Epilogue Five (Part Two)
The Continuity - (1979-1990)
'Reigning Queens', by NER-based artist Andy Warhol, 1985. The Continuity allowed new and daring forms of art; Time Magazine wrote that Warhol's portraits of Elizabeth II "treat her like any other celebrity, frozen in time and bright color."
The British monarchy Elizabeth II inherited in 1972 from her uncle Edward VIII was no longer the organic, historical institution embodied by George V and his predecessors before 1925, but rather an artificial, fascistic structure designed to ornament and perpetuate the Bright Young Thing regime. Many of the institutions that had accompanied and buttressed the old monarchy, including the Anglican Church, the aristocracy, the traditional political parties and the military-industrial elite had been hollowed out, remade or entirely dismantled during Edward’s long and eventful reign. The basic tenet of monarchism – hereditary continuity – was also challenged, not only by Edward’s unique resonance within the Bright Young Thing mythos, but also by the fact he and his consort, Queen-Empress Barbara, did not produce any children of their own. Although Edward had designated Elizabeth, his niece, as his royal heir, it was not necessarily apparent or guaranteed that the new monarch should also continue to lead the BYT political movement.
Edward, Prince of Wales (future Edward VIII) with Princess Elizabeth (future Elizabeth II) in 1934. Elizabeth's status as Edward's niece made her inheritance somewhat ambiguous - both continuing Edward's legacy but also distanced from it.
As authoritarian democracy began to decline in the face of the economic and social stagnation of the 1960s, the continuity of the monarchy and other authoritarian democratic institutions became increasingly uncertain. The Continuity and Elizabeth’s pursuit of reform largely reflected the political dilemmas facing her and her consort John, Duke of Vancouver, who needed to acquire a new democratic legitimacy for the monarchy in order to guarantee both Elizabeth’s survival as head of state and the endurance of their blended Windsor-Kennedy family as both the British royal dynasty and the
primus inter pares of the New American Order’s socioeconomic elite. Whereas the traditional British Constitution in place before the Revolution of 1925 was unwritten and largely organic, the futurist Bright Young Things oversaw the creation of a series of written, authoritarian democratic constitutions beginning with the Canadian and Australasian Constitutions of 1936 and culminating in the quasi-constitutional Imperial Constitutional Law of 1957. This had created a formalized, constitutional oligarchy in which the monarch’s prescribed role was curtailed by the combined authority of the Imperial Council and Imperial Parliament, both of which were dominated by BYT technocratic appointees. Ironically, this meant the new Queen-Empress had a vested interest in reform that would free her from the control of unelected officials and authoritarian democratic ideologues.
Elizabeth, Princess Imperial, and John, Duke of Vancouver, c.1961. The Continuity and Elizabeth’s pursuit of reform largely reflected the political dilemmas facing her and her consort in an era of change for the Empire.
The Continuity was launched from above but accelerated in response to mounting pressure from below. In the first phase of the Continuity, Imperial Council Chairman Lord Louis Mountbatten sought to advance a program of limited reform, implementing a program of economic modernization centered around price liberalization, privatization, and neoliberal economic integration with the newly-created Atlantic Pacific Economic Community (APEC). Although this resulted in a return to growth and improvements in productivity, it also severely strained the Empire’s longstanding political and social contract. Sudden economic liberalization caused a drop in living standards, declining disposable incomes, rising unemployment and social unrest, with the burden of reform falling on working class citizenry who had depended most heavily on the defunct BYT-era welfare state. More worryingly, it drove a deep wedge of discord between Reformist and Hardliner factions within the governing elite. Mountbatten’s inability to tamp down these disputes was likely a factor in his assassination in October 1979, which has long been connected to radical Hardliner factions (although this has never been definitively proven).
Funeral of Lord Louis Mountbatten, 1979. Mountbatten's assassination has long been connected to radical Hardliner factions, although no definitive proof has ever emerged.
Mountbatten’s murder was a deep shock to the Empire’s citizens, the governing regime, and the pro-democratic opposition. The assassination of such a senior figure and totemic icon of the Edward VIII Era seemed to raise the possibility of a general, internecine collapse of the Empire, a new British revolution or even civil war. The killing took place in the context of a marked upswing in social conflict, with 1979 a black year for political violence. Already, hundreds of left-wing and pro-democracy protesters across the Empire had been killed or injured in clashes with the police and the security services. In March, four Indian immigrants in Australasia were murdered in cold blood by extreme right-wing thugs, and in July, left-wing terrorists bombed the Royal Irish Army Training College in County Kildare, Ireland, killing 27 teenage cadets. This mindless violence rekindled fears of the kind of fratricidal fighting that had torn the First Empire apart in 1925 and twice in living memory devastated the former United States.
Aftermath of the Kildare College bombing, July 1979. Paradoxically, political violence helped to bring government and opposition closer together.
Paradoxically, political violence helped to bring government and opposition closer together. After a bloody half century of revolutions, authoritarianism and civil wars, there was a deep wellspring of opposition of further bloodshed across the English-speaking world. On the side of the opposition, the attacks helped to discredit the extremist factions in favor of more moderate figures willing to reconcile with the regime and pursue an incremental approach to restoring democracy. Within the regime, it left the Queen-Empress and her Reformist allies with the impression that they had to lean further into reform in order to forestall the kind of extreme, violent polarization that would tear the whole system, including the monarchy, apart. Meanwhile, Hardliners were internally divided regarding the use of violent and coercive tactics, with some moving to distance themselves from the notion that they had been involved with Mountbatten’s assassination and other attacks.
Pierre Trudeau, Imperial Council Chairman. Elizabeth's choice of a little-known Canadian bureaucrat as the next Chairman of the Imperial Council surprised many observers.
