Elizabeth’s Reign
When Queen Elizabeth II was having second thoughts about Brexit she asked a question.
It was the summer of 2016, before the American election. The English-speaking people of Britain engaged in a raucous debate. As an Englishman could call it, the row concerned Brexit vs. Remain. Small stores and antiquaries along Portobello Road carried placards in the shopkeeper’s windows, depending on their preference. That made it serious. Simultaneously, London cabbies — who know something about everything— would happily give you the ‘full Monty’ if you asked for it (named after WWII Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery).
The Queen wanted to form an intelligent opinion. She relied on her classic strategy. Gathering an elegant salon, as reported in the Times of London, an inner circle of British nobility who knew their way around economy and politics, she proceeded to pepper them with a question.
Their appetites were whetted for Buckingham Palace’s canapes said to be reliably the best, as Queen Elizabeth indicated the evening protocol was a spirit of compromise.
It could have been called “The Queen’s Speech” in honor of her father, King George VI when he spoke to the British people about the outbreak of war and the title of a movie starring Colin Firth. What worried Queen Elizabeth II that evening more than a war was the war with the EU, with whom Britain was on the verge of divorce.
The group assembled by the Queen at the Palace was familiar with the tradition of political chatter where everyone shares an opinion and then goes home for a martini. She was having none of it.
She challenged the mood by issuing a royal command:
“Give me three good reasons why we should leave or stay?”
The Queen was looking for a bottom line. But the question was where to draw it. She wanted to make the right decision on behalf of her subjects and tolerated no fear-mongering. Nor was she going to put up with insipid debate from people far removed from everyday concerns. The commentary was lively, even heated. We know the result.
Elizabeth’s approach recalled the British Enlightenment when Edmund Burke questioned how the world worked. Darwin and the Industrial Revolution asked what we knew about humanity, and suddenly everything was seen in a new light, from slavery to women, to religion, to life itself.
The Queen’s speech is the antidote for dealing with the infuriating complexities of a volatile world. When it serves you a problem, why not ask why not? It will result in a triumph of facts over feelings.
The Queen’s speech is the antidote.
