for this model it would have to decide how far it wished the power of its presidency to be balanced by other institutions, such as the legislature and the courts. It could choose to establish a more limited president, as in the US, or a more hegemonic leader, as has existed in the French Fifth Republic.

Three steps to a republic

So how might either a more clearly constrained monarchy or a republic be brought about? There would probably be three key features to this process:
First, there would need to be a constitutional convention of some kind to consider the options and make a detailed proposal, or possibly a set of multiple options to be chosen between by the public. The convention might be elected, at least partially, and some participants could be selected at random from the public at large, a method known as sortition.

Second, there would have to be at least one referendum, possibly with two questions, one on whether to abolish existing arrangements, another on which system they should be replaced with if they were dropped.
Third, and finally, the new settlement, if adopted, would be encapsulated in a ‘written’ UK constitution, to which parliament and the reformed monarchy, or – in a republic – the president would be subject. The doctrine of the supremacy of the ‘Queen in Parliament’ would be replaced by that of popular sovereignty, expressing the aspiration that ultimate political authority would now formally reside with the people of the UK as a whole.
Andrew Blick is senior research fellow with Democratic Audit

Kevin Blowe argues that we should vote ‘No’ to help break the Tory-Lib Dem coalition

There are many more important expressions of democratic involvement than voting. There are inherent dangers in placing our limited reserves of hope and energy into handing politics over to a professional class – one that has repeatedly sought to maintain the status quo – and then blindly legitimising their control over our lives by turning up at a polling booth every few years.

That’s why I feel distinctly underwhelmed by a referendum to tinker with the way we choose between competing Westminster professionals.
At least, tactically, a genuine proportional representation system might allow more space for voices from beyond the mainstream. But the proposed Alternative Vote (AV) system isn’t proportionate. Instant run-off voting is designed to make the current ‘first-past-the-post’ system seem more acceptable, but like all elections where the winner takes all, it only creates the false impression of majority support. In fact, AV is more likely to squeeze out any minority parties, reduce the impact of protest votes and reinforce the blandness of political debate.

Even commentators such as Martin Kettle in the Guardian, who is supporting the Yes campaign, acknowledges that AV is a system that no one supports. But it was central to the coalition negotiations last May, ‘the prize that finally persuaded the Lib Dems they could go in with David Cameron’.
Politically, this leads to an obvious conclusion for those of us who don’t much care which of the mainstream parties stand to gain or lose from AV. The outcome of the referendum will, one way or another, have an impact on the increasingly fragile bonds between the two governing parties. A ‘Yes’ vote will strengthen the coalition, while voting ‘No’ against a voting system that isn’t proportionate and that no one supports may help to break it.

So perhaps, for once, there’s a reason for voting in this one after all. The arguments put forward by the No2AV campaign may represent a reactionary endorsement of the current electoral system, but the same isn’t necessarily true of every individual ‘No’ vote. Rejection of AV can also represent a deliberate act of mischief, a considered rejection of Tory attempts to buy the complicity of Clegg’s Lib Dems in their destruction of public services.

Hilary Wainwright says we should vote ‘Yes’ to help break
our undemocratic system

Why should someone deeply sceptical about parliamentary politics, at least as we know it, lift a finger for AV? My starting point is Thomas Rainsborough’s powerful argument for extending the franchise, irrespective of wealth and property: ‘The poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he . . . every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under the government . . . the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under . . .’

Four centuries from Rainsborough’s declaration, eight decades from the suffragettes winning the universal franchise, UK prime ministers govern without a mandate of the majority, and governments regularly implement policies that benefit the rich or the corporations and over which the poorest effectively have no say – the dismantling of the NHS being the latest such contempt of the voter.

In other words, a democratic victory – the winning of the universal right to vote, opening a dynamic towards more radical democratic reforms, has been turned into new system of elite rule.

The ‘winner takes all’ electoral system has been important in this process, contributing to the mythologies of democratic rule that have veiled the nature of the UK’s unwritten, monarchical constitution.

These opaque arrangements in turn have protected the financial interests of the City that have shaped what are and aren’t allowed as policy options in public debate. No wonder the financial and political establishment is now closing ranks to ensure that this guard against genuine public accountability stays in place.

Evidence of the mass disenfranchisement that is part of this electoral system is overwhelming and well publicised. But another, less publicised consequence of first-past-the-post voting has been the slow death of a critical political culture. It underpins the pull of electoral competition towards the political centre. Instead of enabling representative democracy to, as Raymond Williams put it, ‘re-present’ the plurality of views held by the population, it effectively excludes or politically kettles the wide range of alternatives to ‘the mainstream’.