Mountbatten’s death was a crucial turning-point. As the Queen-Empress considered his replacement, she could have moved the Continuity in a number of directions. Once again, she chose to subvert the expectations of Reformists and Hardliners alike by bypassing their preferred factional candidates in favor of a third option. In December 1979, Elizabeth named Pierre Trudeau, a little-known Canadian bureaucrat, as the next Chairman of the Imperial Council. Trudeau was an
apparatchik of the authoritarian democratic regime, who had previously held several important but low-profile posts in the BYT apparatus, including the directorship of the
Organisation pour le Québec (the approved BYT Franco-Canadian association) and Canadian IBOL. In the latter function, Trudeau developed ties to the New Left opposition, although his appointment was opposed by most leftists and some democrats given his BYT history. Nonetheless, Trudeau’s internal champions, particularly John, Duke of Vancouver, believed that only someone with impeccable credentials in the BYT bureaucracy could continue democratic reform without immediately alienating Hardliners.
John, Duke of Vancouver, c.1980. The Duke was an important advocate for Trudeau behind the scenes, believing that only someone with impeccable credentials in the BYT bureaucracy could continue democratic reform without immediately alienating Hardliners.
For his part, Trudeau was ambitious and audacious. His contact with the grassroots citizenry had convinced him that the BYT social order could not survive Edward’s death as constituted, and that democratization was necessary. Extending Mountbatten’s economic reforms to political reform, however, was a complex task. Democratization would have to occur at the Imperial, Dominion and local levels simultaneously, bridging the variations between each and bringing along local powerbrokers as well as the opposition. Trudeau would have to persuade both the Imperial Parliament and the Dominion parliaments, which were composed of installed BYT politicians, to begin the process of dismantling the BYT system from within, acting within the boundaries of the authoritarian democratic constitution to forestall further interference from the powerful Hardliner factions in the military and administrative apparatus. At the same time, he would need to persuade the Empire’s burgeoning democratic opposition to participate in the process and lend him their trust in the face of considerable risk of a Hardliner clampdown.
Trudeau and the Queen-Empress attend an official banquet, 1981. Trudeau was ambitious and audacious; his contact with the grassroots citizenry had convinced him that the BYT social order could not survive Edward’s death as constituted, and that democratization was necessary.
Riding a wave of public agitation for reform following Mountbatten’s death, Trudeau’s administration unveiled a newly drafted Imperial Reform Act. It called for reform of the Imperial and Dominion parliaments, with qualified proportional representation for electing the various Houses of Commons and majoritarian voting for electing the various Houses of Lords. In keeping with the legislative procedures envisaged by the BYT constitution, the act was drafted and debated by the Imperial Council before being submitted to the Imperial Parliament, where it was approved in December 1979 by 609 votes in favor and 91 against. The official backing of the BYT apparatus strengthened Trudeau’s hand and permitted him to begin backroom talks with a council of opposition leaders representing all ideological shades of pro-democratic opinion. These discussions centered around the opposition’s conditions for taking part in future elections, which included the legalization of all political parties, free formation of trade unions, the depoliticization of education and the civil service, and a general amnesty for dissidents and dissenters. These regime-opposition talks paved the way for the dismantling of the ‘managed democratic’ system and the legalization of independent left-wing parties, whose exclusion would have challenged the legitimacy of the Continuity process.
Poor slums in Hyderabad, c.1980. During the 1960s, India and the rest of the Empire diverged further economically and politically.
Meanwhile, a new conflict in the Imperial Council threatened to derail Trudeau’s reforms before they began. At first supportive of Trudeau’s agenda, the leaders of the Dominion of India turned against them as the full scope of Trudeau’s democratic vision became apparent. India had always fitted awkwardly into the increasingly federalized structure of the ‘White Dominions’, being so much larger in population and size and ethnically and culturally distinct. During the 1960s, while the English-speaking world was fixated on the American Wars, India and the rest of the Empire diverged further economically and politically. Unlike the rest of the Empire, the Dominion of India made little pretense of being a democracy, and its civil society supported a far-less developed opposition. The
de facto dictatorship of Prime Minister J.R.D. Tata was under less pressure at home from the kind of middle-class reformists that were able to apply pressure to other Dominion governments. The plutocratic Indian elite were some of the most strident supporters of Mountbatten’s economic reforms during the first phase of the Continuity, as they believed economic liberalization of the Empire and NAO would further their corporate interests, particularly their desire to market India as a low-cost manufacturing center to Mitteleuropa and the rest of the world. However, they failed to fully predict how quickly economic reform would become political reform in the more developed Imperial states. Having inadvertently unleashed the revolutionary tide, they now had no intention of being swept away.
Police and rioters clash during race riots in London, 1981. Unlimited migration within the Empire produced sharp cultural shock in countries that had little previous experience of immigration.
The so-called ‘India Problem’ also had another dimension. After the Indian Adjustment and the creation of the Dominion of India, Imperial economic planners came to regard India as a bottomless pool of cheap labor. Between 1945 and 1970, tens of millions of Indians were encouraged to emigrate to the other Dominions to address labor shortages, assist in post-war reconstruction and generally fuel the engine of the New Imperial Economy. These migrants proved highly productive, securing far higher living standards than they could obtain at home and fueling further migration. Indian (and, to a lesser extent, Caribbean/South African) immigration was a particular feature of the post-war years in Britain and Ireland, where intra-Imperial migrants were critical in rebuilding both countries after the ruination of the Liberation and Syndicalist Era. Utilizing their rights as Imperial subjects, many of these migrant workers settled permanently in their new homelands: between 1930 and 1970, the South Asian population of the Dominion of Britain rose from around 10,000 to 1.1 million; in Ireland, it rose from less than 500 to over 200,000. This produced sharp cultural shock in countries that had little previous experience of immigration, and drove economic and cultural resentment, particularly in those working-class communities that had been highly supportive of the Syndicalist regimes and were marginalized by the new authorities. Problems of integration and resource-sharing were easy enough to paper-over during the years of reconstruction and economic expansion but became a source of social and cultural tension as the Imperial economy stagnated in the Empire’s late-period malaise. With its official doctrine of Assimilatory Imperialism, and its reluctance to alienate India by challenging its status as a co-equal Dominion, the BYT regime was slow to react. This in turn fueled the emergence of a right-wing dissident movement across the Empire, a blanket grouping including conservative democrats through to populist nationalists and racist extremists. Ironically, the children and grandchildren of many working class Syndicalists increasingly supported the right.
