German media publishes attack on the Queen for not stopping BREXIT

German media publishes attack on the Queen during her funeral for not stopping BREXIT

• Der Spiegel journalist’s opinion piece claims she could have acted on Brexit 
• Nikolaus Blome admits he is not ‘familiar’ with royals or her apolitical role 
• She was a symbol of impartiality who gave private counsel to Prime Ministers 
• The Queen’s funeral: All the latest Royal Family news and coverage

German media has published an attack on the Queen on the day of her funeral when both the British country is experiencing profound loss and the royal family are losing their most cherished loved one. 

A journalist at Der Spiegel has written an opinion piece claiming that Her Majesty – who did not express her opinions on whether the UK should leave the European Union or on any other political matter – could have stopped Brexit. 

Nikolaus Blome, who admits he is not ‘familiar’ with the Royal Family, is not a  monarchist and is ‘puzzled’ why people saw her role as ‘apolitical’, said: ‘I bet she could have secured a majority for “remain.” 

‘In perhaps the most important moment of her tenure, she could have made the difference. But she didn’t want to. She did not reach for the cloak of history, but remained petrified in silence.’ 

The piece was published, at 12.11pm today, German time, when her funeral in Westminster Abbey was being attended by 2,000 royals, heads of state and 200 members of the public.

Last week, the New York Times also faced waves of backlash over its coverage of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, with readers now threatening to end their $17-a-month subscriptions.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II (L) with the then Prince Charles, Prince of Wales (R, now King Charles III) in 2019 after delivering the Queen’s Speech at the State Opening of Parliament in the Houses of Parliament in October of that year before the UK had officially left the European Union 

German journalist Nikolaus Blome has claimed in newspaper Der Spiegel that the Queen failed to prevent Brexit 

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth walks through the Royal Gallery during the State Opening of Parliament in central London in June 2017

The Queen has been laid to rest this afternoon and will soon be with her beloved husband Prince Philip after her crown, orb and sceptre were removed from her coffin so she could descend into her grave ‘as a simple Christian soul’.

Her Majesty returned home to Windsor to be reunited for eternity with her husband, father, mother and sister in the crypt at St George’s Chapel to the lament of a lone piper as her 70-year reign came to an end.

The Royal Family stood at the end of the short committal service as the Queen was slowly lowered down into the royal vault while the Dean of Windsor said: ‘Go forth upon thy journey from this world, O Christian soul.’ He also offered the commendation – a prayer in which the deceased is entrusted to God’s mercy.

Moments earlier the Dean had placed her crown and other crown jewels on the altar before the Lord Chamberlain snapped his staff of office – signifying the severing of the Queen from her public service in death. The Garter King of Arms then pronounced the styles and titles of the Queen as all power moved to her son, the King, as the coffin was lowered.

Charles looked deeply moved as his mother’s remains descended on a day where he appeared tearful on a number of occasions as he said goodbye to his mother, the 12th British monarch to be buried at Windsor.

Her Majesty’s long journey to her final resting place – and to be reunited with the Duke of Edinburgh – began in Balmoral on the day of her death 11 days ago and will end with her private interment next to her ‘strength and stay Philip’ this evening where the King will scatter earth on his mother’s coffin at 7.30pm at a private family service.

Britain’s longest reigning monarch had been carried into the historic church followed by Charles III, her children and grandchildren including Prince Harry and Prince William. St George’s was where the Queen had sat alone during the funeral of Prince Philip last year – in one of the most poignant images of the pandemic – and it was where she had loved to worship for so many years when at Windsor.

It came on a day where up to 2million people crowded into central London to see the coffin after the state funeral at Westminster Abbey attended by 2,000 royals, heads of state and 200 members of the public. Mourners covered the royal hearse in flowers as it travelled too Windsor this afternoon after the queen was carried past Buckingham Palace for a final time.

This morning the last of the 400,000 people to see the Queen lying in state paid their respects before she was carried on a gun carriage from Westminster Hall to the church where she married and was crowned.

 

Mr Blome also accuses the Queen of being almost ‘grotesque’ by wearing blue and gold – the EU flag – to open parliament in 2017, a year after the people of the UK decided to leave the Bloc. Blue has also long to be said to have been Her Majesty’s favourite colour.

He adds that her decision not to speak publicly on one of the most controversial and divisive issues, when the Monarch is seen as a symbol for everyone to embrace in the UK, will cause young people to ‘turn their backs on the Crown. 

‘According to a survey, only 33 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds support the monarchy. Does that surprise anyone? And is that also an inheritance of Elizabeth?’ Mr Blome said. 

He thinks she could have made a speech or guided Prime Ministers, who seek counsel from the Monarch but it is often seen as a matter of protocol that they do not speak publicly about their meetings with the Queen.   

