PRINCE William and Kate Middleton have been in Scotland for the past week engaged in official royal duties in their capacities as the Duke and Duchess of Strathearn, frequently emphasising how special and unique Scotland is to them both.
So far so good - as much as this is what royals are meant to do in modern times. William wanted to stress the importance of Scotland to him, the importance of Balmoral, and of course the memories that he and Kate have of meeting and falling in love in St Andrews.
This is mostly uncontroversial. But then William entered the political domain, meeting First Minister Nicola Sturgeon; LibDem MP for Orkney and Shetland Alistair Carmichael - and then former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown at Holyrood Palace, the intention, according to Kensington Palace, being "listening to community views on the issue of independence".
READ MORE: Prince William and Kate hold secret talks with Gordon Brown on independence
The heir to the heir to the throne has a right – some would argue a constitutional duty – to find out first-hand about the state of play in the independence debate. Gordon Brown may not have any formal position or power, but he is the most prominent pro-Union Labour voice in Scotland and arguably the UK, and not unconnected to this is his role in establishing and leading the organisation Our Scottish Future.
Yet this is where it begins to get murky, with a line being crossed and controversy created by the royal family. Channel 4 News on Thursday evening broadcast news of William and Brown meeting in Holyrood Palace, and then informed us that they had been asked not to show footage of Brown on the basis of "privacy grounds"; with the royal line then changing to say that Channel 4 had been "trespassing" while filming from a public street.
Let us leave aside that the Palace of Holyroodhouse – the official residence of the monarch in Scotland – and the issue of public rights over such buildings. Or that this event was first presented by the royals as a private meeting when it was actually an official one and retrospectively added to the royal court circular. Or that Channel 4 clearly have a right to be filming on a street in Edinburgh.
The bigger questions are huge here, beyond Kensington Palace trying to keep images of this meeting from public consumption; or their attempts at kowtowing Channel 4 News and the unanswered question – for now – of why the news programme complied with the palace’s request.
The even more serious questions are about the royal family’s intentions with regard to Scotland, the media and democracy. Are William and the royal family really planning to "love bomb" Scotland and tell us how important we are to them? And will this soft operation persuade us that the politics of symbolism and feudal relics matter more than real power and accountability?
The royals are meant to be non-political – which is part mythology, part deception – given they are part of the British state, constitution and system of government. What it has been taken to mean in modern times is that the royals tend to speak cautiously and in code in public pronouncements. The Queen’s previous intervention in the 2014 indyref was carefully calibrated by the Palace and Downing Street; whereas in 1977 in the midst of the devolution debate she was much more overt in stressing "the benefits which the Union has conferred".
If their campaign became too overt, public and partisan, it would face the danger of becoming counter-productive – on the terrain of independence, and also, critically for the royals, on the role and maintenance of the monarchy. It would be ill-advised of the House of Windsor to preside over potentially contributing to the "loss" of Scotland as part of the UK. But it would be even more painful for them if they jeopardised Scotland’s continuation as part of the monarchical union – the union of 1603 which predates and is distinctive from 1707.
Add to this the inept media management and attempted manipulation by the royal family – which Channel 4 News complied with while broadcasting the details of – which contributes to the perception that the royal bureaucracy has made a series of miscalculations about how it understands its role in a modern society, how it perceives democracy, and its relations with the media.
READ MORE: Royal staff 'accused crew filming Gordon Brown of trespassing on public street'
Kensington Palace and the king in waiting after Charles have been found attempting to restrict the public’s right to know about its activities in the world of politics: an undemocratic set of actions by an undemocratic institution which hinders and diminishes the public sphere and debate. They had better learn quickly from this and not venture again into such potentially dangerous waters for them and the future of the Union.
We do need some explanations from Kensington Palace as well as Channel 4 News. This unhappy exercise is a painful reminder of the profound truth about power that the British establishment tries to hide from voters.
This is not only that the principle and practice of monarchical power is an anachronism to the democratic principle. But that for all the talk of democracy, the UK is not a fully-fledged political democracy where the public are sovereign. We cannot be a proper democracy when the royal family is an integral part of the British state and political system, and we the public have no fundamental rights at all, but hold all our freedoms conditionally at the whim of each government of the day. One day the UK elites will have to face the issue of not being a fully-fledged democracy or modern country, but this is a debate they will put off as long as they can.
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