The Atlantic

Why the Queen Doesn’t Do Politics

The country’s monarch is the head of state, but her role is largely ceremonial, and she tries to stay out of politics.
Source: Victoria Jones / Reuters

Throughout her 66-year reign, Queen Elizabeth II has been decidedly neutral. She doesn’t engage in political matters, nor does she share her political views. She has always, as is customary among British monarchs, left the politics to the politicians.

But Brexit has upturned any conception of normalcy in Britain. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before that applied to Buckingham Palace as well.

It finally did last week, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that he would seek to temporarily suspend, or prorogue, Parliament until October 14—an procedure taken at a crucial moment, just weeks before the United Kingdom’s from the European

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic25 min readWorld
Why the Most Educated People in America Fall for Anti-Semitic Lies
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here. By now, December’s congressional hearing about anti-Semitism at universities, during which the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT al
The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking
The Atlantic4 min read
Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was

Related Books & Audiobooks