London schoolchildren celebrate Elizabeth II's coronation, c.1973. Cultural and demographic change since the Syndicalist War drove political realignment across the Empire.
Trudeau’s Continuity process required buy-in from the right-wing opposition as well as the left, but even its moderate members were deeply uneasy about the idea of a proportionally representative Imperial Parliament in which India, by weight of population, dominated. With the restoration of democracy seemingly imminent, they knew there was also an emerging political constituency in their home countries for an anti-immigrant agenda. Even the Regime struggled to find a way through the problem. Lord Douglas Hurd, a member of Trudeau’s Imperial Cabinet, remarked at the time:
“You can just about make a fair system out of 40 million Canadians, 50 million Britons, and 25 million Australasians. No one can do anything with 700 million Indians.” For its part, India was enthusiastic about increasing its influence in the Imperial Parliament, which had felt underwhelming during the American Wars period. This, in turn, made the other Dominions more and more uneasy. Trudeau was stuck in a seemingly insurmountable problem of proportionality, with the integrity of the Empire itself at risk. Until the ‘India Problem’ was resolved, and the final apportionment of seats in the Imperial Parliament determined, promised elections could not take place. For Trudeau, standing still carried considerable risk. The democratic opposition, always somewhat suspicious of Trudeau’s intentions, grew restless the longer the process stalled and began to lose faith in his promises. At the same time, the Hardliners within the regime were watching for any sign of failure to justify seizing control. International events were also driving a sense of unease; in September 1979, four months of strikes and rioting toppled the corrupt, German-backed monarchy of King Abbas III of Egypt, leading to the declaration of an Islamic republic. Tensions between the new Egypt and neighboring Transarabia, fueled by Egyptian pan-Islamism versus Transarabian Arab nationalism, escalated into war in the autumn of 1980, sparking a major European oil crisis and raising world tensions after a period of relative tranquility.
Revolutionaries loot the German embassy in Cairo, September 1979. Four months of strikes and rioting toppled the corrupt monarchy of King Abbas III of Egypt, leading to the King's exile and the declaration of an Islamic republic.
In the Empire, Trudeau received his first warning of military unrest in April 1980 when the authorities announced they had uncovered the so-called King’s Arms Plot, named after a pub in Canberra where a group of young military officers met to plan a conspiracy to assassinate Trudeau while he was in Australasia to meet with Australasian officials (significantly, the plotters planned their coup to occur when Elizabeth II would be undertaking an official tour of Russia). Although the plot was half-baked and detected long before actual implementation, Reformists were alarmed by the specter of possible political intervention by the military. Although the Imperial General Staff formally denounced the plotters, they received relatively light sentences of fifteen months detention from a military court. Instead of chastening the Hardliner officers involved, this policy of leniency threatened to embolden them. Further intra-elite deliberations produced no solution through 1980. By the end of this period, many Reformists had resigned themselves to India’s departure from the Empire. Ironically, perhaps, some of the biggest proponents of this view were the so-called ‘Black Dominions’ of South Africa and the Caribbean Federation. Both ‘Black Dominions’ were also heavily dependent on emigration and overseas remittances from their migrant populations, but with a combined population of only 50 million, the number of migrants they produced was much more palatable to anti-immigration activists in the wider Empire than the numbers that flowed from India. Strategically, both ‘Black Dominions’ had reasons to fear abandonment by their Imperial allies; the Caribbean Federation sat perilously close to Amérosul, while South Africa was a fragile beacon of stability and in the chaotic bloodbath that was post-German Africa. The Black Dominions were supporters of the Reform effort and feared that an anti-Indian backlash would also sweep them out of the Empire at just the time it would become a more equal association better serving their interests.
J.R.D. Tata and members of the Indian delegation at the intra-Imperial talks of 1981. Tata and the Indian elite desired a kind of loose confederation by which the Dominion of India could participate, a la carte, in the Imperial institutions while continuing to benefit from economic integration, but Trudeau and the Reformists were unwilling to make this concession.
By early-1981, Trudeau and his Reformists demanded either an even tighter federation (a so-called ‘viable federation’) between India and the other Dominions or India’s exit from the Empire to make way for democratization. Tata and the Indian elite desired a kind of loose confederation by which the Dominion of India could participate,
a la carte, in the Imperial institutions while continuing to benefit from economic integration. At the same time, Trudeau was under pressure from an unlikely alliance of right-wing anti-immigration politicians in the White Dominions and pro-immigration politicians in the Black Dominions to end unlimited immigration from India, one of the economic benefits Tata clung to most tightly. Frequent and intense negotiations provided no breakthrough. In April of 1981, matters came to a head when the Australasian National Party, an emerging right-populist party in Australasia, announced it would seek to renegotiate Australasia’s own status in the Empire rather than accept continued unlimited Indian immigration. Fearful of being outmaneuvered on the right, the conservative democratic opposition pressured Trudeau to adopt a harder line on India before the first democratic elections took place. On 17th June, Tata and Trudeau agreed to a suspension of India’s participation in the joint institutions at a meeting in Bombay. In practical terms, this prefaced Indian independence and a number of Hardliners resigned from Trudeau’s administration rather than oversee what they saw as the dissolution of the Empire. The goal of Imperial-Indian negotiations increasingly changed to achieving a peaceful dissolution.
