There is a good reason why the constitutional convention requiring the monarch to exercise his prerogative powers on the advice of his government is known as the ‘Cardinal Convention’: it is ‘the most fundamental’ constitutional convention relating to the monarchy – something King Charles is finding out when it comes to slavery reparations.
At a recent Summit of Commonwealth leaders in Samoa, many representing countries most affected by Britain’s legacy of colonialism and slavery, the King made headlines when he stated that ‘None of us can change the past. But we can commit…to learning its lessons and to finding creative ways to right inequalities that endure’. Did these comments signal royal approval of some form of reparations for slavery?
If his past words and actions are anything to go by, there is evidence to suggest that King Charles is personally open to the idea. For example, in Kenya last year the monarch spoke of his ‘deepest regret’ for the ‘wrongdoings’ of the past, whilst in Rwanda in 2022 the then-Prince of Wales expressed his desire to ‘find new ways to acknowledge our past.’ Going beyond just words, in 2023 His Majesty also gave permission for full access to be granted to the Royal Archives and the Royal Collection for the first time to support PhD research being conducted into the Royal Family’s historical links with transatlantic slavery. It could be suggested that Charles’ familial connection to the slave trade impacts on his approach to the issue and makes him feel particularly passionate about addressing it head on: the King’s direct ancestors bought and exploited hundreds of enslaved people, and he has previously expressed his own ‘personal sorrow’ at the trade.
But at the Commonwealth Leaders Summit, and against a backdrop of growing calls for apologies and reparations over Britain’s role in the slave trade, the words ‘sorry’ and ‘reparations’ were conspicuous by their absence from the King’s speech.
So what’s stopping him from apologising explicitly, both for the monarchy’s involvement in the slave trade and the UK’s more generally?
The answer may lie in the Cardinal Convention. In a letter to The Times in 1986, the late Queen’s former private secretary Sir William Heseltine described the convention in these terms: the monarch ‘must act on the advice of her ministers, whatever her own opinions may be.’ The Cardinal Convention is a vital pillar of our constitution which aims to prevent the monarch from wielding power on the basis of political opinions by transferring substantive decisions to democratically elected ministers. We know that, in spite of the closely-related doctrine of political neutrality, the monarch cannot but hold political opinions – especially Charles, who as Prince of Wales made his views known on a range of issues, from relations with China to the Rwanda asylum policy. The Cardinal Convention, however, ensures that Charles now refrains from acting on or voicing these political opinions in public, by requiring that he follow the advice of his ministers. In other words, one view of the convention essentially reduces the monarch to a constitutional puppet whose strings are controlled by the government.
Charles’ speeches, therefore, must stay firmly within the boundaries of government policy and stick to the government script. And the government script on this issue is clear: there will be no reparations, and – because apologies are seen as opening the floodgates to reparations – there will also be no apology for the UK’s role in the slave trade. Therefore, whatever Charles may privately think, anything and everything he says publicly about historic wrongs must toe the line set by the government.
It is noteworthy, however, that the wording used by Charles in his speeches has repeatedly been more ambiguous than those used by the Government. For example, while Downing Street unequivocally stated in advance of the Commonwealth summit that ‘reparations are not on the agenda’, Charles’ comments about finding ‘creative ways to right inequalities that endure’, which echo his past remarks about finding ‘new ways to acknowledge our past’, are more open to interpretation. These differences in tone seem to suggest that Charles does not altogether share his Government’s reluctance to face up to some of the more shameful aspects of Britain’s past.
While he may lack the power to voice his opinions explicitly, what Charles does have in abundance is soft power. The UK is still one of the most important soft power states in world politics, and the monarchy is a key component of British soft power. During his time as Prince of Wales, Charles used this soft power to develop what Vernon Bogdanor calls a ‘public service monarchy’, in which he championed issues previously ignored in the democratic process, such as youth unemployment and the environment, and then stepped back from the more public aspects of activism once they entered the political arena. In Charles’ own words, ‘some might call it meddling but…I think you’d be criminally negligent not to try and do something to assist the problems and complications people are facing’ (Robert Hardman, Queen of Our Times: The Life of Elizabeth II (Macmillan, 2022), 444).