This has got worse under corporate globalisation, which has transformed the hidden rules of political debate. The power of the global market has meant that policies in its favour are presented as unavoidable, turning politics into a process of technical economic management.

A challenge to this process requires a concerted expansion of the argument and debate that is necessary for political creativity. Instead, the New Labour leadership – whose legacy is proving difficult to dismantle – treated open debate as beyond the bounds of legitimate politics. Now, sucked into the quicksand of the centre ground, the Lib Dem leadership does the same.

So I’m viewing the referendum as an opportunity to open up a process of structural political change, an opportunity that is a result of us, the voters, refusing to place our trust in existing political options. In answer to Kevin Blowe, it’s far more important than punishing Nick Clegg. Clegg’s clinging to the coat tails of Cameron is a product of the present system, and he and the Lib Dems will not be able to control the dynamic of change that even the minimal opening of AV represents.

AV is not proportional and it’s not the solution. But it will force an opening up of political debate. Alternative views, previously marginalised or excluded, would become a legitimate part of the political process – perhaps in a minimal way at first, but with an angry, alienated and determined electorate there would be a real possibility of it opening up an uncertain dynamic. AV will enable voters to demonstrate their true first preferences, which currently are masked by the absence of alternatives and because many people have to vote tactically or abstain.

For example, the growing resistance to the idea that ‘there is no alternative’ to the cuts could, through AV, make itself directly part of the political process. The kind of electoral challenge made by Dr Richard Taylor in Worcester could become a powerful political force, since such campaigns can attract support from broad stretches of the community. True, smaller left parties would continue to find it difficult to win seats: that would require genuine proportional representation (PR). But AV could challenge the main parties to relate to forces outside of Westminster, strengthen the ability of parties like the Greens to better identify their support at local level, and lay the foundations for new progressive alliances in the future.

A ‘No’ vote to electoral reform would send out all the wrong messages, and be trumpeted as evidence that the British public is broadly content with our politics. Worse still, it might derail existing commitments to see PR introduced for the second chamber. It wouldn’t so much weaken the coalition as confirm our own powerlessness in the face of the interests that guide its agenda. It’s not for nothing that the head of the Taxpayers’ Alliance has given up his time to lead the ‘No’ campaign.

I will grasp the opportunity of the referendum to vote for AV as a vote for change, to initiate a dynamic of change driven from below not just for genuine proportional representation at Westminster but for a participatory constituent assembly to produce a democratic written constitution, the objectives of which could well incorporate the egalitarian spirit of Rainsborough.

How does AV work?

The authors are certainly correct about the public disengagement from political parties, which is a Europe-wide phenomenon. In almost all established democracies, political parties come at the bottom of the list of institutions in which people express confidence, lower even than banks and bankers, not to mention second-hand car dealers. Over time political parties have lost what popular implantation they once had, and are seen merely as vehicles for professional politicians to win and exercise power, integrated into the state rather than society.

A number of factors have coincided to produce this detachment between parties and the electorate. One is the fragmentation of their traditional social bases and associated organisations. Another is the electoral ‘arms race’, which puts parties in hock to wealthy funders and business interests. A third has been the neoliberal economic hegemony driving globalisation, which has robbed political parties, especially on the left, of any ideological distinctiveness that might make them worth joining or voting for.

Then there has been the decline of inner-party democracy, as leaderships have excluded divergent voices for fear of media exposure of ‘splits’ and ‘loss of authority’. And finally we could add the professionalisation of politics and the construction of a special class that seems to bear little relation to how people live their daily lives. Together these factors have produced a self-reinforcing cycle of alienation between political parties and the public, reflected in declining memberships and voter turnout.

If this situation is general across much of Europe, it is particularly acute in the UK. The hollowing out of local government and its powers has deprived local parties of much of their rationale, and prevented the development of alternative leaderships that might challenge the centralised hierarchies. And the first-past-the-post electoral system ossifies the existing party structure by creating an enormous hurdle for new party entrants. In this context the idea proposed by the Jury Team of a loose framework of self-selected independents, bereft of ideology or programme except the need to ‘clean up politics’, looks more like another symptom of the problem rather than a solution to it.

