The funeral of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will be held on Monday, the end of a 10-day period of mourning for a monarch who was on the throne for 70 years.
There are questions about the future of the monarchy and the United Kingdom in the wake of Elizabeth’s death.
Jonathan Freedland is a prominent British commentator and a columnist for the liberal-leaning Guardian newspaper.
Her son will reveal some of those divisions.
At a time of rapid change, Charles III becomes the new king.
The U.K. is still adjusting to the consequences of leaving the EU. Liz Truss is the fourth prime minister in seven years. Inflation is soaring, particularly in relation to energy costs, and the worst may be yet to come, according to some experts.
Inflation is not a direct political question that the British monarch has the power to address. The future of the UK is not the same as before.
The movement for Scottish independence continued even after the referendum was lost.
The Scottish National Party is the main advocate of independence north of the border, and there is a proposal for another referendum next year.
The biggest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly was Sinn Féin.
Sinn Féin was the political wing of the IRA during the Troubles. The party wants Northern Ireland to be absorbed into a United Ireland.
Some of the old enmities have been alleviated by the Irish peace process. The obituaries of Queen Elizabeth mention her visit to a Dublin memorial to Irish freedom fighters in 2011.
The new king noticed the growth of Sinn Féin during his visit to the area. He didn’t have to say what that meant for his country.
James Boys said that Charles had made a point of touring the UK in the days after his mother died.
The U.K., along with 55 other nations that were once British colonies, are likely to join the Commonwealth.
Fourteen nations retain the British monarch as their head of state.
Even that group may not last very long.
The republican movement in Australia is gaining steam. The Queen was removed as head of state and the island became a republic. It led to renewed soul-searching in other Caribbean countries.
In the early 20th century, London ruled 25% of the planet’s land mass. The world has never seen anything like it. The sun didn’t set on the British Empire.
Thanks to the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, Britain’s colonial history is getting exposed to more rigorous examination. The story looks very different from other places.
The death of Elizabeth II is seen as a symbol of an empire built on genocide, slavery, violence, extraction, and brutality. She was involved in the empire.
The New Yorker headline in March said, “The British Empire was much worse than you realize.” They could gain even more traction after Elizabeth’s death.
Charles is facing more challenges of his own. The legacy of his marriage to the late Princess Diana has caused him to be less popular than his mother.
In the last year of Elizabeth’s life, 81 percent of Britons held a favorable view of her, while just 56 percent had the same opinion of Charles. 77 percent of Britons had a positive view of Prince William.
The monarchy is not to be underestimated.
It is too easy to make Elizabeth’s death a landmark on the road to decline.
You will see that if you look at Britain. He said that if you don’t want to see that, she was a woman in her 90s, the handover went smoothly, and Charles and William seemed a pretty safe pair of hands.
The author of a 1998 book argues that Britain should become a republic. He sees a new possibility of change, but he doesn’t think the monarchy is going to fall soon.
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He said that Elizabeth was the main obstacle in the way of a republic. People were too fond of her to even think about the question.
He said that the weather around this question has changed. The atmospheres are not the same.
The memo is a column.