Flag of the Indian Confederation (1982-1993)
Indian independence was less a dramatic rupture so much as a gradual unwinding; by the end of 1981, the Imperial Parliament had passed a series of acts dealing with the logistics of separation, including the division of property between the Imperial government and the Indian one, and the transfer to India of an appropriate portion of the combined Imperial military hardware. In January 1982, the Indian Parliament passed the Sovereignty of India act, dropping India’s status as a British Dominion in favor of a status as a
‘sovereign, self-determining confederation’. The new Indian Confederation continued to have close ties to the Anglosphere. India recognized Elizabeth II as its ceremonial head of state until 1990, when – challenged by surging nationalism and the decay of the oligarchic regime – it formally became a republic. Some historians have praised the comparatively peaceful and deliberative way in which Indian independence was achieved, particularly in comparison to Germany’s chaotic withdrawal from Mittelafrika and Imperial France’s cynical and destructive policy of
‘divide and retreat’ in West Africa during the same period. Others have been more critical. German historian Paul Neid writes:
“The India policy of Trudeau and other Imperial reformists was motivated by a profound and cynical impatience. Having spent years violently accruing power in India and using it to engineer a profoundly unstable, inorganic system, the Imperial technocrats were now anxious to be rid of it. Dictatorship in India was justified in the name of democratization at home, and when the inevitable collapse occurred, the Anglosphere looked back across its oceanic ramparts and threw up its hands in disingenuous surprise.” Whether inevitable or not, the collapse has certainly been bloody. Increasingly undermined by external and internal pressures but kept alive by its status as low-cost workshop to the world, the Indian oligarchy resorted to ever more authoritarian tactics throughout the 1980s. Burma’s secession and Tata’s death in November 1993 triggered the collapse of the Confederation; the Jerusalem Organization now assesses that as many as 5 million people have lost their lives in ongoing political, ethnic and sectarian conflicts on the Indian subcontinent.
Indian soldiers operate an armored vehicle, c.1990s. The Jerusalem Organization now assesses that as many as 5 million people have lost their lives in ongoing political, ethnic and sectarian conflicts on the Indian subcontinent.
Trudeau’s India ‘betrayal’ incensed Hardliners, but finally permitted negotiations between the various factions involved in the Continuity process regarding the electoral system. Trudeau’s main concern was to avoid an excessively fragmentary party system, which he associated with the instability and polarization that had undermined democracy in Britain and America in the 1920s and 30s, and which might lead to the rise of secessionist movements. By setting various minimal vote thresholds – including a 3% threshold for admission to the Imperial Parliament – the new electoral system was only truly proportional in large urban areas and operated like a majoritarian one in more sparsely populated regions, a bias that favored the formation of large, moderate parties. Regime-opposition talks had also led to the legalization of Syndicalist parties in September 1980, whose exclusion would have rendered the process illegitimate in the eyes of the left; in return, the New Left moderate opposition had already secretly agreed to recognize the monarchy and Imperial symbols.
Ballots are counted following the 1981 Imperial elections. They were the Empire’s first truly democratic elections in almost 50 years.
Regime-opposition negotiations paved the way for the Empire’s first truly democratic elections since 1936, held in November 1981 at both the Imperial and Dominion level. On a highly legitimizing turnout of 79 percent, Trudeau’s new-established Commonwealth Center Party (CCP), a loose and hastily formed coalition of regime Reformists and representatives of the conservative democratic opposition, obtained 44% of the vote and 308 of the seats in the new Imperial parliament, allowing Trudeau to remain in office as Imperial Council chairman and head of the Imperial executive. The New Left, social democratic New Labour Party (NLP) emerged as the leading opposition party with 39% of the vote and 273 seats, well ahead of the various neo-syndicalist parties, which obtained a paltry 6% of the vote and 42 seats. Significantly, the authoritarian democratic Popular Party (PP), a vehicle for Hardliners opposed to the Continuity democratization process, secured only 11% of the vote and 77 seats. This chastened the Hardliners who’d been gearing up for a post-India backlash, and brought the Continuity further time to run. No other parties – a grab-bag of hard-right, hard-left and secessionist movements – qualified.
Pierre Trudeau campaigning during the 1981 elections. Not only was Trudeau victorious in seeking another term as Imperial Council chairman, but the high turnout of 79% vindicated his democratization project.
Similar results were replicated at the Dominion level. In Canada, Robert Stanfield, the sitting authoritarian democratic Prime Minister, was re-elected on a CCP ticket. New CCP governments were also victorious in Ireland and the Caribbean Federation, with the NLP the largest opposition party. In Australasia, the CCP under Sir James Killen faced a strong challenge from the PP, which came in second with 44% of the vote, with the NLP relegated to a paltry 8% third place showing. The NLP was victorious in both South Africa and the Dominion of Britain. In South Africa, NLP candidate Wynand Malan campaigned on a "one person, one vote" franchise policy, promising to dismantle the authoritarian democratic era tribal bloc voting system that stood as the last legacy of Apartheid. (Sir Edward Mkhwanazi would be elected as Malan’s successor, and South Africa’s first black Prime Minister, in 1987).
Wynand Malan is elected Prime Minister of South Africa, 1981. Malan campaigned on a "one person, one vote" franchise policy, promising to dismantle the authoritarian democratic era tribal bloc voting system that stood as the last legacy of Apartheid.