Of course, it is the descendants of those who were enslaved who have led the way in raising the issue of reparations up the political agenda. Through his speeches as King, though, Charles appears to be using his soft power to ‘meddle’ or ‘assist’ (depending on one’s view) with the issue – and with some degree of success: since he made his comments, there are already signs that the government dial on reparations may be turning. For example, following the King’s speech to Commonwealth leaders in Samoa, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer signed a document calling for ‘discussions on reparatory justice’ for the transatlantic slave trade, which stated that it was time for a ‘meaningful, truthful and respectful conversation’ about slavery. Furthermore, during his recent trip to Africa, Foreign Secretary David Lammy seemed to follow the King in his language used by stating that slavery reparations ‘need to be about the future’, which echoed Charles’ earlier remarks that, although we ‘cannot change the past’, we can ‘make the right choices in the future’. We do not and (due to the secrecy which shrouds the operation of the Cardinal Convention) cannot know whether the Palace and No 10 have discussed the issue jointly, but the fact that Charles is seemingly happy to be vocal on the UK’s approach to the reparations debate is interesting in and of itself, and perhaps raises questions about the primacy of the Cardinal Convention in the UK’s constitutional order today.
It would not be the first time that Charles’ exercise of his soft power as King appears to have encouraged government action on important social issues. An additional way in which he appears to be exerting influence is through his so-called ‘convening power’, which monarchs have used in times gone by during periods of national difficulty or controversy to try to seek general agreement around the issue in dispute. It’s a power that Charles’ great grandfather, King George V, used in 1914 on the issue of Irish Home Rule and in 1915 over the issue of conscription. In 1916 and 1931, when coalition governments were formed, he also held interparty conferences at Buckingham Palace to resolve differences. The power lay largely dormant during the reign of George VI and Elizabeth II, but Charles has made it known that he is prepared to revive this power in the interests of advancing his vision of a public service monarchy.
An example of this was seen earlier this year, when King Charles hosted a summit on knife crime at St James’s Palace in July 2024. He told Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer that he hoped to see progress on tackling knife crime, and that he would even be ‘watching and hoping for progress reports.’ Sir Keir assured the King that his Government would work closely with him on their ‘shared ambition’, and indeed just a couple of months later the Prime Minister pledged to ‘double down’ on knife crime and halve it over the next decade. A similar use of royal soft power to promote societal change can also be seen with the current heir to the throne. A long-time campaigner against homelessness, at the start of November 2023 Prince William’s documentary ‘We Can End Homelessness’ aired on ITV; just a week later, the government announced an additional £10 million to help tackle the ‘homelessness crisis’.
The royals have a great deal of soft power, both at home and abroad. As King, Charles appears to be working out how to continue to wield that soft power in similar sorts of ways to what he did as Prince of Wales (and as William now also appears to be doing) while staying within prescribed constitutional boundaries. While the Cardinal Convention may be limiting what he can now say publicly, it does not mean that Charles is remaining completely silent. Just as he wants to find ‘creative’ ways of righting past wrongs, so too it appears he wants to find creative ways of continuing to use his soft power to pursue issues close to his heart – and in so doing, advance his long-standing vision of a public service monarchy.
I am grateful to Dr Tom Webb, Professor Michael Doherty and the editors of the UKCLA Blog for their helpful and incisive comments on an earlier draft. Any errors or omissions are my own.
Francesca Jackson is a PhD student at Lancaster University.
(Suggested citation: F. Jackson, ‘What Does the Debate Over Slavery Reparations Tell Us About the Cardinal Convention, Soft Power and the Public Service Monarchy?’, U.K. Const. L. Blog (21st November 2024) (available at https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/))