Just how long has the British monarchy been in crisis? This time – after “Megxit”, after Prince Andrew – it was the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s disastrous trip to the Caribbean. What was supposed to be a “charm offensive”, drumming up enthusiasm in the year of the Queen’s platinum jubilee, ended up looking more like a long goodbye, with the headlines spotlighting anti-royal protests, failures to address legacies of slavery, and the news that Jamaica is planning to ditch the Queen as head of state.
It may well be time for the royal family to face up to the fact that the sun is setting on those final remnants of the empire that they once embodied – and not a moment too soon.
For Britons, it can be easy to forget that the Queen’s realm and territories stretch far beyond these isles. Out of the 54 “independent and equal nations” that make up the Commonwealth of Nations, 15 (including the UK) still count the Queen as their head of state. Becoming a republic doesn’t necessitate surrendering membership of the Commonwealth itself – it simply means a symbolic rejection of British rule. And with Barbados finally taking the leap last year, longstanding debates about republicanism have been reignited in the remaining realms.
The issue is just as hotly debated in the likes of Australia (54% of people there would support becoming a republic) as it is in Jamaica, but packing William and Kate off to the Caribbean has inevitably focused minds in that region. Though republican camps in the Caribbean have long cited the impact of colonialism and slavery on the contemporary fortunes of their countries, a new reckoning is afoot, against the backdrop of the global Black Lives Matter movement and renewed conversations about the legacy of empire. Thanks to the attention the royals command, the disintegration of British overseas rule is being documented in real time.
‘This is not crown land’: William and Kate cancel first Caribbean tour visit due to protests – video
The signs weren’t looking good for William and Kate from the outset. The couple’s first official engagement, in Belize, was unceremoniously cancelled after protests from the Q’eqehi Maya people over a land dispute with a charity that William patronises. Heading to Jamaica, they were met with more demonstrations, this time calling on the royals to address the issue of reparations for the several hundred years they directly profited from the slave trade. Government officials backed up the sentiment, with Jamaica’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, informing a solemn William and Kate that the country was “moving on’’ and wanted to be “independent”, seemingly following the example of Barbados. It’s no wonder the royals were gracing Sunday’s front pages in damage-limitation mode, with William offering a half-apology for the tour.
As ever, sometimes opening their mouths only makes things worse: in a speech given in Kingston last week, Prince William expressed “profound sorrow” for the transatlantic slave trade, but people were quick to point out that he stopped short of an apology or acknowledging the monarchy’s direct interests in slavery. At one point in history, enslaved Black Africans arriving in the Caribbean via the Royal African Company were branded with the initials “DY”, marking them as the property of the then Duke of York . Royal profiting from slavery continued apace – the future William IV even personally argued for the continuation of the trade in the House of Lords in 1799, a move that, according tohistorian Brooke Newman, helped “delay” abolition for a few more years but “misjudged the mood of the nation” – and damaged the reputation of the royal family as a result.
For the royals, the trip has been a sharp lesson in how people in the Commonwealth now perceive Britain and its institutions. As the Jamaican dancehall artist Beenie Man put it during an interview with ITV News: “We are just here, controlled by the British, ruled by the British law when you go in the court. It’s all about the Queen … but what are they doing for Jamaica? They’re not doing anything for us.” The Jamaican writer Ashley Rouen Brown summed up the grounds for resentment succinctly: Jamaicans, he wrote, are “currently the only citizens within the Commonwealth realm that require a visa to visit the land of their head of state”. Meanwhile, requests for financial reparations, in recognition of the impact centuries of plunder had on economic prospects, have been met with egregious responses, like David Cameron’s 2015 offer for Britain to finance a £25m prison to hold Jamaican “criminals” in lieu of compensation for slavery.
