THORNS IN THE WOOLSACK

The Glennish Parliamentary Experience Through the Years

Anyone who has paid even the slightest attention to the Sconnish Parliament will see and understand that it takes its cues from the Parliament of the United Kingdom. And while the Parliament of the Kingdom of Scone may not exactly be the rivet-counter’s replica of Westminster, there is no doubt as to the template our Parliament follows.

Our Parliament’s design goes back to the year 2003 when the first Parliament of the Kingdom of Hanover was opened. The habit of doing things the way we do them around here goes back even earlier than that, however. 

The earliest Hanoverian Parliament took many of its cues, as it happens, from the experience of lawmaking in a now defunct simulation-based polity called “The Kingdom of Morovia,” of which the very earliest Hanoverians had all been participants.

The essence of the Morovian legislative experience was lively, informed debate amongst the members of the kingdom’s legislative assembly, which wasn’t called “Parliament”, but which was nevertheless reminiscent of Westminster in certain ways.

To say that the sessions of the Morovian Royal Assembly were lively may be a bit of an understatement. Sconnish parliamentarians of today would likely be astonished at just how agile debates were in the Morovian legislature. 

Some of you might, in fact, be a bit shocked were you to go back in time to experience those debates. Strong opinions were stridently (though intelligently) argued, and few punches were pulled. Feet were held to the flames and accountability was demanded all around.

Members always gave as good as they got, making the experience wildly entertaining and at the same time rather educational. Ad hominem attacks, while hardly commendable, were nevertheless robustly deployed at times between legislators who knew each other well, and often with a certain clever and comedic panache.

It was not, mind you, the sort of crass, witless stuff one encounters altogether too frequently from the obtuse minds of the age of alternative facts. These debates were not the adolescent temper tantrums which pass for political discourse nowadays. Well...once in a blue moon, things might have gotten out of hand, but as the exception rather than the rule.

What certainly was not to be found was a silent majority. Those present and available participated and had no qualms about speaking their minds. Morovia wasn’t a community which robotically exclaimed “God save the King!” at the drop of a hat. The people were engaged, they knew what they meant, and they said what was on their minds without fear or hesitation.

When the Parliament of the Kingdom of Hanover, composed largely of former Morovians, was opened in 2003, therefore, the habit of informed energetic debates continued, although the legislative craft was perhaps gentrified a bit by the Hanoverian adoption of more of the ceremonial traditions of Westminster, including the tradition of the state opening of Parliament.

Our parliamentary experience was birthed, in fact, by a speech from the throne. In those days, everything was done by way of discussion boards. We didn’t have Facebook back then, and there were no video presentations via YouTube. It was all text.

Although that must sound rather dull and one-dimensional, trust me when I say that these miniature monarchies were, somehow, infinitely livelier back then than they are today.

While politics were quite vigorous, the ceremonial aspect of these kingdoms, however, could seem rather flat when presented on a message board. That all began to change, however, in Hanover's case, at any rate, during the reign of the late King Alexander, Hanover’s third king. 

Alexander broke away from the practice of the monarch opening Parliament simply by posting the text of a speech to a discussion forum, instead preferring to create video presentations of his throne speeches, posted to YouTube.

The term “Throne Speech”, incidentally, was the term commonly given to the monarch’s address to Parliament from earliest times. Whereas in the UK the term “Queen’s Speech” is preferred, the Canadian habit of saying “Throne Speech” became the Hanoverian (and later Sconnish) habit as well. This reflected the fact that Hanover’s designer and first king lived in a bordertown and had much more experience of Canada’s version of monarchy and government than of Britain’s. The Hano-Glennanic atmosphere through the years, therefore, would always have a distinct whiff of maple syrup about it.

In addition to his video presentations, King Alexander went a step further, experimenting with “Second Life” (an early metaverse), opening Parliament, and interacting with the public in other ways using that medium. Alexander’s “Second Life” experiment had mixed reviews. While it tended to be well-received by simulationists and micronationalists, those of us who participated as Anglophiles, history buffs, or otherwise, tended to turn our noses up at it.  Ultimately, it wouldn’t survive for more than a couple of years.

With Alexander’s departure from the throne in 2009, Parliament became a very contentious place once more thanks to the Hanoverian Whig party and its tendency to find itself at odds with the monarchy of King James II. That clash would have a monumental impact on the community, at once decimating it and laying the foundations for its rebirth.

