First of all, let’s hear it for all the public servants who have been working night and day to ensure all aspects of the Queen’s funeral and the King’s accession run as smoothly as possible.
From transport officials working on our roads and the police officers who have kept everyone safe to the stewards guiding people through St Giles’ Cathedral and the cleansing staff who have returned Edinburgh to its very best, they have all been tremendous.
It has been a spectacle befitting of a monarch who had reigned for more than seven decades.
And it has also been a wonderful advert to the world. From the forests of Royal Deeside, to the magnificence of the bridges across the Forth, Scotland has been at its very best while the whole world was watching.
But now to the matter of protests and protestors.
First, it’s important to acknowledge there have been remarkably little.
Although anyone who concludes that this demonstrates a lack of appetite for a republic would be hasty and wrong.
Any campaigner worth their salt knows you need to pick your moment and know your audience.
Critics are entitled to protest against the monarchy
Staging a protest against the monarchy in the middle of a sombre event marking the death of a lady as loved and revered as the Queen is utterly pointless, if you are actively in business of changing people’s minds and bringing them to your cause.
I suspect some of the people who have been arrested for doing just that over the past few days know that.
They surely had to know they weren’t going to change anyone’s minds.
But they wanted to be heard.
For a little dissent to be noted in the footnotes of a day that was otherwise a postcard perfect picture of monarchical Britain.
I wouldn’t have done it myself, but I recognise their right to do so.
Right to protest isn’t conditional
It should not be considered a criminal offence to hold a placard saying “Not my King” in a public place for two key reasons.
Firstly protest is a critical part of a healthy democracy.
In fact to debate and discuss these issues is essential for a democracy to function.
As the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams (hardly a man at the vanguard of anti-establishment campaigning) argued on the radio this week: “You don’t reinforce the sacredness, solidity and dependability of monarch by closing down discussion.”
Secondly, if it is legal to stand at the door of an abortion clinic holding a sign saying doctors are killing babies, or that their mothers are going to hell, it should be legal to protest against the monarchy in the same way.
yet people can protest against pride parades or protest in front of abortion clinics the list goes on. it's free speech until it comes to the monarchy apparently https://t.co/xwiL5U5O3j
— emi 🫶🏻 (@EM1iN3M) September 14, 2022
If the police are prepared to tolerate climate change protestors gluing and chaining themselves to public buildings in order to make their point, before being asked to move on, then people should be free to ask “who elected him?”.
We cannot chop and change our attitudes to acceptable protest on the basis of how angry the message on the placard makes us feel.
More tumultuous times ahead
When these days of mourning pass and the country returns to the normal cut and thrust, we’ll all wake up in a place which changed its Prime Minister and its Head of State in the course of a few days.
Many are now facing a winter full of anguish and discontent.
I suspect there will be plenty of moments ahead when the people will rise up in protest – and perhaps with great effect.
This week was never going to be one of them.
Conversation