In Jamaica, republicanism has been part of the political conversation since the 1970s, and there is cross-party support for the move. But now, debate has been replaced by decision. Emancipation is in full swing. It’s no coincidence that it comes as the Queen – who “made the Commonwealth central to her life when she became monarch” – reaches the twilight of her reign. But nor can it be a coincidence that this is all happening after several years of governmental and monarchical misrule in London. The aftermath of the Windrush scandal still leaves a bitter taste. And, albeit on a different scale, it’s worth taking account of some more of Beenie Man’s words: “If Harry was coming, people would react different,” he said. “People are going to meet Harry.” In that sense, the royals really are the authors of their own misfortune.
‘The monarchy is a relic’: Protests in Jamaica over royal visit – video
But with or without the Sussexes, there is an air of historical inevitability to all this. So, what happens next? Ahead of Kate and William’s visit, the Windrush campaigner Patrick Vernon said: “If Jamaica decided it did [want to become a republic], there would be a domino effect on the rest of the English-speaking Caribbean.”
His words may well be prescient. The royal couple flew into the Bahamas, the last leg of their tour, to be greeted by protests on the ground and opposition from the likes of the Bahamas National Reparations Committee. Belize has announced a constitutional review, and late last year leaders including the St Vincent premier were urging fellow Commonwealth realms to attain republican status. The wheels seem firmly set in motion, with the royals’ open-backed Land Rover left spinning in the sand.
This kind of reckoning with reality is long overdue, and, who knows, it may even be a long-term positive for Britain if it helps disabuse our political class of its globe-trotting, Empire 2.0 fantasies. At the very least, now is the time to admit that for many parts of the world, the benefits of sovereign British rule are most heavily felt by the home nation itself. Within our own borders, we may kid ourselves that the monarchy is still a glittering jewel in our crown. But for many people overseas who wish to escape the long shadow of empire and exploitation, the shine has well and truly rubbed off.
This article was amended on 28 March 2022 because in 1799, it was in the House of Lords that the future William IV argued for the continuation of the slave trade, not in the House of Commons as an earlier version said.
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Shares soar as, along with ITP Aero sale, firm wins multibillion-dollar contract from US air force
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Rolls-Royce’s finances were hit hard because the company is paid on the basis of the number of hours flown by the aircraft that use its engines.
“Today’s announcement is a significant milestone for our disposal programme as we work to strengthen our balance sheet, in support of our medium-term ambition to return to an investment-grade credit profile,” said Warren East, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce. “The creation of an independent ITP Aero is a great opportunity for the company, its people and other stakeholders. It will remain a key strategic supplier and partner for decades to come.”
The sale and contract cap a strong month for Rolls-Royce, whose share price has risen along with other aviation stocks after the UK government simplified international travel rules and scrapped Covid PCR tests for fully vaccinated travellers.
The company’s shares rose 10.5%, making Rolls-Royce the top riser on the FTSE 100 on Monday afternoon.
“The lift-off of Rolls-Royce shares following the relaxation of transatlantic travel rules was given added thrust today with news of a big contract with the US air force,” said Susannah Streeter, a senior investment and market analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. “Rolls-Royce engines will power the USAF B-52s for the next 30 years, and the clinching of this deal, which could be worth up to $2.6bn, is yet another ray of sunlight for the engineering firm, which finally seems to be leaving the pandemic storm clouds behind.”
ITP Aero, a maker of turbine blades based in the Basque region of Spain, reported revenues of €735m and profits of €40m last year. The business was the biggest asset that Rolls-Royce identified for sale in a recovery plan announced last August. Smaller assets that have been offloaded include a stake in Air Tanker Holdings, its Bergen Engines unit in Norway, and a civil nuclear instrumentation and control business.
“Today’s announcement effectively marks the end of the disposal programme,” a spokesman for Rolls-Royce said. “We continually evaluate non-core assets in the portfolio and will always focus on maximising shareholder value.”
The Bain-led consortium also includes Sapa and JB Capital.
“All of us at ITP Aero are eager to start the next chapter of our story as an independent company with a strong strategic plan and financial support behind us,” said Carlos Alzola, the chief executive of ITP Aero.
