There are speculations that all of this sprung from the inability of the former Governor-General to get along with the new Prime Minister and his government, hence the reason why he advised the Queen to recall her and appoint another in her place a decision that seemed quite unpopular with many of the people at least until the former GG’s response which turned public opinion against her with some even going as far as to claim that it’s not the first time that she’s acted in a nepotistic manner while in office. Whatever the truth of the story may be it is quite clear that is merely an issue of personalities and different opinions between the Dame Louise Lake-Tack and Prime Minister Gaston Brown.
This view has been skewed by republicans who claim that the dispute is not merely one between the persons involved but more importantly this is a conflict between the offices of the Prime Minister and Governor-General thus it would be better for one of these offices to be abolished, (they of course suggested doing away with the GG). Nothing of course could be further from the truth, regardless of this one single error in judgement, Dame Louise has served well in office for many years and with different political administrations at the helm, Mr. Brown on the other hand has so far been getting along very well with the newly installed GG, any issue between them was solely a matter of difference in opinion between the two. As for the knighthoods awarded, the Prime Minister has already advised the new Governor-General as to how these awards should be treated and for now they are being scrutinized by the committee set up by the Awards Act to deal with such matters, those who deserved to be knighted will be properly recognised by the Queen’s representative while the rest will be treated as never having been granted at all, thus showing that contrary to the lie told by republicans, the system does in fact work the way it was meant to.
Monarchist oftentimes use the old saying “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” to defend their stance, anti-royals however often claim that it is in fact broke and so needs to be thrown away. This latest call (which is in fact comes from a vocal minority) reminds me of demonstrations against the monarchy in Spain over the King’s hunting incident and also other times when the actions of individual monarchs have been used by republicans to propagate their own movement, such as blaming German Emperor Wilhem II for the World War One or King Constantine II of Greece for letting a military junta take over the country conveniently enough these same republicans often times forget that Germany underwent its worst period of dictatorship during its republican days with Hitler as Chancellor and don’t even get me started on how the leaders of the Hellenic Republic ruined the economy, while republicans openly acknowledge that something did go wrong, they blame the individual leaders rather than the office they hold.
The hypocrisy of republicans is so amazing that it infuriates me, I’m by no means claiming that monarchs are infallible by virtue of their status I acknowledge that all Heads of State are human regardless of what position they hold and so are prone to error, what I am saying is this, whenever a president does something contrary to his office there are usually calls for him to be impeached and for another to be elected in his place, but in case of a monarch it is not enough for him to be dethroned and for his successor to ascend but rather the custom these days is that if the monarch goes, then the monarchical system is gotten rid of as well, whereas if a president falls the republican system that gave him his authority remains untouched one iota. I shudder to think what would have happened to the Commonwealth Monarchy had Edward VIII been living in the 2010s instead of the 1930s, but it’s highly unlikely that George VI would have been allowed to ascend as republicans would insist that the monarchy has been brought into disrepute while at the same time ignoring the amount of president’s that have brought themselves and their office into disrepute yet their office was allowed to continue with another taking their place.
Republican hypocrisy is also evident in their views on the use of reserve powers by a head of state in a parliamentary system, to illustrate my point take for instance the black power riots in Trinidad in the 1970s where the republicans use the incident to push for a change in the constitution on the thinly veiled excuse that the executive needed broader powers to deal with such issues, in fact there was nothing in the constitution that prevented them from granting such powers to the then Governor-General but they instead claimed that the use of such authority by the Queen’s representative was inappropriate and so it was better to use a figure that represented the people rather than the Queen and so the Governor-General’s post was abolished and replaced with a president who by the way was none other than the former GG himself. That argument about the need of the People’s representative rather than a royal (or viceregal) figure to represent the nation was little more than a smokescreen, the President in Trinidad (and many other parliamentary republics) has NEVER been the people’s representative this so is for two reasons, first of all, many of these republics (Trinidad included) was established without the people’s consent via a popular referendum and secondly most ceremonial presidents are chosen by some electoral college (most likely parliament) and not by popular vote, how then can these republics truly claim collective sovereignty as expressed by the term “We the people”, when these very same people who are supposedly sovereign don’t even get a chance to decide on who should lead the republic or even whether they want to have a republic at all?.
The truth is that the republican agenda is little more than a smokescreen for politicians and their associate to ascend the nation’s highest office under the false claim of being a symbol of democracy, unity and non-partisan nature of the state when in truth this role is best when being performed by a monarch as the German philosopher Max Weber once very wisely put it, “ a constitutional monarch fulfils a role that a president never can, it limits politicians thirst for power because the highest office of the state is already occupied once and for all”.
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