In Britain, a comparatively strong showing for the PP and anti-immigrant and traditionalist minor parties split the right-wing vote, resulting in a landslide victory for the British wing of the NLP under the leadership of Barbara Castle. A veteran left-winger, Castle joined the Union of Britain’s Congregationalist faction as a teenager but became disillusioned with the Revolution after Moseley’s rise to power. Castle was elected to the St Pancras Metropolitan Syndicate in 1937, where she campaigned against Moseley’s return to more traditional and conservative values in many areas of social and family policy, including the recriminalization of abortion and homosexuality, the dilution of women’s rights, and increased difficulty in accessing divorce and contraception. In 1939, Castle was dismissed from her position as part of a widespread purge of non-Moseleyite factions and in 1942 she was imprisoned in the infamous Porton Down prison camp. After the Liberation in 1943, Castle was harassed by the BRA authorities and spent the next decade under various degrees of house arrest but nonetheless became an important figure in the formation and organization of the New Left. Anathematizing revolutionary tactics, Castle instead embraced social democracy, a policy of national reconciliation, and a vision of the Empire remade as a federation of free and progressive nations. In 1960, Castle was permitted to become the leader of the token leftwing party under Britain’s managed democracy, a largely powerless position she nonetheless used to advocate for the goal of a multi-class ‘pact for freedom’. During the Continuity, Castle’s uncompromising criticism of both the regime and its more radical opponents earned her the sobriquet ‘The Iron Lady’ and made her the natural choice to lead the nascent British NLP.
Barbara Castle, after her election as British Prime Minister, 1981. Castle’s uncompromising criticism of both the regime and its more radical opponents earned her the sobriquet ‘The Iron Lady’ and made her a pivotal figure in the New Left.
The 1981 elections were, in many ways, a historic success for Trudeau, but he continued to face a broad array of challenges he could not deal with on his own, and he now had the added complication of being the leader of a co-equal (rather than dictatorial) supranational government dependent on cooperation with its constituent members. Very little had been done in the preceding years to continue Mountbatten’s economic reform program, and the Mitteleuropan oil crisis was having knock-on effects across the world economy. Inflation was again on the rise, prompting fresh labor unrest. Disconcertingly, the promise of democracy had done nothing to persuade some of the Empire’s more violent dissident factions to lay down their arms or cease their campaigns of terrorism, which in turn prompted increasingly bellicose statements from Hardliner sections of the military, already angered by the loss of India and suspicious of the reincorporation of leftists and reformed syndicalists into the political system. At the same time, many Hardliners and right-wing leaning groups were alienated and aggravated by the very rapid liberalization of popular culture and social mores that accompanied the political democratization process.
The Canadian pop singer Madonna, born in Bay City, Michigan in 1958, was one of many artists who rode the cultural liberalization of the Continuity to fame in the 1980s. The provocative sexuality and political radicalism of the new generation shocked and appalled Imperial hardliners and traditionalists.
In order to buy time and a firm footing for the Continuity, Trudeau engaged in a series of intra-party talks, both within the Imperial Parliament and among the Dominion governments, resulting in a cross-party consensus for longer-term, structural reform of the Imperial economy. These talks were also important in producing new, pan-Imperial legislation recognizing and cementing basic political freedoms. More generally, the talks were significant in that they encouraged politicians to regard their opponents as adversaries rather than enemies and enabled them to show their voters that they were capable of setting aside their ideological differences in the interest of the democratization process. The successful passage of new economic reforms and political freedoms through the newly democratized Imperial Parliament proved that the new model was functional and increased public faith in the Continuity.
Australasian youth, c.1980. Freed from the uniformed, micromanaged, hairsprayed world of previous Imperial generations, the social and cultural flowering was deeply liberating for the so-called Continuity Generation, but also provoked a fierce backlash from proponents of traditional BYT values.
Another major initiative requiring a broad political consensus was the process of amnesty and the so-called “pact of forgetting”. To facilitate the elections, Elizabeth II had issued a modest pardon in December 1979 and a limited amnesty in June 1980, but these were deemed insufficient by the opposition and dissidents. The 1981 amnesty law went much further, covering
“all acts of a political purpose, regardless of their outcome”, thus benefiting all those convicted of political crimes committed against the Bright Young Thing regimes prior to the 1981 elections, including terrorists convicted of murder. It also guaranteed that officials of the regime would not be investigated or prosecuted for any
“offenses and misdemeanors that may have been committed by state authorities against the rights of others”, thereby ruling out the possibility of any real investigation into the culpability of the military, law enforcement, judiciary and state officials in BYT-era repression. -In the words of one dissident leader, the new settlement offered
“forgiveness from everybody to everybody”. The amnesty process was thus the most significant example of the tacit, unspoken agreements reached between the former regime and the democratic opposition in an effort to prevent the Empire’s traumatic past from becoming an insurmountable obstacle on the road to the future. To some extent, this so-called “pact of forgetting” was built on a widely held interpretation of the Revolution and Syndicalist War period as a fratricidal tragedy for which both sides shared responsibility. It was also influenced by the recent American Wars; many Imperial theorists believed that America’s failure to properly settle the issues behind its First Civil War had led to the second, which in turn led to the third. Of all aspects of the Continuity, the “pact of forgetting” and the implicit societal refusal to confront and redress the past has been the most controversial and most emotive. To its detractors, it has imposed a dark silence upon victims and effectively pardoned perpetrators. To its proponents, it has been a vital component in the peaceful emergence of a democratic state. Jurists have consistently taken the latter view, for example blocking a 1998 commission aimed at establishing the ultimate fates of approximately 400,000 children - offspring of disappeared dissidents and ‘incorrigible’ Syndicalists - seized by the regime and adopted by loyalist families between 1943 and 1972.
A nurse cares for 'reallocated' infants at a government adoption center in Canada, c.1960. Some argue the so-called "pact of forgetting" has prevented a proper reckoning with forced adoptions and other BYT-era human rights abuses.
