The ‘diplomat monarch’: will King’s coronation revitalise British soft power?

The coronation is an event of huge significance for Britain’s history and economy, but also raises questions about whether the new monarch will bolster the nation’s soft power on the global stage.

Previous royals used the “pomp and pageantry” to elevate themselves “into the sphere of the sacred”, emphasise their status as national symbols and celebrate imperalism, wrote historian Alice Hunt for HistoryExtra.

This weekend’s coronation of King Charles III, said Historic England chair Laurie Magnus, “will demonstrate once again the extraordinary resonance and interest which the British monarchy can command across the world”. Yet despite “this great vindication of the soft power of both monarchy and heritage”, he wrote for PoliticsHome, “there continues to be a refusal in some quarters” to accept them as a valuable asset.

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What did the papers say?

The long list of foreign royals and EU leaders attending Saturday’s coronation “signifies a new era of the soft power of the British monarchy”, said the i news site’s policy editor Jane Merrick.

That Michelle O’Neill, vice-president of Sinn Fein and first minister designate of Northern Ireland, has accepted an invitation is “a hugely significant step” that testifies to the King’s role as a diplomat. A “friend of the monarch” told Merrick that Charles’s recent visit to Germany “healed a lot of wounds” following years of strained UK-EU relations in the wake of the 2016 referendum.

The visit showed that Charles is “a huge asset”, the insider added.

The King’s passion for environmentalism and friendship with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. could also help Rishi Sunak achieve his diplomatic goals, according to Merrick.

But Britain appears to have less influence now than it did during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, said HuffPost UK. The death of the popular monarch, along with Brexit and domestic political turmoil, has “affected the UK’s role on the world stage”, raising questions about how the King will navigate “the challenges ahead”.

Charles “is inevitably going to be a much smaller figure on the world stage”, David Edgerton, a professor of history at King’s College London, told the site.

That may not be a bad thing, argued Adam Ramsay, author of 42 Reasons to Support Scottish Independence, on openDemocracy. Such soft power can “bend how millions see the world”, but not necessarily for the better. Ruling classes use ritual to “manage our moods, to encourage us to accept social hierarchies”, but genetically inherited wealth and power is “anti-egalitarian” and has “nasty racial implications”.

The coronation is ultimately a celebration of British ruling classes and might, “a glorification of our failing system”, wrote Ramsay.

What next?

The coronation “could help give an instant lift to sentiment and spending” in an economy “beset by strikes, stubbornly high inflation and falling living standards”, said CNN Business’s London-based analyst Hanna Ziady.

Retail sales are likely to rise, with a wealth of commemorative knicknacks on offer, and supermarkets expect high spending for the thousands of street parties planned to celebrate Charles’s crowning.

The coronation will also “deliver a crucial boost to the UK hospitality sector”, wrote Ziady. A recent VisitEngland survey found that millions of Brits were planning domestic breaks during the upcoming bank holiday, injecting an estimated £1.2bn into the economy.

However, the “loss of output” resulting from the extra public holiday on Monday “will diminish the overall benefit to the economy”, added Ziady. The bank holiday for the late Queen’s funeral in September 2022 contributed to a 0.6% decrease in UK GDP, according to the Office for National Statistics.

That the coronation is also taking place amid an “unprecendented constitutional questioning” in the UK could make this “an important propaganda moment for unionists”, said Ramsay on openDemocracy.

The purpose of rituals like the coronation is to foster “a sense of national ‘us’” and to associate monarchy with enjoyable, shared conviviality. Our acceptance of this narrative is also “a key reason why England’s Left keeps losing”, he argued. By fusing “hereditary power” with “friendliness”, our hearts will be “bumped to the right”.

Growing Republican sentiment at home and in the Commonwealth “could pose a challenge” to the King, said HuffPost, and “contribute to the perception that the monarchy is losing relevance”.

And questions about how the monarchy should confront its historic role in colonialism and the slave trade increase the pressure on Charles to wow the world.