The crown in crisis? Britain’s royal ontological (in)security in the post-Brexit age

The royal family is a tool of British soft power and a source of national ontological (in)security. Celebrated for enhancing Britain’s global image, the institution of the monarchy provides symbolic anchors and targets for vicarious identification, shaping how Britons perceive themselves in the world. This has become increasingly fraught in the post-Brexit era, where ‘Global Britain’s’ shortcomings have amplified national anxieties about identity and decline. This article examines how royal events – the Queen’s funeral, Harry and Meghan’s wedding, and William and Kate’s Caribbean tour – crystallise these tensions. Promising sovereign and complete community, these moments are events that deliver security for a time but ultimately expose the irreducible contradictions between the statement and enunciation of Britain’s identity: between its multicultural aspirations and colonial legacy, its global ambitions, and diminishing influence. Even committed republicans are implicated in these dynamics, as the monarchy remains an inescapable mirror for the nation’s identity. Without downplaying the everyday dynamic of royal identifications, we focus on these events because they are particularly visible attempts to reproduce the nation’s uniqueness, creating opportunities for vicarious identification and status. The monarchy thus persists not merely as a soft power tool but as an imperfect mechanism for managing national (in)security.