Despite these efforts by Trudeau, unrest among Hardliners in the military continued to rise during 1982/1983. During these months, Queen-Empress Elizabeth II made a point of talking to many disgruntled senior army figures in private in an attempt to secure their loyalty. Although the monarch had given up her formal powers and accepted a purely ceremonial role as part of the Continuity process, she crucially remained Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces as head of state. Among those who were most outspokenly critical of the consequences of democratization was Field Marshal Sir Pierre Beauchamp Baker, a senior member of the Imperial General Staff and the former head of the Royal Household, who in 1980 was removed from the Queen-Empress’ entourage by Trudeau on account of his hostility to the new regime. Behind the scenes, Elizabeth and her courtiers made clear to the military that the Continuity process was carried out with the Queen-Empress’s blessing and in keeping with Bright Young Thing legislation and parliamentary procedures. Strictly speaking, therefore, an armed rebellion against the constitutional reform process sanctioned by Elizabeth would not only amount to an act of treason but would also be an attack against Edward VIII’s legacy.
Queen-Empress Elizabeth II inspects troops, c.1975. Although the monarch had given up her formal powers and accepted a purely ceremonial role as part of the Continuity process, she remained Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces as head of state.
As a result of ongoing global economic difficulties, continuing extremist attacks, and ever more alarming news from abroad, Trudeau’s popularity and credibility began to erode in 1983, not least within his own party, the CCP. In the Middle East, the Egypt-Transarabia War ground on, strangling the Mitteleuropan economy. In the German election of 1983, voters pivoted to the extremes, electing a left-wing SPD administration after three successive Zentrum coalitions. In Asia, China and Japan were engaged in a new and dangerous round of saber-rattling over newly elected Chinese President Zhao Ziyang’s support for Korean nationalist groups.
Transarabian troops maneuvering during the Egypt-Transarabia War, 1983. Bad news from abroad began to erode Trudeau's popular support, destabilizing the precariously divided politics of the Empire.
It was in this context that the right-wing press and some right-wing political figures began to discuss the need to form a government of ‘national protection’ under the premiership of Field Marshal Sir Pierre Beauchamp Baker, who retained his position in the Imperial General Staff. This scheme envisaged the supposedly ‘non-violent’ overthrow of Trudeau’s Imperial Cabinet, the overthrow of the NLP Dominion governments in Britain and South Africa and, if necessary, the overthrow of the CCP administrations as well, should they be unwilling to roll back the Continuity. The coup itself began to take shape at a crucial meeting between Baker and sympathetic military officers held at Baker’s country house outside Montreal in November 1983. This gathering coincided with an annual conference at the Royal Military College of Canada, permitting a large number of Hardliner officers from across the various Dominions to gather without raising suspicion. During the discussions, Baker led his co-conspirators to believe that he spoke to the Queen-Empress frequently, that she shared their concern that Trudeau was incapable of responding effectively to the many challenges facing the Empire, and that she had lost faith in Trudeau’s interpretation of the Continuity. None of these things were true; in fact, Baker had not spoken to the Queen-Empress since his dismissal from her household three years before. Privately, Baker and his core conspirators had already decided Elizabeth was irredeemably compromised and planned to use their coup to force her to abdicate in favor of her son Prince John, who they assessed would be more biddable.
Prince John, Prince Imperial, c.1990. The coup plotters planned to force Elizabeth and the Duke of Vancouver to abdicate in favor of their son, who would 'rule' as their puppet.
The coup finally went ahead on Sunday, December 25th, 1983. Christmas Day was chosen because the key targets would be easily locatable at home, the legislatures and administrative apparatus would be in recess, and public attention would be distracted. (Hence the later term ‘Christmas Crisis’). At 4:09 PM London time, soldiers under the command of one of Baker’s co-conspirators arrived at Buckingham Palace, the residence and workplace of the Imperial Council Chairman, where they succeeded in taking Trudeau, his family, staff and members of the Imperial Cabinet hostage. To lend credence to the idea that the Crown was behind the coup, the soldiers shouted “God Save the Queen-Empress” as they burst into the palace. Civilian policemen guarding the building offered no resistance, initially mistaking the coup for some kind of anti-terrorist operation. No one was seriously hurt. At the same time, soldiers stormed Barbara Castle’s family residence in Buckinghamshire. After a short gun battle with Castle’s Mountie bodyguards, in which two Mounties were killed, Castle and her staff surrendered. The Prime Minister, her husband, and several aides were arrested. Castle was separated from the others and taken to a local police station and then an army barracks. Most of her staff assumed she’d been taken away to be shot.
Coup soldiers storm Buckingham Palace, December 25th, 1983. They succeeded in taking Trudeau, his family, staff and members of the Imperial Cabinet hostage.
In Canada, Baker received news of Trudeau and Castle’s capture around noon local time. Proceeding to 24 Sussex Drive, the residence of the Canadian Prime Minister, the Field Marshal informed Canadian PM Robert Stanfield that he had assumed control of the Imperial government. Essentially under house arrest, Stanfield had little choice but to acquiesce to Baker’s commands, although some have suggested that as a former authoritarian democrat he did not try that hard. Similar scenes took place in the other Dominions; in Australasia, it was already 4am on the 26th December, and Prime Minister James Killen was woken from his bed by the sound of tanks surrounding his residence. Meanwhile, Baker had returned to the headquarters of the Imperial General Staff, where he repeated to his confused colleagues his claim that he was working with the monarch’s authority. At 7:30pm Ottawa time, Baker activated the War Powers Act and issued a proclamation stating that
“in light of the events in London and the consequent vacuum of power, it is my duty to guarantee order until I receive instructions from Her Majesty the Queen-Empress". The proclamation ordered the militarization of all public service personnel, imposed a curfew and banned all political and trade-union activity. Tanks rolled out to guard important public buildings, and Baker’s soldiers seized control of Imperial Broadcasting Corporation headquarters. For a time, Baker assumed dictatorial power over the entire Empire.
A Canadian youth reacts to Baker's imposition of emergency powers. For a time, Baker assumed dictatorial power over the entire Empire.
