According to the Sunday Times, the Queen is fed up with what she calls the inability of today’s political class to govern. There is a widespread consensus in the country for this disquiet. Moreover this is not an accidental leak. It is a nuanced reprimand coming on top of news that efforts are being made by the most senior civil servants and palace officials to persuade top politicians to avoid dragging the Queen into politics. The only thing with which this blog disagrees is that the Queen can be kept out of politics in all circumstances.
As Head of State the Queen is the ultimate political backstop and the guardian of the national democracy. This cannot be danced around with fudges. It is a fact capable of being changed only by removing her and installing a republic. By custom and tradition she is certainly above party politics and rightly so. But if the system itself begins to malfunction to the point where a prime minister, having lost a vote of confidence refuses to leave office in order to try and force through a constitutional change of the country’s international status against the will of the majority in parliament and without testing the mandate for it in the country, the Queen has no option to intervene. The message from the palace is that if it comes to such a pass, she will.