British Patriotism: The Worship of Capitalism
The following first appeared on the Substack ‘Gael Na Coille’ and is syndicated with the permission of the author.
Recently the Leinster House government released a number of state records to the public that were cleared for release by the Department of Foreign Affairs and the National Archives of Ireland. One of these records is from 2000, when the Irish ambassador to the UK, Ted Barrington, attended a garden party at Buckingham Palace where he met Queen Elizabeth, who expressed to him her relief that the north of Ireland's “silly marching business“ was quieter than expected. Mr. Barrington said it was not the first time he heard "her dismissive views of the Orange marches." He also said her comments "were similar to those she has made to me on previous occasions”.
There has been a lot of cope about these comments made by the Queen from the Loyalist community up north. Prominent Loyalist figures have tried desperately to interpret her words differently from what she obviously meant by them, but it’s clear to anyone with half a brain that she meant what she said: the Queen doesn’t care about the Orange Order and the Loyalist community up north. The royal family does not and never has cared about the loyalist community; they always have been and always will be just an asset to them.
It’s often said that the royal family are simply “ceremonial figures.” Perhaps there's some truth to that, but they are still the embodiment of a system that profits from exploitation. The exploitation of foreign nations and their own people. The British monarchy has always used the people they rule over as cannon fodder in wars that only serve to line the pockets of the ruling elites.
The British establishment paints its imperialist wars and exploits as patriotic service to the country. They lie to their army and people and tell them they're fighting terror or stopping dictators who possess weapons of mass destruction. countless examples have proved that these wars aren’t fought in the interest of the ordinary British people. The British working class did not benefit from the rubber companies that were set up on stolen African land or the East India Company. The profits made from these plantations weren’t used to build hospitals, housing, schools, or libraries; the money was used to expand the wealth and power of the capitalist class, the people who hold the real power behind the throne.
All the soldiers who’ve died in British imperialist wars gained nothing for their exploits; their bodies were paved over to build factories and oil fields. The capitalist elites and royal family are the biggest exploiters of the Protestant Loyalist working class in the north. They create false divisions between Protestants and Catholics to keep them apart so they never realise they have more in common with each other than the ruling class. They use this loyalty built on fear to maintain their control over the territory, offering them nothing in return. They do not care for the welfare of any British citizen, no matter how patriotic they are, unless they can be used to expand their wealth and power. But once the citizens or colony stop being profitable/beneficial to the empire, they will, as they have done countless times before, dispose of it.
"The British monarchy is the last and most important pillar of the capitalist system... The royal family is not a family of grace or divine right but one that has been kept in power by the bayonets of the British Army and the money of the capitalists." - James Connolly
Loyalists and Unionists throughout the United Kingdom believe the monarchy represents the unity of the nation. The monarchy is not a symbol of unity; it is an inherently evil institution built on the exploitation of the working classes of Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales and the many people they have oppressed throughout their violent history. It exists solely to defend the interests of the capitalist elite. The whole ideal of British patriotism/loyalism, the rich and the poor being loyal to the interests of one spoilt, rich, degenerate family, is perhaps the perfect example of the opposite of Irish republicanism, which in its simplest form is the unity of the Irish people under the Irish Republic, a state that serves the interests of the people and puts them first.