“It must be remembered that the function of Parliament is not only to pass good laws, but to stop bad laws.” -Winston Churchill

After the great clash between the Crown and the Whigs left Hanover largely depopulated, Hanover and the Sconeland project were merged in the quiet laboratory which resulted, to form the Glennish Kingdoms of Hanover and Sconeland. As a result of this merger of small monarchy projects, the Glennish Parliament at Wealdstonbury would supersede the Hanoverian Parliament at Huntington.

King James II lacked King Alexander’s creative talent and willingness to put himself on public display, however, and as a result, the parliaments of his reign were opened via text just as in earlier times. Parliamentary pageantry took a bit of a dip, therefore, between the age of Alexander and the age of Alexandra.

Because of the intrigues of the Whig party, however, parliamentary activity was quite robust during the first act of James II’s reign, so much so, in fact, that it was reminiscent of those earliest Hanoverian parliaments. 

It is quite a paradox, isn’t it, that the sort of wild controversy which has the capacity to destroy a miniature kingdom also makes it livelier than ever just before it careens off the rails, entirely.

Such was the case, though. There was not a dull moment in Hanoverian parliamentary politics while the Whigs were around, plotting their plots and scheming their schemes. Again, though, the schemes of the Whig party, however incessant and however self-serving they may arguably have been, were intelligently managed by witty citizens who were politically astute, conversant in the ways of Westminster, and persuaded of the value of our traditions.

If the Whigs were up to no good at times (and they were), they were up to no good within the bounds (more or less) of the community’s adopted template. They might have attempted to bend it here and there but, to their credit, they never attempted to fundamentally jettison the template out of a childish frustration with their inability to get their way within the template. 

In truth, they did get their way for years. But when they were on the defensive they fought back intelligently, preferring to make use of the weapons which the Westminster system provided them rather than reach out-of-bounds for alien ordnance.

Thanks to the Whigs and their gameful insistence upon misbehaving intelligently within the parameters of the Westminster template, the level of oratory in Parliament was unsurpassed during this period. 

Motions and seconds for a humble address in reply to the throne speech, for example, were lengthy, fascinating, witty exchanges, just as they are at Westminster, itself. Since those times, motions and seconds for the humble address, whether in the Glennish Parliament, the Sconnish Parliament, or the latter-day Hanoverian Parliament have tended to be rote, limited to simple motions and seconds, minus the interesting speechmaking that ought to accompany them. There is a loss of quality that is still felt by those of us who remember those days.

The phenomenon which ever seemed to elude Parliament however, was the notion of the “loyal opposition”. It is a curiosity in the Glennish experience that the opposition never seemed to remain loyal for too long. In the end, “His Majesty’s loyal opposition” would usually manage to somehow turn itself into a movement to overthrow or somehow injure the reigning monarch.

Too much fascination with the monarch was usually to blame, or perhaps a more frank assessment would blame a misguided ambition on the part of certain individuals to one day become the monarch. That has been a problem which has plagued the Hano-Glennannic experience on and off for the better part of two decades. 

There have always been those who harbored ambitions to wear a crown (but who hadn’t the wherewithal to found their own monarchies), and all their efforts and movements, one could see in hindsight, were calculated toward that goal.

We attempted to rectify that once and for all when we resolved upon the “Alexandra solution”, whereby a non-active Glennish subject (Queen Alexandra) was elevated to the throne and was meant to reign forever, essentially, with all the powers of the crown wielded by the privy council and the government of the day (just as they should have been in a modern constitutional monarchy).

In the end, however, personality-oriented micronationalists who couldn’t abide the thought of a monarch who was not, herself, an active participant won out over constitutionalists who saw no need for an actual personality to be sitting upon the throne, feeling that that individual’s talents were wasted in the regal exercise of doing and saying nothing.

Ironically once again, though, parliamentary activity blossomed at that time when the monarchy was so drastically minimized, not only in terms of politics but of pageantry as well. With a defacto regent performing the ceremonial duties of Glennain’s invisible queen as needed, throne speeches became video presentations once more. At the same time, interesting debates once again began to materialize on the “floor”, none more interesting, perhaps, than the debates over the dissolution of the GK during the final session of the short-lived Glennish Parliament.

