The post you are reporting:
Matthew Parris in the Times.
The Queen is wrong. She is wrong on two counts. The opinion she expressed is wrong. And, right or wrong, she should not have expressed an opinion at all. Let’s make no bones about this. She did express an opinion. This is what she said: “As we look for new answers in the modern age, I for one prefer the tried and tested recipes, like speaking well of each other and respecting different points of view; coming together to seek out the common ground; and never losing sight of the bigger picture. To me, these approaches are timeless and I commend them to everyone.” You may think that telling the Sandringham branch of the Women’s Institute that it would be nice if everyone got on better and tried to “seek out the common ground” is an unexceptionable, even trite, thing to say — the sort of thing Her Majesty is expected to say — but in the present circumstances it is very far from that. This is, of course, all about Brexit.
Her prime minister has reached a proposed deal with the European Union. She has repeated until blue in the face that it may not be perfect but it is a reasonable compromise and the best we can get. She has begged convinced Remainers (on one side) and hardline Brexiteers (on the other) to make this their common ground and compromise. She has appealed to the opposition to sink differences in the national interest, and invited their leader to talk to her.
And now the Queen tells the nation (for, make no mistake, the Sandringham WI was simply her platform) that people should come together to seek out “the common ground”. What can that mean but compromise? I struggle to think what more she could have said in a barely disguised appeal to members of parliament and to both sides of the Brexit debate to support Theresa May’s deal. What else do you think (say) Dominic Grieve and Anna Soubry, on one side of this argument, and Jacob Rees-Mogg and Peter Bone, on the other, are supposed to conclude that their sovereign is saying?
Be clear: calling for compromise is taking a position, it is not standing back from the fray. Three positions are available to the disputants in this case. First, stick to your guns and fight for Remain. Second, stick to your guns and fight for a hard (or “clean”) Brexit. Third, compromise on a middle way, a “soft” Brexit. The Queen is now gunning for the third option. This is a political point of view, an angrily contested one. It was inappropriate for the monarch to intervene.
But not only did she intervene, she put the Crown behind a general principle which is simply wrong. The “coming together” behind a compromise is not a “timeless” approach to be “commended to everyone”, a “tried and tested recipe” for “the modern age”. It is an approach which is commendable in some circumstances and not in others.