2 March 2023
Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat…
A Leyen can look at a king.
By Neil Tidmarsh
Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?
I’ve been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you do there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.
Ok, let’s get that modernised. (If Puffin Books can do it to Roald Dahl, then Shaw Sheet can do it to a nursery rhyme.) It wasn’t a queen but a king. It wasn’t a pussy cat but a (von der) lion. There were no chairs involved this time – much to the relief of the President of the EU Commission, no doubt, after that absurd and humiliating game of musical chairs which her rival EU President forced her to play in Turkey a year or two ago (see Sofa Gate – three presidents, two chairs, Shaw Sheet issue 275, 15 April 2021). And she didn’t frighten a little mouse – but she did put the wind up Jacob Mouse-Rogg and other sleekit beasties who reacted wi’ bickerin brattle.
Yes, poor Ursula von der Leyen, through no fault of her own, has found herself in yet another unedifying diplomatic / constitutional / political spat. No sooner was the tea-pot warmed at Windsor Castle than a number of Tory Brexiteers and DUP politicians cried “foul!”. Jacob Rees-Mogg declared himself surprised, saying “it is constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy”. Arlene Foster said that she “could not quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one.”
But, Jacob and Arlene, hang on a minute. The King wasn’t giving Ms von der Leyen tea before or during the negotiations between our elected government and the EU; he was giving her tea after the negotiations had concluded. So he can’t have been ‘involved’ in them. Rishi Sunak had already done his bit – negotiating and signing off the deal – so now the King was doing his bit – helping to ensure that our relationship with our most important neighbour will be a warm and friendly one from now on (and heaven knows we can do with all the help we can get in that area).
Were Jacob and Arlene objecting to the King sharing ‘char and wad’ with the President of the EU Commission before the deal had passed through parliament? Are they suggesting that the King extending the hand of friendship to the EU – and the branding of the deal as ‘the Windsor Framework’ – is an attempt to twist the arms of those MPs who might want to oppose it? Would that qualify as unconstitutional interference? Well, it might do, if that was the intention. But are those toughest of parliamentarians – hard-core Tory Brexiteers and northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionists, the least naïve, gullible or impressionable of the lot – likely to be softened by the vaguest of vague Windsor touches? Not likely. More to the point, is it likely that anyone in Whitehall or Buckingham Palace or Brussels would think that they might be? Again, highly unlikely.
A further objection was raised; Ursula von der Leyen shouldn’t have been invited to Windsor Castle because she isn’t a head of state or a royal or an elected leader but merely an appointed functionary (albeit the top one) of the EU, which isn’t a sovereign state anyway. It was unjustified, as far as protocol is concerned.
There is some matter in this objection. It’s true that the status of the President of the EU Commission is somewhat vague and challenged, even (or especially) within the EU itself. This, after all, is what appears to have been behind that unfortunate Sofa Gate in Turkey; the most likely theory about that undignified episode is that it was the result of infighting within the EU, the President of the European Council trying to cut the President of the EU Commission down to size. This is apparently an on-going power-struggle; the position of President of the Council was created in 2009 with the intention of eventually replacing the President of the Commission when it came to representing the EU on the world stage, but that hasn’t happened yet. Jean-Claude Juncker, the previous President of the Commission, even suggested, on his departure, that the two presidencies should be merged.
But that’s simply an internal matter for the EU. As far as the rest of the world (including the UK) is concerned, Ursula von der Leyen is the acknowledged face and voice of the EU, the body which represents our nearest and most important neighbours. So of course she should be afforded all the respect and friendship this country can offer – including an audience with the King. To quibble about the protocol of it is to be pedantic and even offensive.
The most damning and potentially damaging aspect of this affair isn’t the objections, however, but the claims and counter-claims which they triggered. As soon as the controversy blew up, Downing Street denied all responsibility for the tea party at Windsor Castle; government sources claimed that the audience had been requested by Brussels. But Brussels promptly denied this, insisting that the audience had been offered by the government. Meanwhile, as reported in The Times, “Buckingham Palace wanted nothing to do with the dispute, making it very clear that the King had not instigated the meeting because he always acted on ‘government’s advice’ and would never extend such a political invitation independently”.
So the buck has gone full circle and has stopped exactly where it started – in Downing Street. This article has tried to explain why government shouldn’t have felt the need to pass the buck in the first place. But it seems that the seat of government hides any number of wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beasties and that the feline Ursula von der Leyen’s audience with royalty has sent them all scampering about fearfully (oh what a panic’s in thy breastie!). Larry the Cabinet Office cat must have looked on with admiration.