“Wherever there is a parliament there must of necessity be an opposition” -John Wagstaff

It takes two to tango, however, and when the mindset of a community is to go along to get along at all costs, the very notion of an organized opposition to the elected political leadership begins to evaporate, debate vanishes, and parliamentary oratory ultimately becomes extinct. 

When everyone is on the same side, there is no need, of course, to sharpen one’s powers of persuasion through the acquisition of knowledge on a particular subject and the cultivation of oratorical skill. Debate is replaced by curt outbursts at most, or by emojis, by “likes”, by memes, and, oh yes, by the obligatory postings of the phrase “God save the King!” in response to anything and everything.

Perhaps on account of too much experience with disloyal (as opposed to loyal) opposition, the phenomenon of parliamentary opposition did begin to fade away in the Hano-Glennannic experience. Today it seems almost taboo to even entertain the notion of an organized opposition. There are no political parties, anymore. Those, too, went the way of the dinosaurs in these parts.

I think part of the problem is that we have, perhaps, forgotten in these times what political opposition actually means. In this disappointing and dumbed-down age of “my opponent is my enemy” (or worse still “he who disagrees with me is my persecutor”), it may be difficult for some to conceive of what it means to form a “loyal opposition” to His Majesty’s government (or to any other government).

Parliamentary opposition can, indeed, be loyal, however, and when it is, it not only offers an assurance of the maintenance of the checks and balances of a healthy and vital democracy, but it also drives the very dynamic which imparts livelihood, itself, to these little parliamentary monarchies we create. In the absence of a loyal opposition to the political leadership of the day, these kingdoms tend to become a bit dull, a bit flat, and some may even say that they become a bit pointless. And that’s if we are lucky.

The darker side of things is that when these little realms of ours don’t become dull for the lack of political opposition, they become weird, instead, with opposition tending to focus itself upon the apolitical institutions of the kingdom, such as the monarchy and the royal family. Or otherwise it may happen that personalities begin to draw swords against one another over common and venal things. 

Either way, you may well end up witnessing a burst of activity, although it will not, of course, be the sort of healthy, intelligent, and satisfying political activity one might hope to find in such a community. Instead, one will find eccentric activity, the community, as a whole, descending into some level of peculiarity and aberration.

The Glennish hope has always been for something much better, of course, than either boredom or derangement. What the span of Glennish history shows is that our parliamentary tradition has had its ups and downs, its highs and its lows, its moments of madness and its moments of stunning clarity. The parliaments of Hanover, of Glennain, and of Scone have had as their constant model, however, the “Mother of Parliaments” at Westminster. Westminster, too, has had her ups and her downs, and her moments of darkness and shame are juxtaposed against her moments of brilliance and greatness.

Like the peoples of nations, the populations of our little kingdoms always do themselves a favor when, during those moments where a glance into the rear-view mirror shows evidence of some of the trunks having fallen off the luggage rack some miles back, they turn around to look for what they might have left behind. 

If it is just useless baggage, best to just leave it behind, of course. When we return to where we have been to find chests containing lost treasures, however, it only takes a small effort to collect them back up and to bring them with us for the remainder of the journey.

Robert Louis Stevenson once pithily remarked, “We all know what Parliament is and we are all ashamed of it.” I’m sure that sentiment has often enough rung true in these parts as well as in the UK. Bagehot called Parliament “nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people,” and the Hano-Glennannic communities have certainly seen evidence of the validity of that complaint at various times in the course of two decades.

When, however, we find within ourselves the capacity for communal introspection and take stock of where we are, we somehow manage to return to our roots, examining afresh the reasons we got together to establish these little kingdoms in the first place. And when we recall the reasons for starting out along the journey to begin with, it isn’t long before we manage to find our way forward once again.

Parliament works best with every heart and voice completely engaged in the legislative effort. As Glennishmen we have, and always have had at our disposal, this unique parliamentary opportunity to cooperate with our peers for the accomplishment of interesting objectives as we, together, continue the task of shaping a small kingdom. 

The possibilities are endless and the experience of the Glennish kingdoms has given all of us many opportunities to create something of interest for posterity. If we miss an opportunity during one session however, there is always another chance to shine during the next one.

Other measures may be laid before you.

RUMINATIONS FROM THE GLEN  •  2022