LAST month, a Channel 4 investigation into the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall revealed that in 2023 they had raised £50 million for the King and Prince William. The money was used to pay for their private homes, their personal income and their staff.
The duchies hold special status which exempts them from paying corporation tax on their profits or capital gains tax on any assets they sell.
They earn income from toll bridges, ferries, sewage pipes, pubs, churches, village halls, distilleries, oil and gas pipes and wind turbines.
The Treasury refused to discuss the tax exemptions protecting the King and his son.
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Calls for more transparency on royal finances and a slimmed-down monarchy entirely – or perhaps deliberately – miss the point. Should the UK, or more importantly Scotland, have an unelected head of state?
The costs of maintaining a head of state are secondary to the democratic principles which should be applied to such an important decision. I believe Scotland should be a republic and that a debate on the matter is long overdue within the Yes movement.
The principal flaws of monarchy can be summed up as unaccountable, undemocratic, unelected and unfair, although in the case of the Windsors it’s tempting to add underwhelming.
Last year’s coronation exposed the hagiographic role of the British media in maintaining the royal spectacle. In the absence of journalistic balance or neutrality we witnessed an exercise in mass delusion.
The British establishment papered over the cracks of a faded empire in terminal decline. They used gold-embossed wallpaper and urged us to marvel at how wonderfully regal it was. The decline continues, accompanied by what Tom Nairn pithily described as “the hysteria of counter-decline”.
When the late Queen took the throne in 1952, the UK’s share of global exports was 11%. Today it is 3%. In the 1950s, 12% of the UK population was living in poverty. Today it’s 21%.
Then, the Royal Navy had 900 ships. Today they have 74. Britannia no longer rules the waves. The British State is a textbook example of imperial decline.
Throughout her reign, the Queen never gave an interview or answered to anyone for her actions.
Protected by more than 160 laws granting immunity to the sovereign she enjoyed exemptions from anti-discrimination, health and safety and pensions legislation – and, along with other senior royals, total exemption from the Freedom of Information Act. H
er personal wealth was estimated at £2m in 1971 and £275m in 2015. By every measure, the fortunes of the UK declined markedly during her reign while hers increased substantially.
The royal family is expensive.
It costs at least £510m a year, which is enough to pay for 18,000 NHS nurses. Royalists argue they generate significant tourism earnings. They don’t. Last year the top UK attraction with 5.8 million visitors was the British Museum.
The National Museum of Scotland with 2.1 million and Edinburgh Castle with 1.9 million were 12th and 14th. Kelvingrove Museum and the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, which each had 1.2 million visitors, were 25th and 26th. Stirling Castle with just over half-a-million visitors was 71st. And languishing in 76th place was Buckingham Palace.
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Abolishing the monarchy could see royal tourism take off, as royal properties would be open all year round. France became a republic in 1789.
Some 235 years later, the former royal Palace of Versailles receives around 15 million visitors each year, 30 times more than Buckingham Palace.
Monarchy, of course, is the antithesis of democracy. While British governments preach democracy around the world, they preside over an undemocratic system with an unelected head of state and an appointed second chamber at its core.
Yet this is this constitutional arrangement the SNP favour. They propose an interim constitution post-independence keeping the King as head of state, claiming: “Scotland would join 15 other Commonwealth states that currently have the King as head of state.”
No mention of the fact that seven of them want to remove him.
The policy also suggests they would agree with any country wanting to end the remaining religious discrimination against Catholics in the matter of the line of succession, albeit no proposal is offered on how this might be achieved.
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It is to say the least perplexing that the party of independence should want to keep the cornerstone of the British state, but is this what the people of Scotland want?
A 2015 poll by Sky data found that while 49% of Scots supported the monarchy and 39% opposed it, 66% of SNP voters were opposed.
A 2022 Ipsos poll found that 28% of Scots supported the monarchy, 26% opposed and 40% didn’t think it made any difference.
Only 28% of Scots oppose a republic but it isn’t SNP policy. Persuading a majority to back independence will be challenging. Persuading a majority to back a republic won’t be nearly as difficult.
Peter Kearney is former convener of Govan SNP constituency and was a depute leadership candidate in 2000. He was director of communications for the Catholic Church in Scotland from 2001-24 and is a member of the Scottish Advisory Board of the Free Speech Union and a freelance media consultant.
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