Nor does the idea of reinvigorating the roots of existing parties by copying the successful electronic mobilisations of the US Democrats look at all plausible, in the absence of any credible renewal of leadership, programme or way of conducting politics such as Obama has represented. All the main UK parties are now ideologically bankrupt, having all embraced the neoliberal economic project with enthusiasm, and are now flailing around for some alternative other than a future return to ‘business as usual’.

The dilemma of the left in Britain is that our critique of neoliberalism and elaboration of alternatives to its orthodoxies now has a potentially receptive audience for the first time for a generation, yet we lack a political party to articulate it and campaign widely for it. Many progressive activists have abandoned parties altogether to take part in single-issue campaigns, self-help organisations and broader social movements, which offer a better chance of achieving meaningful change than by passing ineffectual resolutions up the party line, only to be shunted into a siding. Yet these modes of activism lack any broader political organisation to provide continuity and programmatic coherence, and to campaign for the influence that comes with elected public office.

In sum, if political parties didn’t exist, we would be forced to reinvent them. Even the arch individualist, Edmund Burke, acknowledged the need for groupings of the likeminded in parliament. ‘When the bad combine, the good must associate,’ he wrote. In the absence of any credible party of the left in Britain, at least there are organisations to support that combine members of the left within and outside the Labour Party to develop a programmatic alternative to neoliberalism, such as Compass and the Convention of the Left. I welcome the fact that Red Pepper is associated with both.

We? Who are ‘we’? Well, though it was civil liberties or (as I would prefer it) human rights that brought everyone together, and not just in London, we were a diverse crowd in composition and experience. We were lovers of rock, football and the countryside, we were Tories, lefties, liberals, anarchists. Above all, many of us were young; and we were all fed up with the cumulative loss of liberties and the intrusions on our privacy, identities and lives by an overbearing state. This was far from the usual ‘we’ of political and pressure group life.

We plainly did not all agree, and we have different priorities. But the great majority of us were united around the urgent need to gain and regain liberties, to re-take our identities and to work for a constitutional settlement that can protect them. One of the main purposes of the convention was to bring together the organisations that argue and campaign for liberties, human rights and democracy and to strengthen them: first, creating an atmosphere of change within which they could work more confidently; and second, enabling them to recruit new people.
The huge surge of energy the convention inspired cannot be switched off. That would be a betrayal of all those who came and said, ‘What next?’ There must be a ‘next’, a wider and widening popular movement, or ambience, or current – call it what you will – in actions, argument, local and national events, the media, the blogosphere, wherever, that can continue to unite as many people as possible. If you like, we should seek to create a new zeitgeist – or even hopefully, to take advantage of a zeitgeist that is already emerging.

Existing organisations would benefit, but we ought not to conceive of it in terms of simply channelling all the energy into their campaigning activities. Not all of us are joiners. Not all of us share their particular priorities. Many of us want something new, or to make a new way forward. Alliances are already being made, as Red Pepper knows well, for it is at the centre of a new initiative on the police.*

The organisers of the convention, most notably Anthony Barnett, Henry Porter and Phil Booth, the organisations that participated and the bodies that provided funds, must come together to create collaborative working arrangements that will build on what has been achieved. I don’t know quite how this movement, for want of a better word, could be organised, or even what its activities might be. But clearly there are immediate tasks through which they can begin devising a long-term process. It could, for example work immediately to stop clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill that will enable ministers and state officials to evade all limits on their use of private information within the database state.

Possibly the greatest obstacle to making common cause with existing human rights organisations lies in differing attitudes to the Human Rights Act. Plainly, the act has failed to restrain this authoritarian government’s assault on human rights, except at the margins, largely for systemic reasons (as I argued in my last column). But it is doing much to protect the rights and dignity of many of vulnerable groups, as the British Institute of Human Rights continually reminds us.

It is, if you like, a ‘battered shield’. But it would be foolish to cast it aside at this juncture, when civil liberties and human rights, need all the protection they can get. Those who blame the act for the losses we have sustained since it was introduced need to identify the real villains and structural weaknesses – most notably the over-mighty state and its dominance over parliament – rather than seek an easy scapegoat in ways that may strengthen the enemies of the principle of universal human rights in both main political parties. This is a principle that we all need to hang on to for dear life.

It is a principle that the act embodies. There is already vigorous debate about its future and dubious proposals for a ‘British’ bill of rights that will not be embedded and may not be universal. But we cannot argue for it, as we should, in a spirit of denial. We should argue back vigorously and freely, but taking care to respect what the act stands for and its potential.