Referendum on the monarchy, the United Kingdom’s latest temptation in a book

Imagine that the English monarchy is suddenly called into question and must (re)gain the consent of the subjects in a referendum which – anywhere – is no walk in the park.

Imagine, specifically, a short circuit with unpredictable outcomes: a Labor Prime Ministerwith Chinese sympathies, for whom “monarchy is the last legacy of feudalism”, launches the challenge to the only institution regulated by divine law. “If the people vote, even a crown can fall“. Simple. The non-Russian revolution walks softly on the legs of modernity.

The populist red wave sweeps the United Kingdom

Moreover, the message had passed to the last elections and the red wave had overwhelmed the Great Britain up to the bastion of Windsor, stronghold of the conservatives. The (brilliant) scenario takes shape in ‘Exit Queen – Check to the queen‘, written by Francesco Sparta e Marco Ubezio and published by Bonfirraro. A novel, in bookstores these days, that mixes passion for Elizabeth II of Ubezio (lawyer expert on royalty and author of a biography on the queen) with that for politics of Spartà (Agi journalist with a predilection also for foreign affairs).

In the 240 pages, which reconstruct with obsessive attention to detail the latest gamble of the sovereign, not very talkative but capable of unpredictable caustic outbursts, the United Kingdom breathes. Not so much that of the royals, full of institutional visits, visits to companies and schools, chessboards, commemorative festivals, in which timeless stories unfold with affectionless but determined queens and the ghosts of nameless kings. No, in the book there is above all the Great Britain of the suburbs, of the pubs, of the poverty that every now and then turns into shameless wealth, the cities of degradation, of incurable contradiction. The Nord who hopes for Republicil Sud who cheers for the Crown. The real protagonist, who runs through the entire book, is the populismfrom which no one can say they are outside. This is why the novel of Spartà and Ubezio offers a deeper look at our time, using an original and ultimately plausible intuition.

The clash: monarchy vs republic

The contrast between monarchists e Republicans pushes the reader onto the ambiguous ridge of a game that looks to the future but recalls the past centuries and an institution now hanging by the thread of mood, painted red in the electoral maps, like the heart and tradition, against the blue of its enemy.

“The appointment with history has arrived”. Will the monarchy be able to withstand the impact? And what will be the possible consequences? The book keeps you in suspense until the twist on the last page (don’t read it first!).

“Politics is blood and shit”, he argued Rino Formicaprotagonist, in Italy, of that First Republic full of “dwarfs and dancers” (another lucky definition of his – even though he once confessed to me that they were “giants” compared to current politicians). Politics is blood and shit, we said. It is everywhere, even among Buckingham Palace e Westminster.