The King’s invitation to President Zelensky has caused reverberations around the world. It is the most direct step yet by the King into the political arena.
We know that the King supports Ukraine. He has spoken on many occasions of the “indescribable aggression” that has faced the Ukrainians since the “unprovoked attack on their land”. He has shown solidarity and support for the president of a country invaded by a tyrannical nation. He is on the side of right in defending democracy.
But now he openly defies the injustice shown to Zelensky three days ago by President Trump. Such interventions are rare because there is a delicate balance between what is diplomacy and what is politics when the royal family is involved. The monarch must be above politics. It is the only way he can represent the whole of the United Kingdom, regardless of political affiliation.
The most memorable such intervention by Queen Elizabeth II occurred just before the vote for Scottish independence in 2014. Asked outside Crathie Church for her views, she said most subtly that people should think carefully about the future. Translate that to a man standing on the edge of a cliff, and the Queen saying, “Think carefully about what you might do,” and she would not be advising the man to jump.
It is a brave act by the King. Whether it was his idea or the government’s, it would not have happened without the sanction of the prime minister. It was courageous and will be remembered as a high point in his reign. There are of course dangers. It could backfire. Trump may feel put out, and it is hard to fathom which way he might turn.
Meanwhile, the invitation for a state visit by Trump still stands despite protests from some politicians. By inviting Trump on what has been hailed as an unprecedented second state visit, Keir Starmer was clearly playing on what he detected as the president’s achilles heel – his love of royalty and pomp and ceremony put on for his benefit.
He greatly enjoyed his two visits to the Queen during his last presidency. At Windsor in 2018, she enjoyed talking to him and detained him beyond the timed schedule as they took tea together. On his 2019 state visit to Buckingham Palace, he was fulsome in praise of her. He has since declared that she thought of him as her favourite US president, though it is more than possible that the Queen sent every US president home thinking just that.
Welcoming a president to Britain and pulling out all the stops to entertain him – carriage processions and state banquets – can have great effect. The visits to Britain are primarily diplomatic as are the state visits to other countries. They open the way for political discussions and subsequent business opportunities and trade deals. When the Queen made those visits, she was primarily a conciliator. With many countries such as Germany and, much later, Ireland, her line was always: “We cannot change the past. We can build bridges to the future.”
The involvement of a member of the royal family can have incalculable benefits. In 1955, Sir Archibald Nye, high commissioner in Canada, reported to the Foreign Office on the Queen Mother’s visit and the importance of maintaining Commonwealth ties with Canada. He said: “It is a striking fact – and a sobering one for politicians and diplomats – that a few days’ visit by this gracious lady has probably done more for this great objective than all our own efforts for the past year.”
I was in Russia for the 1994 state visit and witnessed President Yeltsin formally welcoming the Queen at the Kremlin, and the departure of Britannia from St Petersburg a few days later. Just before she sailed away, President Yeltsin arranged a special march past on the quayside, and he kissed the Queen’s hand. He felt he had made a new friend whom in fact he would never see again.
Sometimes, the palace felt that the Queen was being misused. After a disagreeable state visit by President Mobutu of Zaire (now the DRC) in 1973, her private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, wrote to the Foreign Office asking what the positive dividends of this visit had been. The Foreign Office’s reply was that “however awkward President Mobutu showed himself to be as a guest [and clearly he and his party lived up to the Zairians’ reputation for boorishness], there would certainly have been a very substantial negative reaction had the invitation not been extended. Mobutu personally appears to have enjoyed his visit and to have appreciated the attention paid to him, particularly by HM The Queen.”
But this visit by Zelensky to the King in his Norfolk home is unprecedented. It is not a routine formal audience at Buckingham Palace – it is a private visit to Sandringham. The timing is crucial. It comes at a volatile moment in the negotiations regarding Ukraine. Starmer is having telephone conversations with Trump and promising further aid to Ukraine. There is a summit of European leaders convened in London to discuss the war.
No doubt the King hopes that his show of solidarity will be a step towards what most leaders claim they want – an end to the war in Ukraine. Let us hope that it helps to bring rationality and calm to an explosive situation.
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