Now, however, the plot began to fall apart. Baker’s scheme had depended on isolating Elizabeth II and presenting the end of the Continuity as a
fait accompli, forcing either her acquiescence or her abdication. Unbeknownst to Baker, this element of the conspiracy had already failed. When soldiers under Baker’s command arrived at Sandringham House, the country estate in Norfolk where the Royal Family traditionally spends Christmas and New Year, they found the Queen-Empress was not there. A breakdown in the house’s hot water system had forced the last-minute relocation of the royal Christmas to Windsor Castle, some 150 miles away, where the royal family was under the protection of the elite Coldstream Guards. Hearing news of the supposedly royal-approved coup over military wires, the commander of the Coldstreams, Major General Sir Walter Burns, became suspicious. The Queen-Empress was on a post-Christmas lunch walk with her family through Windsor Great Park – hardly the actions of a monarch coordinating a
putsch. Burns brought news of the coup to Elizabeth around 6pm.
Children observe a soldier and army helicopter guarding the Central Government Building in Vancouver, December 26th 1983. Baker's proclamation sent troops onto the streets in many Imperial cities to maintain order.
For Elizabeth, the Royal Family and their courtiers, the immediate reaction to the coup was one of shock, with uncomfortable echoes of the Revolution of 1925. Within the Castle, there was some discussion of evacuating the Queen-Empress from the country via nearby Heathrow Queen Barbara International Airport. The Queen-Empress’ husband, John, Duke of Vancouver, initially advocated relocating to the royal compound at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in his native New England Republic. At Mach 2.0, the royal jet could make the flight to Boston in approximately three hours. Elizabeth felt this would be three hours too late – she was determined to remain at Windsor and visibly defy the coup, particularly as she was now aware many of the participants were operating with a false sense of her approval. At 7:30pm, Elizabeth spoke privately with Major General Sir Walter Burns and asked him if his Coldstream Guards could hold the Castle against assault, to which he replied they could. At 8pm, the castle gates were closed. The ‘siege’ of Windsor – the first since the English Civil War of 1642 to 1651 – had begun. The monarch and her closest advisers spent the rest of the night trying to dismantle the coup by telephone. Given that the Imperial Executive and Dominion Prime Ministers were being held hostage, Elizabeth ordered the creation of a provisional government consisting of the locatable under-secretaries of each ministry, under the direction of the Duke of Vancouver. This body later issued a statement explaining that they had
“gone into permanent session, on the instructions of Her Majesty the Queen-Empress to ensure the government of the Empire through constitutional channels”. A standoff had developed between the monarch, holed up in Windsor Castle, and Baker, who had ensconced himself in the headquarters of the Imperial General Staff outside Ottawa.
Queen-Empress Elizabeth during the Christmas Crisis. The monarch and her closest advisers worked through the night trying to dismantle the coup by telephone.
By now, Baker’s dead-enders had surrounded the castle and cut off its telephones, but Elizabeth continued to be able to communicate via military telex and satellite linkup. A key aspect in the coup’s failure was the fact that the Queen-Empress was able to speak to most of the Empire’s senior military officers personally. Once Elizabeth made it clear that, contrary to Baker’s claims, the coup did not enjoy her support, they invariably offered her their obedience even if they were opponents of the Continuity. Had Elizabeth wanted the coup to succeed, as some radical leftists and conspiracy theorists have subsequently claimed, it would have been easy for her to secure that outcome. As one senior military officer subsequently told the Commission of Inquiry into the coup:
“I fought in the Liberation, so you can imagine what I thought about Castle and the Continuity. But I swore an oath to obey the Crown, and the Queen-Empress ordered me to stop the Christmas Coup. If she’d ordered me to assault the Imperial General Staff building and shoot everyone inside, I’d have done it.” The standoff on the castle walls was initially peaceful, with Baker’s troops hesitant to confront the elite Coldstream Guards and directly assault the personage of the monarch. However, around 3am on December 26th one of Baker’s tanks opened fire on the castle, leading to a skirmish in which 9 rebels and 3 Coldstreams were killed and over 40 injured. Subsequent inquiries have suggested the initial attack may have been accidental – Baker and other officers involved in the coup have always denied ordering it. The attack set fire to a portion of the castle roof, and dramatic scenes of Windsor burning became one of the iconic images of the Christmas Crisis, rushed to the front page of many of the world’s newspapers.
Windsor Castle on fire during the night of the 25th/26th December 1983. The dramatic scenes became some of the iconic images of the Christmas Crisis.
The print and radio portion of the Imperial media had continued to operate freely throughout the crisis, with millions kept abreast of the developments by transistor radio and many major newspapers publishing special editions condemning the coup and supporting the Continuity. Already gathered together for Christmas, most Imperial families remained indoors glued to their telephones and radio sets. Imperial television had gone off air completely after Baker’s insurgents seized control of IBC headquarters and its subsidiary facilities – there were no private television channels in the Empire at that time. In some border areas, such as the Canadian Maritimes, Imperial households continued to receive television transmissions from APEC and abroad, and news from these sources was relayed via radio. (One senior coup participant later bemoaned the fact that the IBC was taken off air rather than turned to reruns, arguing that the cessation of television – at Christmas no less – had inflamed public panic.) From the outset, Elizabeth was aware of the important of reassuring and mobilizing the public but was initially prevented from making any kind of address by the insurgents’ control of the IBC infrastructure. Eventually, her courtiers determined the existence of a military backdoor into the Imperial satellite network, designed for wartime use, which could be used to broadcast an emergency statement. There was a small television studio in the basements of the castle for this purpose but bringing a television crew through the plotters’ blockade proved impossible. In the end, much of the camera work had to be done by the Coldstream Guards and royal courtiers.
