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The Herald Scotland

Not My Scotland: what the anti-royal protesters keep getting wrong

There were similar protests in London and Cardiff at the same time; the Not My King protesters have also become a regular fixture at royal events. In 2023, I was in St Giles' Cathedral to report on the Scottish coronation service and I remember the congregation stopping for silent reflection, except it wasn't silent because you could hear the chants of the protesters outside: Not Our King, Not Our King. Part of me thought: free speech, fair enough. Another part of me thought: show some respect. The central argument the protestors advance, that we should have a republic instead of a monarchy, is perfectly reasonable; indeed, if we were starting from scratch and were given a flipchart and a sharpie and asked to come up with ideas for what the head of state should look like, we wouldn't come up with a dude in a crown. We also wouldn't come up with the idea that the head of state should be the son or daughter of the previous one. None of it's logical, which is why new countries go for elected heads of state rather than kings and queens. But old countries like the UK aren't the result of planning meetings with flipcharts and sharpies, they're they result of conflict and history and heritage and compromise and setbacks, and blood to be honest, and if you have a fairly conservative outlook – and most Scots do, whatever you say – you change what you have with care. The monarchy is not ideal. The Union is not ideal. The parliamentary system is not ideal. But before I vote for change, you're going to have to convince me that the alternatives would be better, and that the costs – financial, social, cultural, personal – wouldn't be too great. It's this realistic outlook, a sense of the country as it actually is, that the protesters on the hill, the republicans, will have to overcome if they're ever to achieve their aim, and it looks like a tall order. Graham Smith, the chief executive of Republic, was complaining, in a pretty mean-spirited way I thought, that the Royals had 'hijacked' the VE Day celebrations and made it all about them, but he also said his movement's goal was to abolish the monarchy 'in the next few decades', which sounds like someone who knows the situation is unlikely to change soon. And it's because of who we are. The conservative but realistic population of Britain says: would the alternative be better? let's just leave things as they are eh. Read more It seems to me that the Scottish protesters in particular also keep getting a fundamental point wrong in their attempts to advance their case. First of all, it doesn't help that one of their spokespeople was Maggie Chapman, whose credibility as a parliamentarian has been fatally undermined by her attack on the Supreme Court. It's also a bit rich of the protesters to complain that the monarchy is anti-democratic and remote when Ms Chapman was only saved from expulsion from the equalities committee by her own vote, cast remotely. It's this kind of stuff that people look at and think: would the alternatives to monarchy be any better? Rallies like the one on Calton Hill suffer as well from a tendency that's plagued the independence movement too: the failure to create a broad church, or even try to. Ten years ago, the Yes campaign became conflated with a whole range of left-wing causes and idealism, which was a turn-off for more conservative voters, who began to think: Not My Scotland. But it also missed the point that Yes could only win if it built a case that would appeal to people on the left and the right. A similar mistake is being made with the republican movement. As I say, there's a rational, reasonable case to be made for republicanism, just as there is for independence, but then out comes Maggie Chapman, eyes spinning, and Tommy Sheridan, teeth clenched, and it all starts to look like an extension of the irrational, extreme left. One of the speakers on Calton Hill was Jemma Campbell of Scottish Socialist Youth who epitomises how the causes are conflated. 'We have to come together to resist far-right elitism,' she said. 'We have to call for an independent socialist republic in Scotland.' (Image: Maggie Chapman at the protest) That sort of stuff is going to get them nowhere to be honest because the people who could be their potential allies in a rational case for republicanism do not meet their test: they are not left-wing enough, they are 'far-right'. To be fair, such attitudes are widespread and are part of our fractious times – them and us. But deep, profound change, like ending the union or abolishing the monarchy, will only happen when the them and the us draw together round a cause that genuinely attracts broad support. So, even though the protesters may not want to listen to this, let me mention something else that happened during the coronation service at St Giles' Cathedral. The Rt Rev Sally Foster-Fulton, Moderator at the time, delivered a sermon that seemed to directly address the problems of the fractious age. She urged people to 'chose collaboration and trust over fear-filed circling of our wagons'. 'How narrow our sight,' she went on, 'and how monochrome our understanding when we do not embrace the richness of different perspectives. We should learn to listen to each other, not just respond.' The republican protesters won't have heard the sermon – they were outside chanting 'Not Our King' – but even now they could draw a lesson from it. No one's suggesting they should ditch their republican views, but if they continue the circling of their wagons and conflate support for the monarchy with 'far-right elitism', they're going to remain a niche cause forever. They will also need to recognise, as all radicals have to in the end, that political success only comes when a movement includes the richness of different perspectives. The campaigners up on Calton Hill may dream of an independent socialist republic, but down here, we take a look and think: nah.