https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2022/jun/05/queen-elizabeth-appears-as-hologram-inside-260-year-old-golden-carriage-video
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2022/jun/05/queen-elizabeth-appears-as-hologram-inside-260-year-old-golden-carriage-video
How exactly do you think the queen is vital to the UK
If anything it would be some weird superstructural thing. No one would dismiss the ability of liberals in the United States to do crazy shit as their civil religion breaks down, but a loss of a monarch can be a similarly disruptive ordeal on top of worsening material conditions in the UK
:100-com: this, thanks for stating it better than I could. A breakdown of civil religion is the right way of phrasing it.
In practical terms, not at all. Note that I’m stating correlation, not causation here! (Although I do anticipate that it will speed up commonwealth states getting rid of the the monarchy).
She does however maintain for a lot of people the dying idea of the UK as a great power, and is perhaps the last well known institutional tie to the British empire. As the UK disintegrates (which is happening regardless of the Queen existing), the comfort blanket that she represents for so many will be yanked away. The UK is undeniably on a downward trajectory materially, and a change in the monarch for the first time in 70 years is going to make that feel more real for a certain section of society. Sadly I don’t think it will result in positive reflection and realisation that a better world is possible, but more sentimentalism and petty Little Englander shit.
I've watched a lot of Call The Widwife. I didn't realize British boomers had as much weepy-eyed nostalgia for the "national greatness" in the 50s and 60s as their American counterparts do.
I’d say it’s possibly even greater nostalgia. The Queen was crowned in the same year that Eisenhower was elected (if I remember correctly) - Kissinger was still doing his PhD then. Imagine the psychic damage of having the same head of state since then, through imperial decline and the media endlessly saying what a nice old lady she is. Truly a unique set of :brainworms:
I hate the term little Englander because it lets London off the hook. London is the power that shakes Africa until all the shiny things fall out the rest of the UK is essentially just being taken along for the ride and benefits from the UK's finance imperialism only in a comparable way to the rust belt does Americas
She's a cultural anchor that, among other things, justifies and upholds the existence of hereditary nobility, increases the prestige and perceived legitimacy of the UK on the world stage, and is a focal point for the whole "united" part of United Kingdom.