Still from Elizabeth's public address condemning the coup, released on the 26th December 1983. Perhaps as many as 100 million people watched the broadcast.
Elizabeth’s statement was recorded just after dawn, and went on air at precisely 11:00am, London time. Appearing in her study at Windsor, despite the fact the upper portion of the castle was still on fire, Elizabeth project calm in a blue dress and pearls. After announcing that she had ordered all civilian and military authorities to defend the democratic Continuity, the Queen-Empress solemnly proclaimed that
“the Crown, symbol of the permanence and unity of the British nation, does not endorse and cannot tolerate any attempt to interrupt by force the democratization process determined by the Constitution and approved by the people through fair elections.” Perhaps as many as 100 million people watched Elizabeth’s statement. In Australasia, the broadcast came in the late evening; in Eastern Canada it was 6 am, and 3am on the West Coast. Time zone made little difference. As one Imperial author wrote on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Crisis in 2008:
“No one slept, not even us kids. No one thought to put us to bed. We didn’t really understand the politics; it seemed like an extension of Christmas. Suddenly our parents were putting on our winter coats and marching us down to City Hall in the middle of the night. There were crowds of people and soldiers and tanks round the Christmas tree. It was exciting – the danger only occurred to us later.”
Mounted riot police clash with pro-democracy protesters during the Christmas Crisis, 1983. On the 27th and 28th of December, millions of people took to the streets in cities across the Empire in support of democracy and the Queen-Empress.
On the 27th and 28th of December 1983, millions of people demonstrated in cities across the Empire in support of democracy and the Queen-Empress. Baker’s coup began to melt away as soon as Elizabeth’s statement went to air, with the plotters and participants beginning to lay down their arms and surrendering. Barbara Castle, Pierre Trudeau and other officials were released to a triumphant reception from the crowds of pro-democracy demonstrators. Eventually, Baker agreed to stand down, but he insisted on being allowed to leave the Imperial General Staff building and hand himself over to an official of commensurate rank. Because it was felt important that Baker been seen to surrender to a civilian police officer rather than the military, the ‘official’ end of the coup was delayed until the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Sir Robert Simmonds, was flown in from his Christmas vacation in Saskatchewan. At noon local time, on Wednesday December 28, 1983, Field Marshall Baker emerged from the Imperial General Staff building outside Ottawa and surrendered to the Mounties, under the watch of his attorneys and the world’s media. The Christmas Crisis was over.
Jubilant crowds celebrate the failure of the coup outside Buckingham Palace, 1983. The Christmas Crisis has often been understood as the final pivotal event in the Empire’s democratization.
The Christmas Crisis has often been understood as the final pivotal event in the Empire’s democratization. As an institution and an individual, Elizabeth II emerged from the failed coup with overwhelming legitimacy in the eyes of the public and the political class, securing the position of the monarchy and the completion of the Continuity. In the long term, the coup’s failure was the last serious attempt by adherents of authoritarian democracy and the Bright Young Things to impose their ideology and derail the Empire’s future as a liberal democracy. Over the next decade, traditional authoritarian democrats would wither away to the point of irrelevance in Imperial politics. The episode had varied consequences for its other key participants. In March 1985, the Imperial Supreme Court sentenced Field Marshall Sir Pierre Beauchamp Baker to thirty years in prison as the principal instigator. Ultimately, 35 people out of some 300 accused would be convicted for their involvement in the coup. Although vindicated in some ways, Pierre Trudeau’s authority never recovered from the attempted coup and he resigned as Imperial Council Chairman in April 1984. Canadian Prime Minister Robert Stanfield continued to be haunted by the suggestion that he had hoped the coup would succeed and was swept out of power by the Canadian NLP in the Imperial elections of 1986. British Prime Minister Barbara Castle, by contrast, emerged enhanced, and would go on to serve three terms.
Flag of the Anglophone Union (1990-). A free and equal economic, military and political union of the English-speaking democracies, the Anglosphere accounts for 29% of world GDP; although largely isolationist and inwardly focused since its transition to democracy, its latent power has led it to be described as a 'sleeping colossus'.
Abroad, the failure of the coup and the success of the Continuity had an important effect on the remaining authoritarian democratic powers of the New American Order. In the NER, the coup accelerated the so-called ‘mini-Continuity’ already underway, restoring many political and social freedoms. In the Pacific States, where tens of thousands turned out to protest Baker’s coup, demonstrations continued through much of 1983, ratcheting up pressure on incumbent autocrat Richard M. Nixon. Nixon and the authoritarian democratic Arnoldian Party would eventually be dislodged in the bloodless ‘Gold Revolution’ of 1984, leading to the election of George Moscone as the PSA’s first democratically elected president. Permitted a comfortable retirement at his estate in San Clemente, California, Nixon remained a steadfast defender of authoritarian democratic legacy until his death in April 1994. Two years later, Mexican voters would decide – by a margin of 54.3 to 45.7 – to become a republic following the death of Empress Maria of Mexico, bringing to an end the last authoritarian democratic regime in the Americas. The late 1980s saw the continued economic, military and political agglomeration of APEC, culminating in the formation of the Anglophone Union, commonly known as the Anglosphere, with the signing of the Treaty of Dublin in June 1990. The same year, following India’s decision to become a republic, the British Empire and its institutions formally adopted the name ‘the British Commonwealth’ with the now-ceremonial monarch simply styled as Her Majesty the Queen.
Elizabeth II, Queen of the Commonwealth and de facto leader of the Anglosphere. Elizabeth and the monarchy emerged from the Christmas Crisis with overwhelming legitimacy in the eyes of the public and the political class. Historians will continue to debate whether Elizabeth was a true champion for democracy or merely an adept tactical operator, who cleverly positioned herself to maintain many of the structural aspects of the old regime and her family's privileges and immunity from culpability through a perilous period of change. For most of her subjects, the question is academic.