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Engineering firm, which operates in aerospace and energy markets, backs deal with Parker Hannifin
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Meggitt after it agreed a £6.3bn takeover deal from US rival Parker Hannifin, in the latest approach for a UK-listed company from an overseas buyer.
The board of Meggitt, the FTSE 250 engineering company that operates in the aerospace, defence and energy markets, has unanimously recommended that shareholders accept the 800p-a-share deal, which the UK government says it is closely monitoring.
The offer is at a 71% premium on Meggitt’s closing share price on Friday. Meggitt’s share price had soared by more than 56% to 735p by mid-afternoon on Monday as investors reacted to the news, helping lift the FTSE 250 index of medium-sized firms to a record closing high.
As part of the deal, Parker, which employs more than 2,100 staff in 18 facilities across the UK, has made a number of legally binding contractual commitments to the government to protect Meggitt’s operations.
These include keeping Meggitt’s UK headquarters in Coventry; maintaining the headcount in its research and development, product engineering and manufacturing operations; ensuring most of the company’s board are UK nationals; and increasing research and development expenditure by a fifth during the next five years. However, Parker will look to cut jobs in areas not protected by the legal guarantees. Tom Williams, the Parker chairman and chief executive, said that a significant number of Meggitt’s approximately 2,000 UK staff would be protected from the cuts.
“Any transaction of this size, or any transaction period, typically has some overlap between the two businesses,” he said. “We are going to evaluate all the talent, all the people … and our intention is to put the best of both companies [together].”
The deal documents highlight areas of overlap between the two businesses “particularly in central corporate and support functions and a reduced need for roles currently supporting Meggitt’s status as a public listed company at Meggitt’s UK headquarters”. The operational review “may result in headcount reductions or relocation of Meggitt employees”, it added.
The acquisition of Meggitt, which is a defence supplier to the UK government and provides components for US F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, will almost double Parker’s aerospace operation.
“We are committed to being a responsible steward of Meggitt and are pleased our acquisition has the full support of Meggitt’s board,” Williams said. “We fully understand these responsibilities and are making a number of strong commitments that reflect them.”
However, all of Parker’s legal commitments are binding for only one year, Williams told reporters, except for the R&D investment pledge, which has a five-year guarantee. Williams said Parker did not intend to renege on guarantees after they expire.
“I see no reason why we would ever move the UK headquarters,” he said. “These are going to be commitments that will be there for a long time. We are a strategic buyer, we are builders. If you were to benchmark this total offer – our binding commitments in addition to our financial offer – I think you would find it stands in a place of its own compared to other transactions.”
He added that the deal was structured in anticipation of the upcoming National Security and Investment Act, which gives the UK government the power to protect important national assets from foreign takeovers.
“We are very conscious of it,” Williams said. “That is why we have framed the binding commitments as we did in such a way that they would be supported by all stakeholders.”
The UK government said it was closely monitoring the deal. “Under the Enterprise Act 2002, the business secretary has powers to intervene in mergers and takeovers which raise national security concerns,” a government spokesperson said, according to Reuters.
“While commercial transactions remain primarily a matter for the parties involved, the government is closely monitoring the proposed acquisition of Meggitt by Parker-Hannifin.”
Last month, the government announced a review of the proposed purchase of Newport Wafer Fab, the UK’s largest producer of semiconductors, by a Chinese-owned manufacturer.
The government is also scrutinising the takeover of the Cambridge-headquartered chip designer Arm by the US chip company Nvidia on national security grounds.
In July, the defence group Ultra Electronics signalled it was “minded to recommend” a provisional £2.6bn takeover offer from the US private equity-backed company Cobham.
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“The UK takeover spree continues to move at pace,” said Russ Mould, the investment director at AJ Bell. “UK stocks have long been considered cheap, and this year’s merger and acquisition spree shows that overseas investors have finally got enough confidence to pounce on opportunities after years of showing little interest in the market.”
Sir Nigel Rudd, the Meggitt chairman, said that the takeover would “accelerate and de-risk” its growth plans.
