Queen Elizabeth still regards the broadcast she made to mark her 21st birthday in 1947 as the most important statement she has made in her life — other than her Coronation Oath. She, her sister, Princess Margaret and her parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, were on a 35-day tour by train of South Africa. The then Princess Elizabeth told the people of the British Empire that: “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great Imperial family to which we all belong ... God help me to make good my vow and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.”
The Imperial family has since morphed into the Commonwealth — India became independent four months after the speech, triggering the decolonisation process — but the queen has stayed true to her word. If anything, her devotion to the family of nations has increased. And that is why, despite silly speculation to the contrary, she was always going to ensure that her son and heir, the Prince of Wales, succeeded her as head of the Commonwealth. The club is exceptionally precious to her: she wants it put in the charge, after she has gone, of someone she believes will provide continuity in the style, tone and values of her leadership. And she is in no doubt that person is her eldest son.
Among a section of the press it has for decades been de rigueur to mock the Prince of Wales, to forecast his being cut out of the succession in favour of the Duke of Cambridge or Prince Harry. Her choice of him for the headship of the Commonwealth seems conclusively to prove, all this is fantasy.
The prince has not spent 50 years of his adult life engaging in acts of petulance and self-obsession, as some commentators claim. He has toured the Commonwealth regularly since he was a teenager. He and the Duchess of Cornwall are just back from the South Pacific and Australia, where he opened the Commonwealth Games. He has visited 44 of the club’s 53 countries, some frequently. Several of the prince’s charities, led by the Prince’s Trust, help people in Commonwealth countries.
In his training for statecraft he has met almost all the Commonwealth nations’ leaders. In conversations with them, from briefings via the Foreign Office and through what he has discerned from his travels, he has learned more about these nations than probably any professional diplomat, and indeed probably more than anyone apart from the queen herself. But it will be because of his close observation of queen’s style of leadership of the organisation, and his intimate knowledge of the nature of her belief in it as a force for civilisation and of the values she wishes it to embrace, that has most qualified him to lead. His trips to Commonwealth countries used to seem designed solely to provide photo opportunities. There was the celebrated moment when he emerged from the surf in Australia pursued by a woman in a bikini or, less uplifting, those of his first wife looking disconnected and mournful, alone at the Taj Mahal. Yet complementing the endless visits to schools and hospitals, the walkabouts and guards of honour, there have always been meetings with leaders, briefings and networking. It has all been a preparation for his eventual leadership of the “family”.
For the organisation to be carried on as the queen would wish, such preparation was essential, and unique. There is another reason why he is the man for the job. When he ascends to the throne he must be above politics. So it is with the Commonwealth.
The queen has endorsed the values she believes Commonwealth nations should adhere to — laid out in the 1991 Harare Declaration, which committed member states to embrace democracy, the rule of law and human rights. But she does not involve herself in individual nations’ politics, whether she is their head of state (as with Australia, Canada or Barbados and 12 others) or whether they are “crowned republics” (such as India, South Africa or Nigeria). As such she can play honest broker among the leaders of those countries; and by never expressing herself about their politics in public she can, privately, raise any concerns she might have without causing an earthquake. And if a country behaves badly it can be suspended from the organisation, as has happened with Zimbabwe and Pakistan. Her son would have the same advantages. Had a different means of leading the organisation been found — had it rotated among current leaders, or had a former Commonwealth leader been found to do it — the dangers of a cooperative organisation becoming politicised to the point where it could not function would have been high: the queen would not have been able to impart her vision to such a person, as she has with her heir, or be confident it would be business as usual.
The Prince of Wales now has every excuse to steep himself even more deeply in Commonwealth affairs — an important part of his preparation for kingship. It should finally bury the questionable contention that he has too little to do. Although, when speaking in Trinidad in 2000, he praised the organisation as one that “encourages and celebrates cultural diversity and makes no attempt to homogenise”, his new role will give him a more explicit chance to stand up for British values, identical to those of the Harare Declaration. These have shaped the organisation’s commitment to human rights and other western ideals. Some are more honoured in the breach than in the observance, as Peter Tatchell, the veteran human rights campaigner, reminded the Commonwealth when protesting during its summit last week that homosexuality remains illegal in 37 of the 53 countries, two of which have the death penalty for it.
Steering members of the club towards a liberal consensus on that and other such questions (including freedom of the press and treatment of prisoners) will be an interesting, and important, diplomatic challenge.
It should be a matter of pride for Britons that their next king will lead this organisation. It not only reflects important ties of history but will, after Brexit, become more important to Britain in terms of trade — not least the vast market represented by India, whose 1.3 billion population is more than half of the club’s 2.3 billion total.
For the prince, it is an opportunity to prove his critics wrong, and to show that, like the queen, he can command the respect of leaders from around the world. It is the greatest opportunity of his life — so far.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2018
Simon James Heffer is a British journalist, author and political commentator.
