Let's abolish the monarchy

Thank u next – and by next, I mean a republic.

In the UK, the royal family have celebrity status. Followed by photographers, living in massive houses shielded from ordinary people and any sense of normality (god forbid). Driving around their private land even though they had to surrender their licence after a serious crash… (Phil, I’m looking at you). And like many celebrities today, the rest of us are left wondering: exactly why do they have all this wealth and privilege, when they do so little to earn it?

The institution of the monarchy has been successful in brainwashing the majority of the population into believing there is some claim, some inherent birth right by which they should be allowed to hoard wealth, funded by the taxpayer. So many of us are finally waking up to the truth; that there is nothing glamorous or enticing about a family who are happy to spend £21.2m on the reservicing of Buckingham palace when 3.2 million children are living in poverty in the UK. Certainly doesn’t add up for me, although many people are still willing to mention lukewarm ideas of tourism and move on.

The cost of the monarchy yearly to taxpayers is about £345 million.  Call me cynical, but I’m not quite seeing how Britain can work towards a classless society when we have to accept that simply in being born, this handful of people are owed that momentous sum of money. Whatever they’re selling, I’m not buying it.

But it’s not just the immoral spending that really gets my goat when considering the UK monarchy. It’s their backwards and outdated attitude to contemporary issues. Prince Andrew has been accused of sexual assault and was known to consort with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, often travelling on his ‘Lolita’ jet and visiting his private island. Buckingham palace have supported Andrew through this, and he has never been arrested, which seems strange. Maybe it helps that he’s the queen’s son? Just a thought.

With Meghan and Harry’s savage Oprah interview bringing long-held concerns about the validity of this institution into the mainstream, I was concerned to see how many people were surprised that the royals were not big on mental health support. Allegations of racism were hardly surprising either, with this hallowed institution itself being firmly rooted in racist ideas of empire and colonisation.

If we do want to make the move towards a fairer society, we should start by abolishing the monarchy, a quite frankly bizarre institution which we should have sacked off long ago. With all of Boris’s talk about giving back to the NHS, how about he starts with redistributing some of that £345 mill to our underpaid key workers? Doesn’t seem too radical when you take away all the pomp and patriotism. I really hope that the recent anti-monarchy fervour continues to expose it’s uselessness, and we can finally promote some real, tangible change.

Cheeky revolution, anyone?