“Meggitt is one of the world’s foremost aerospace, defence and energy businesses, leading the market with a strong portfolio of technology and manufacturing capabilities, and holding a significant amount of intellectual property,” Rudd said. “While Meggitt is currently pursuing a strong, standalone strategy which will deliver value to shareholders over the long term, Parker’s offer provides the opportunity to significantly accelerate and de-risk those plans while continuing to deliver for shareholders.”
The mysterious individual behind a new and rapidly growing online disinformation network targeting followers of QAnon, the far-right cult, can be revealed as a Berlin-based artist with a history of social media manipulation, a prominent anti-racism group claims.
Since Donald Trump left the White House, QAnon’s vast online community has been in a state of flux as it comes to terms with the reality that its conspiracy theories – such as the former US president being destined to defeat a cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles – amount to nothing.
That may explain why significant numbers have turned to a new far-right network, found mostly on the Telegram messaging app, that is growing quickly in the UK and globally and has amassed more than one million subscribers so far this year.
Sebastian Bieniek in 2018. The campaign group Hope Not Hate says he has a track record of inventing online conspiracies. Photograph: Reza Mahmoudidschad
Called the Sabmyk Network, like QAnon it is a convoluted conspiracy theory that features fantastical elements and is headed by a mysterious messianic figure. Since its emergence there has been widespread speculation about who that figure might be. The person who first posted as “Q” has never been positively identified.
This week the British anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate will unmask Sabmyk’s leader, who it claims is 45-year-old German art dealer Sebastian Bieniek. It says Bieniek – who has not responded to questions from the Observer – has a history of creating online conspiracies and even wrote a book in 2011 called RealFake that detailed a campaign to deceptively promote his work.
But Hope Not Hate says the speed of Sabmyk’s growth serves as a warning of the opportunities for manipulation that exist on social media, particularly unregulated alt-tech platforms such as Telegram.
Gregory Davis of Hope Not Hate, which will publish its annual report into the far right on Monday, said: “His success in developing such a huge audience is a reminder that the QAnon template of anonymous online manipulation will continue to pose a threat in the years to come.”
Since 21 December last year, when Sabmyk was supposedly “awakened”, more than 136 channels in English, German, Japanese, Korean and Italian have sprung up, adding tens of thousands of followers on a daily basis.
Much of Sabmyk’s content is designed to appeal toQAnon followers; it features Covid mask scepticism, anti-vaccine conspiracies and false assertions that the 2020 US election was stolen from Trump.
Some is also designed to actively recruit Britons: one Sabmyk channel, the British Patriotic Party, uses the same branding as anti-Muslim group Britain First and posts about the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
Other channels are entitled London Post and Liverpool Times, as well as the Great Awakening UK, a reference to a well-known QAnon trope predicting a day of reckoning in which Trump would rise against his liberal enemies. Others include WWG1WGA, an acronym for the QAnon rallying call “where we go one, we go all.”
Among the clues used to identify Bieniek are posts saying that the messiah Sabmyk can be identified by specific marks on his body. One post claimed that Sabmyk would have “17 V-shaped scars” on his arm, the result of a “prophetic ceremony at the age of 24”.
What is QAnon and why is it so dangerous? – video explainer
Hope Not Hate has found a since-deleted section on Bieniek’s website recalling a 1999 art exhibit in which, aged 24, he cut V-shaped wounds into his arm for 16 days in a row.
Attempts to connect Sabmyk to Trump have been made, including a clip that splices together instances of the former president saying “17”, and a doctored image showing him with a Sabmyk pamphlet in his suit pocket.
Bieniek has created countless false identities, according to the Hope Not Hate investigation, to promote his career as an artist. The group also says his German Wikipedia page has been deleted at least four times, most recently in January.
A list of Bieniek’s accounts has been sent to platforms including Telegram with a call for them to be removed on the basis of “inauthentic and coordinated platform manipulation”. Telegram has been approached for comment.
