Traditionally HM The Queen’s speech highlights the policies of the government and discusses the state of affairs, but this year, a low-key address to the nation delivered by The Queen's Speech on June 21 reflected the sombre mood of the nation, with back-to-back events of a failed general election gamble, four terrorist attacks and a deplorable Grenfell fire tragedy.
It was expected, that the speech would be a trimmed down version of the legislative programme, that would take into account the state of a government practically in a state of debilitation and make room for a parliamentary calendar for Brexit. The speech instead, left out huge chunks of the Tory policies – free vote on foxhunting, a cap on energy and an expansion of grammar schools. The proposed visit by Donald Trump was dropped. Plans to pay the winter fuel allowance only to those who need it, the dementia tax and the proposal to prise open the triple lock on the state pension were scrapped. This was given, since these had contributed to the Conservatives’ electoral fiasco, but scrapping these have left huge gaps in the funding that it was supposed to raise for the exchequer, especially for social projects.
Steering the discrepancy through a hung Parliament would have been tough for May, so she took the prudent decision to hold a two-year Parliament to buy time for a Parliamentary debate. The Brexit debate might give the MPs an opportunity to have their say, but May has even lost her domination over Brexit’s terms.
When The Queen made her speech last week, the prospect of a truly stable alliance between the DUP and the Tories were looking bleak and the Labours and some Conservative leaders were getting together for a cross-party alliance proposing for a soft Brexit. While a deal has been struck, the very fact that May has failed to strike a mutually advantageous deal with ten unionist MPs have left us with little faith in its ability to strike a far more complex deal with Europe. The Queen, under these circumstances gave one of her most non-committal performances – the nation seems poised for a lot of political in the UK and Brussels in the months to come.
