Tom Griffin (London, OK): This morning's Daily Mail reports on a campaign by MPs against the parliamentary oath of allegiance to the Queen, which has aroused the ire of Lord Tebbit:
This seems to me to be an attack upon the State itself. The monarch is the one embodiment of the State which is outside the political, partisan process.
The people behind this campaign must either oppose the idea of anyone who is non-partisan having a role in the affairs of state, or they would rather be swearing allegiance to Brussels.'
What has sparked Tebbit's anger is an Early Day Motion put down by Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker in June, although its dire subversive implications were apparently not recognised until the dog days of August.
That this House recognises that the principal duty of hon. Members is to represent their constituents in Parliament; also recognises that some hon. Members would prefer to swear an oath of allegiance to their constituents and the nation rather than the Monarch; and therefore calls on the Leader of the House to bring forward legislative proposals to introduce an optional alternative Parliamentary oath allowing hon. Members to swear allegiance to their constituents and the nation and to pledge to uphold the law rather than one pledging personal allegiance to the serving Monarch.
The campaign currently has the support of 22 MPs and is backed by the campaign group Republic, which has set up a dedicated website.
While it is a laudable effort, one wonders whether the prospect of MPs dividing into roundheads and cavaliers, with some swearing allegiance to the monarch, and others to a vaguely-defined nation, is a coherent alternative.
Perhaps what we really need is a written constitution, drawn up by a democratic process, so that all MPs could reasonably be asked to swear an oath to uphold it.
Comments
Well done Norman Baker. Neither myself nor any family members or friends have any allegiance at all to any members of the rather disfunctional Windsor family. We, the public, should be deciding who is our Head of State. The position should not, just because of an accident of birth, be given to a family dynasty for life. Until we introduce a written Constitution, Proportional Representation and an elected Head of State, who has a fixed term of office, we cannot even pretend to live in a democracy.
We have a perfectly understandable written constitution -it`s called " The Bill of Rights". It`s the very document that gives MPs the right to speak in parliment.
The only problem with The Bill of Rights is that it also grants more fundimental basic rights to common people than our present government is prepared to uphold.
I suspect these kind of scandals give succour to the British regime for all their apparent 'radicalism'. Obviously MPs in Westminster cannot be asked to swear allegiance to the 'nation' as there is no British nation, as David of BritologyWatch has meditated upon with some eloquence, and he is not alone. MPs cannot "swear an oath of allegiance to their constituents" as the whole point of their being members of parliament is to articulate the larger interests not just sectional ones. So the motion is a silly one and indeed constitutionally illiterate as Tom implies. But it permits the Daily Mail to have a one day shock, sell some papers and renew the idea of loyalty to the Queen as at least implying loyalty to something.
As a resident of Lewes I can tell you that this isn't going down too well with Norman Baker's constituents. Lewes is a radical place, but it's also possibly the most patriotic place in Britain - certainly the only place I've been to when I've heard hundreds of people singing God Save the Queen on the streets to accompany public pledges of allegiance.
All MP’s swear an Oath of Allegiance to be faithful and TRUE to the Crown, so how can they pass a Law which would set aside the very Law they had so recently sworn to uphold in the first place before they actually take up their places in Parliament? They knew very well when they put themselves up for election what it means if the people vote for them. If they will not resign, we at least know the names of those 22 MP’s so that we can avoid voting for them again.
Martin McGuinness refused to swear the Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch, was refused his seat in the British House of Commons, and took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in 1997. The application was deemed inadmissible on the basis that the requirement of an oath of allegiance to a reigning monarch is "reasonably viewed as an affirmation of loyalty to the constitutional principles which support... the workings of representative democracy in the respondent State."
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