A Royal Waste of Time
I work at the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, one of the places that was graced with royal presence during the Queen's latest trip to Scotland. About 50 staff members from the Institute were asked to attend the event where HRH and Princess Anne were scheduled to speak to staff and students and unveil a plaque.
Now, anyone that knows me is aware that I think ‘the Royals’ as an institution are a nauseating and hugely problematic waste of time and resources. However, ignoring my strong Irish-Catholic instincts to boycott the event and tweet angrily from the side-lines I accepted the invitation to attend out of curiosity.
As you can probably imagine this was a much-anticipated visit which required intense and detailed planning. I’ll spare you the boring details but members of university staff were basically split into groups of four and assigned a spokesperson who would speak directly to either to Big Liz herself or Princess Anne.
The visit itself only lasted about 30 mins with the royals spending roughly two minutes at each group. We got princess Anne who listened to our wee spiel about Edinburgh’s carbon footprint with an air of someone who thinks that this is all a little bit silly before stating that, of course, the planet’s climate has been changing for millennia anyway (which is true although it’s safe to say this time it’s a wee bit different), asserting that people in developing countries didn’t know that littering was wrong and asking whether we might be able to make a “big hoover” to suck all of the plastic out of the sea…
While not unimportant, the fate of ocean plastic is not really related to the question of Edinburgh’s net zero targets and after some slightly confused (and vaguely concerned) laughter Anne and her troop of assorted officials and press photographers glided off to another station. To anyone working in the field of sustainability for more than 5 minutes these kinds of comments are in no way a surprise. They were the sort of arrogant, ill-informed remarks anyone might expect from a posh, ageing relative who still view the words ‘Great Britain’ through the golden mist of ‘empire’, as opposed to the raging bin fire of embarrassment that many of my generation see our country as today. More than that though, these comments highlight a general reluctance to engage with messy issues of climate justice and to instead focus efforts on technocratic solutions that will allow those in the Global North to maintain our current lifestyles.
Anyway, after our two minutes in the royal glow we proceeded to hang around for another 20-minutes in the increasingly chilly marquee, until we were herded over to some grass to watch the plaque being unveiled. First the university’s Chancellor, a presence almost as rare as that of the queen on campus, gave a (thankfully) short but vomit-inducing speech about how grateful the university is for the support of the royal family and how thankful we all apparently were that they took the time to visit. Brilliant. Big Liz then unveiled a plaque, had a chat with senior university staff, while the rest of us awkwardly watched in silence, before shuffling back to her electric Range Rover and being whisked back to Holyrood Palace.
The whole thing was incredibly underwhelming and, at a time of intense financial, social, environmental and personal crisis a ridiculous waste of time and resources. At best I thought the event might be an interesting conversation starter about the ethics of ‘the royal family’ but when I (gently) questioned the logic of a group of sustainability professionals taking over five hours off work to stand around a courtyard and fawn over people whose legacy is one of the core roots of the current climate crisis I was met with comments like ‘yes, but it’s such good publicity’ or ‘I know, but it’s great that they are engaged and ask questions’. The fact that one of these ‘questions’ implied that climate change was the fault if people in the Global South for apparently not understanding the concept of littering seemed not to be relevant.
So, instead I’ve chosen to write this article and ask why the University of Edinburgh chose to host an expensive royal visit? The question itself seems ludicrous and naïve even to me, but I think it is still a valid one at the best of times, let alone during a global pandemic which has exacerbated Britain’s already high rates of inequality, forced thousands into poverty and led the very institution she is visiting to threaten redundancies due to financial pressure.
Stepping back a second, I think it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that the university chose to lavish this visit on people whose very existence is built on and perpetuates a repulsive, unjust and deadly class system, whose violent and illegal actions have led them to become Scotland’s largest land owner and who stay in palaces as the country’s homelessness crisis worsens with every month. Building on this, there is a staggering (although apparently invisible) irony of a group of sustainability professionals hosting an institution that was the figurehead for the British Empire, the expansion and actions of which are a key cause of (amongst many, many other things) the climate breakdown we are currently experiencing today.
As I walked home I opened my phone to a message from a friend in Canada who had attended an anti-Canada Day march. Wearing orange t-shirts to honour Indigenous children sent to the country’s notorious residential schools, protesters in Winnipeg had toppled statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II, who are both seen as representative of the country’s colonial history. These protests, brought into sharp relief through my friend’s live commentary on WhatsApp, served as an important reminder that the devastating and lasting legacy of ‘The Crown’ extends far beyond the borders of this country.
As with so many things at the moment many have said that the future of the Monarchy in the UK remains uncertain. However, this experience leads me to suspect that ‘The Royals’ and the brutal, institutionalised, unjust class system they represent won’t be going anywhere in a hurry. Given the opportunity again I think I’d be wise to listen to those Celtic roots and keep my distance.