The New York Times also reported that the British taxpayers would front the bill of the funeral costs, which will reportedly cost more than $6 million.

The story labeled it a ‘hefty price tag’ amid rampant inflation in Britain, but readers were unamused by the article as they slammed the tone of the reporting regarding the late monarch of 70 years.

‘Your newspaper has been unfailingly full of snark, on a story that doesn’t belong to you. Disappointing,’ wrote Twitter user Dorren Wilson.

‘I subscribed for five years, but you’ve confirmed the wisdom of letting it go.

Wilson was not alone in her criticism of the NYT, fellow Twitter user Robert Corbishley said the cost to taxpayers would still be less than the $7 paper.

‘Less per person than the price of one copy of your “newspaper,”’ he wrote.

Tom Harwood, another Twitter user, noted that the British government was already committing billions of pounds to tackle inflation.

‘The Queen’s funeral [cost will] be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of that,’ Harwood wrote. ‘You absolute ghouls.’

Another Twitter user with the handle Siamese5 wrote also condemned the Times, writing: ‘Show some respect to the Woman who gave her Life to Service.’

Dave Birty, another Twitter user, sarcastically applauded the Times for its reporting, tweeting: ‘Wow, incredible news, I imagined the Queen’s funeral was going to be paid for by American taxpayers.’

Twitter user Steve Chadwick echoed many online that said they were glad to help pay for the Queen’s funeral.

‘It’s been 70 years since the last one – I think we’ve got this,’ he wrote.

The backlash came a week after the paper garnered criticism over an article by Maya Jasanoff, a history professor at Harvard University, where she focuses on the history of Britain and the British Empire and said it was wrong to ‘romanticize’ the crown.

‘The queen helped obscure a bloody history of decolonization whose proportions and legacies have yet to be adequately acknowledged,’ she wrote as other reporters around the nation joined suit to criticize the late Queen’s reign.

New York Magazine’s The Cut has been seen as the biggest offender over its coverage of the Queen’s death and the British Royal Family. 

The liberal magazine that published an in-depth interview with the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, in August, has recently targeted King Charles in a new piece that was published online. 

The latest story is titled: ‘King Charles’s Reign of Fussiness Has Begun,’ which came days before the Queen’s funeral. 

The New York Times received more backlash over its reporting of the Queen’s funeral as it noted that it would be paid for by British taxpayers 

Readers took to social media to condemn the tone of the reporting just days after Queen Elizabeth’s death, marking an end to her 70 year reign 

The article points to reports that Charles went through two ‘tantrums’ in the days after his mother’s death. One was the report that he stormed out of a signing ceremony in Northern Ireland when a pen leaked on him, another was when he ‘trussed up in tails and hissing at palace aides who failed to move a pen tray off his table with due haste.’ 

The king apparently gestured to aides to help him to make some room on a cluttered desk. 

The Cut goes on to mention a report from the Guardian in which it was alleged that Charles chose to tell close to 100 employees that he was letting them go as he prepares to move into Buckingham Palace during a memorial service for his mother. 

A source told the newspaper: ‘Everybody is absolutely livid, including private secretaries and the senior team.’

New York Magazine’s The Cut, which published an in-depth interview with Meghan Merkle, has been seen as the biggest offender over its coverage of the Queen’s death 

The article concludes by one of Meghan Markle’s many unproven allegations against Charles, that he was racist about her son, Archie, and accuses him of ‘mundane cruelty’ to his wife, Princess Diana. 

Infamously, shortly after the Queen’s death, The Cut published an article titled: ‘I Won’t Cry Over the Death of a Violent Oppressor.’ 

The piece was an interview Carnegie Mellon linguistics professor Uju Anya who tweeted on Thursday: ‘I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.’

Anya told the Cut that the Queen was a ‘representative of the cult of white womanhood.’ 

Uju Anya, a black applied-linguistics professor at the Pittsburgh university, said on Friday: ‘Queen Elizabeth was representative of the cult of white womanhood’

Shortly before the Queen’s passing was announced on Thursday, Anya tweeted that she hoped her death would be ‘excruciating’

Anya, an applied-linguistics professor at the Pittsburgh university, is the daughter of a mother from Trinidad and a father from Nigeria. 

She told NBC News that she is ‘a child of colonization,’ and that her perspective was shaped by Britain’s role in the Nigerian Civil War.

‘My earliest memories were from living in a war-torn area, and rebuilding still hasn’t finished even today,’ she said.

She defended her remarks opposing the monarchy and added that the Queen was not exempt from the decisions made by the British government ‘she supervised.’

‘Queen Elizabeth was representative of the cult of white womanhood,’ Anya said.

‘There’s this notion that she was this little-old-lady grandma type with her little hats and her purses and little dogs and everything, as if she inhabited this place or this space in the imaginary, this public image, as someone who didn’t have a hand in the bloodshed of her Crown.’

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