BRITISH CAPITALISM is on the rocks economically and politically, there is not the slightest doubt about that.
The leaders of the three major parties have travelled to Scotland to try and rescue the UK from oblivion, but already the ruling class is disintegrating, with the Queen, a relic of feudalism, used as a decoration for capitalism, ready to stab the bourgeois union in the back – once she got an assurance from Alec Salmond that she would indeed be ‘Queen of the Scots’.
SNP leader Salmond said he had an audience with the Queen at Balmoral Castle two weeks ago adding: ‘I want the Queen as head of state, as Queen of Scots of an independent Scotland, as her ancestors were.’
In fact the origins of the House of Windsor are in Germany.
Under the plans for independence outlined in the Scottish government’s white paper, the Queen would remain head of state. It says: ‘On independence Scotland will be a constitutional monarchy, continuing the Union of the Crowns that dates back to 1603, pre-dating the Union of the Parliaments by over one hundred years. On independence in 2016, Her Majesty The Queen will be head of state.’
The Palace insisted yesterday that ‘Her Majesty is firmly of the view that this is a matter for the people of Scotland.’
In fact the Queen is turning coat. In 1977, on the occasion of her Silver Jubilee, she informed both Houses of Parliament: ‘I cannot forget that I was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.’
In fact history is repeating itself, as first of all a tragedy and now a farce.
In 1603 James VI of Scotland became James I of England. He was king of both nations, a believer in the Divine Right of Kings, and had little time for parliaments.
His son Charles I had even less time for parliaments and the rising English bourgeoisie were forced to take up arms in a revolution to lay the basis for a capitalist Britain.
The king was defeated and the parliamentary leader Cromwell sought, to the anger of his troops, to reach a compromise with Charles.
Charles refused and made an agreement with the Scottish armies causing a second civil war in which his defeat led to the New Model Army and Cromwell insisting that he be tried as a traitor and executed, as a man of blood who had made war on his own people.
England was catapulted from a state ruled by Divine Right, to a republic ruled by parliament with the House of Lords abolished and a ‘Lord Protector’ securing all.
In 1660 Charles II was restored but only on the understanding that if he got in the way of business he would be sent on his travels again. James the II was in fact sent on his way and William of Orange was imported and then the Georges whose great advantage was that they did not speak English and could not get in the way.
The monarchy was a decoration for the middle class to gaze at, while the English and Scottish bourgeoisie got on with the job of building British capitalism.
Now with the capitalist crisis deepening and British capitalism on the rocks, some of the feudal relics that have been tolerated and sustained at the expence of the state are seeking to save themselves by dumping the UK, now that they have the promise that they will have a Queen of England who will be at the same time the Queen of the Scots.
The relics of feudalism, sustained at the expence of the state, whose only duty is to produce children to keep the middle classes happy are with Salmond looking back to 1602, to have both a Queen of England and Queen of the Scots and to hell with British capitalism.
This is the farce that is now being played out.
However the crisis of capitalism is driving forward a socialist revolution, not a return to the 17th century. The task of the hour is to build up the revolutionary party, the WRP, to unite the working class of Britain to carry out the socialist revolution to take society forward. This is the real drama that is on hand.
