One week ago, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Keen Pandemic Choo-Choo Tour took them to Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the first stop of their dumbf–k tour and they obliviously created a major political incident. Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon had closed down the border between England and Scotland for everything except work. Enter Keen Kate and Keen Bill, who believe their nonsense busy-work counts as “work.” Sturgeon played the Cambridges’ visit with a lot of political tact, so much so that English peers huffed and puffed and Sarah Vine complained that Sturgeon was basically a clout-chaser trying to make her bones by criticizing the Cambridges’ tone-deaf corona-tour. Meanwhile, the reaction in Scotland has been a strengthening of the Scottish independence movement and a lot of bad press for Will and Kate. The Daily Beast’s Tom Sykes did a run-through of the political controversy around the Keens’ Pandemic Tour specifically in Scotland. Some highlights:

The Cambridges’ Scottish jaunt was terrible optics in Scotland: However, in Scotland, where the royals are generally less popular than they are in England, especially within the nationalist community, critics on social media were quick to characterize the trip as an irresponsible jaunt. Even if it didn’t actually spread COVID-19, these critics said, it certainly militated against the clear and cautious COVID messaging that has characterized Scotland’s response to the pandemic. The accusations entered the mainstream with even newspapers such as The Scotsman, which backed a “no” vote in the referendum, describing the trip as an opportunity to vent the “familiar grievances” of “one rule for them and another for the rest of us” and saying the trip showed the royals had “not yet grasped the public mood, at least in Scotland.”

On Sturgeon’s careful criticism: Underpinning the decidedly lukewarm reception lie hundreds of years of complicated and often antagonistic history between England and Scotland, although Professor Christopher Whatley of the University of Dundee, a well-known and widely published Scottish historian and author of the 2014 book, The Scots and the Union: Then and Now, told The Daily Beast that Sturgeon has to walk a delicate path with regard to the monarchy. Official SNP policy is that an independent Scotland would retain the queen as head of state because the 1603 Union of Crowns predates the 1707 Union of Parliaments, the act that independence would undo. But there is undoubtedly a significant strain of Republicanism in the nationalist community. However, there are also many supporters of independence who like the monarchy, he said, and the nationalists cannot afford to alienate them.

Professor Whatley on Sturgeon’s comment: “Her raison d’être as an SNP [Scottish Nationalist Party] politician is to secure Scottish independence,” Whatley said. The royal visit, although “largely symbolic” is, he noted, “unhelpful to her cause.” Whatley added: “Within certain circles there’s opposition in principle to the monarchy along with other hereditary privileges.”

Whatley on the criticism from Welsh public health experts: Whatley suggests such criticism could be an important red flag for unionists, saying: “In Wales there’s growing support for Welsh independence, which would explain the current coolness towards the royal visit. I think that Welsh politicians are learning from the Scottish example.”

Another professor’s take on the fault lines between Scotland & the Windsors: Dr. Sean Lang, a playwright and senior lecturer in history at England’s Anglia Ruskin University who specializes in the history of the British Empire and has written extensively on the relationship between England and Scotland, said: “It’s no secret that Scottish nationalists tend to be republican; Scottish nationalism took a leftward slant back in Mrs Thatcher’s day, and nationalists tend to associate the monarchy with England, despite the importance the royals attach to their presence in Scotland. Among Scots as a whole, there is much more affection, especially for the queen. It is very hard to say how Charles will be accepted as and when he becomes king, though I don’t think Scotland is wildly different from England or Wales in this respect. His reign cannot be that long, of course, and William does have a much more positive public image. But if there is a move for independence, and that seems increasingly likely, it will be much more because of Brexit and the impact of the pandemic than because of any feelings one way or the other about the monarchy.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Basically, “the royals cannot be POLITICAL” was just a convenient cudgel for Prince Harry and Meghan specifically. William and Kate stupidly caused a massive political headache for Scottish-English relations, and now everyone is openly discussing the idea that when Scottish independence happens, Scotland may not want “King Charles” or “King William” as their head of state. That’s how awful and tone-deaf the Cambridges’ Pandemic Tour was: they strengthened the movement against the royal family and they gave red meat to independence-minded republicans.

Also, this clip of two Daily Mail commentators fully criticizing the wisdom of the Pandemic Tour is something else.

lol #RoyalTrainTour aka #RoyalTrainTourPRstunt gone wrong #ScotsandWelshsaidBuggeroff #WasteofTaxPayersFund 🤣😉🚂🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿👎🏽👎🏽 #AllabitEmbarassing😏🤣 pic.twitter.com/6swF0F2E3s

— HarrynMeghanFriend🙏🏾🇬🇧🇲🇸SOURCEOFACTION🙏🏾 (@nehpazojArchieH) December 11, 2020

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.