It's twenty years since Princess Diana's car crash induced a section of the UK's public to let it all out in a well-publicised display of unrestrained public grief. This surprised a lot of people who thought that we were all far too restrained and stoical to behave like that.
Twenty years on, the Brexit car crash has triggered a similar emotional ketchup burst, with the crucial difference that what's now being unbottled isn't tears, but an incoherent howl of rage. This furious screed against "the EU side – and their treacherous Remoaner allies", by Yorkshire Post hack Bill Carmichael, is fairly typical.
Any idea of the UK as a place of calm emotional understatement has gone out of the window again, now that the newspapers, which once pronounced us united in collective sorrow, are hurling frothing accusations of treason around like confetti.
Treason is a serious charge, so should I start being worried?
Technically, probably not - I'm not currently planning to murder, conspire against, or declare war on, the monarch or her family, seduce Prince Phillip, the Duchess of Cornwall, or Princess Kate, "injure or alarm the sovereign", kill specific VIPs like "the chancellor" (of the exchequer?), or a high court judge.
It's a pretty solid defence in actual law, but I don't know if it would stand up in the revolutionary court where the Brexiteers are already busy pronouncing the judgement of history on the designated enemies of the people.
What I do know is that I'm technically on safer ground than those Sun readers who declared in a recent poll that that they don't want our fuddy-duddy royal heir Prince Charles to succeed to the throne and would like him to step aside for his media-friendly son Prince Will, with his charming wife and photogenic sprogs. The Treason Act 1702 specifically says that it's treason :
Update
Just to drive the point home, this is where we end up when the idea of treason stops being a joke about the obscure offences the Queen might send you to the Tower of London for and starts being thrown about as a serious accusation.
Twenty years on, the Brexit car crash has triggered a similar emotional ketchup burst, with the crucial difference that what's now being unbottled isn't tears, but an incoherent howl of rage. This furious screed against "the EU side – and their treacherous Remoaner allies", by Yorkshire Post hack Bill Carmichael, is fairly typical.
Any idea of the UK as a place of calm emotional understatement has gone out of the window again, now that the newspapers, which once pronounced us united in collective sorrow, are hurling frothing accusations of treason around like confetti.
Treason is a serious charge, so should I start being worried?
Technically, probably not - I'm not currently planning to murder, conspire against, or declare war on, the monarch or her family, seduce Prince Phillip, the Duchess of Cornwall, or Princess Kate, "injure or alarm the sovereign", kill specific VIPs like "the chancellor" (of the exchequer?), or a high court judge.
It's a pretty solid defence in actual law, but I don't know if it would stand up in the revolutionary court where the Brexiteers are already busy pronouncing the judgement of history on the designated enemies of the people.
What I do know is that I'm technically on safer ground than those Sun readers who declared in a recent poll that that they don't want our fuddy-duddy royal heir Prince Charles to succeed to the throne and would like him to step aside for his media-friendly son Prince Will, with his charming wife and photogenic sprogs. The Treason Act 1702 specifically says that it's treason :
...if any person or persons ... shall endeavour to deprive or hinder any person who shall be the next in succession to the crown ... from succeeding after the decease of her Majesty (whom God long preserve) to the imperial crown of this realm and the dominions and territories thereunto belonging.Here's a simple propsal - instead of trying to shoot the messenger whenever their pet project seem to be running into trouble, why don't the Brexiteers turn their large-bore rage cannon against this peculiar succession narrative being propagated by the foreign-owned Murdoch press and their treacherous Wilhelmine allies? Just a thought.
Update
Just to drive the point home, this is where we end up when the idea of treason stops being a joke about the obscure offences the Queen might send you to the Tower of London for and starts being thrown about as a serious accusation.
Five serving members of the British army have been arrested on suspicion of being members of the recently banned neo-Nazi group National Action...Nice company Bill Carmichael's keeping.
... The slogan on its former website was: “Death to traitors, freedom for Britain,” which was the only statement given in court by [Jo] Cox’s murderer, Thomas Mair.
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