Our starting point is the Queen's Coronation of 1953. Prior to accepting the crown, the Queen solemnly promised to "govern the Peoples of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon, and of your Possessions and the other Territories to any of them belonging or pertaining, according to their respective laws and customs."
Today, more than ever, that promise has a hollow ring to it. Constitutionally, Queen Elizabeth II is the Head of the Commonwealth of Nations, yet if we conduct a detailed examination and critical analysis, we soon discover that the Commonwealth itself has been hollowed out and surrendered to global powers driving towards global government.
Recently, senior members of the Royal Household, such as Prince Charles and Prince William, have discarded neutrality and taken global political roles. Prince Charles helped launch a drive towards a Great Global Reset, whilst Prince William joined David Attenborough on the Earthshot Prize Judging Panel; another green initiative in support of the United Nations global Agenda 2030.
A detailed examination of the institutions of the Commonwealth reveals the quasi-leadership training organisation, Common Purpose, to be deeply embedded within them.
One of the key aims of Common Purpose is to break organisational silos, which is also a primary goal of the United Nations Development Group. In essence, this means that leaders jettison traditional allegiances in order to operate across organisational or geographical boundaries.
These reframed leaders have been encouraged to create their own legitimacy as they lead "beyond authority". We provided a detailed analysis of this in an earlier article.
If the Commonwealth Crown has been surrendered, where does the power to govern nation states now reside?
The Commonwealth
The Commonwealth spans the globe, is made up of 52 independent countries, and has a population of 2.4 billion. Its objectives were first set out in the 1971 Singapore Declaration (pdf), which committed the Commonwealth to the institution of world peace; the promotion of representative democracy and individual liberty; the pursuit of equality and opposition to racism; the fight against poverty, ignorance, and disease; and free trade.
In recent decades, these principles have been abandoned in favour of promotion of a strange form of participatory democracy, where only certain organisations participate, and globalist policies which are as far from individual liberty as it is possible to be.
In recent years, under the leadership of Baroness Patricia Scotland, the Commonwealth has shown itself in particular to prefer sustainability. In 2016, she thanked Queen's Young Leaders for “stepping up to her challenge to come up with strong and practical actions Commonwealth countries can take to achieve the Internationally agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”
She added:
If we can deliver together the SDGs, the international agreements on climate action and the charter, we will create a pathway for the rest of the world towards unity, towards humanity and towards peace'" Also during that event she revealed that 'she will be leading a new and exciting initiative, in partnership with Common Purpose.
The Commonwealth are listed among the partners on the Common Purpose website.
The Commonwealth Charter
The Commonwealth Charter is full of the buzzwords and phrases favoured by the globalists that feature in earlier articles in this series, such as: civil society, climate change, collective action, consensus, consultation, diversity, interdependent, inclusiveness, interrelated, renewable energy, resilience, social equity, social transformation, and sustainability. The Charter tells its readers that:
the Commonwealth is uniquely placed to serve as a model and as a catalyst for new forms of friendship and co-operation in the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations.
CSC Leaders and the CSC Global Foundation
CSCLeaders was a partnership between Common Purpose and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh's Commonwealth Study Conferences (UK Fund). It was a global leadership programme that ran from 2013 to 2019, directed at participants from “governments, businesses and NGOs from across the 52 countries of the Commonwealth.”
Sponsors of CSC Leaders were Anglo American, a global diversified mining business, Weir, a FTSE 100 company founded in 1871 and headquartered in Glasgow, and PriceWaterhouseCooper (PwC UK) . We noted that PriceWaterhouseCooper have a webpage dedicated to their support of the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals.
Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal is the former President of the Duke Of Edinburgh's Commonwealth Study Conferences.
At the 2014 CSC Leaders event, a more than half-hour-long mind-numbing talk on Cultural Intelligence was given by Julia Middleton, Founder & CEO, Common Purpose.
At a time when he was Mayor of London, current UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a talk on Smart Cities. Commonwealth Secretary-General Baroness Scotland has also been filmed delivering a talk at these CSC Leaders events. The CSC Leaders 2018 challenge What makes a city resilient? was launched by former UK Prime Minister Theresa May.
Just how deeply Common Purpose are embedded within the UK establishment is further evidenced on the website of Sail Capital Partners. It includes a page referencing the Common Purpose and CSC Leaders Conference held in London in 2017, incorporating a photograph of Walter Schindler, Managing Partner & Founder of Sail Capital Partners, in conversation with HRH Princess Anne. A news release by Sail Capital Partners revealed that:
… in May 2017 Walter Schindler was invited to return to London as a Speaker and Contributor to a week-long series of classes, meetings, field trips and special events hosted by the British Royal Family, Marlborough House, Common Purpose and CSCLeaders.
Reference to the CSC Leaders participant biography pack 2013 provides a flavour of the calibre of individuals attending such events.
Examples include: the UK Director, British Red Cross; the Director, Media Standards Trust; the Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dean, Faculty of Business and Law, Manchester Metropolitan University; the Operations Director, Serco, UK; the Chief Constable, Leicestershire Police; the Director, Decentralisation and Big Society, Department of Communities and Local Government, UK; the Permanent Secretary, Cabinet Office, Zambia; the Deputy High Commissioner, Jamaica, and, the Deputy Director, Royal Commonwealth Society, UK.
The Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) and 33Fifty
With a history dating back to 1868, the Royal Commonwealth Society received its Royal Charter from Queen Victoria and took on its current name in 1958.
Earlier in this article, I mentioned the Queen’s Young Leaders Programme.
In 2014, the Commonwealth Youth Leadership Programme was called 33Fifty, so called because 33% of the world's population live in the Commonwealth and 50% of those are aged under 25.
It was a leadership programme aimed at “Commonwealth leaders aged between 18 and 25” and the training was “delivered by Common Purpose in partnership with the Royal Commonwealth Society.”
The 2014 33Fifty programme took place in Glasgow and Edinburgh at the same time as the Commonwealth Games. The participants' challenge at the time was to answer the question:
What role does the youth of the Commonwealth need to play in progress towards low-carbon economies?
The 33Fifty Advisory Group was chaired by Sir John Elvidge, Chair of Edinburgh Airport, former Permanent Secretary to the Scottish Government, chair of Carnegie UK Trust, and former director of Common Purpose.
A page on the Scottish Government's website revealed that it was intended for the Common Purpose 33Fifty programme to run again during “the 2018 Commonwealth Games on Australia's Gold Coast.”
In a further twist, a 2017 Telegraph article revealed that:
… the Royal Commonwealth Society is making plans to open a branch in the United States, with a view to one day bringing America into the fold as an associate member.
This would certainly explain why Common Purpose is now targeting the delivery of its programmes towards senior and emerging leaders in the USA.
The Queen's Young Leaders Programme (QYLP)
The Queen's Young Leaders Programme ran between 2014 and 2018. It was established by the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust and was launched in 2014 by “Their Royal Highnesses the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Henry of Wales.”
It was targeted at young leaders between the ages of 18 and 29.
Celebrities appearing in a promotional video supporting this programme include Anita Rani, David Beckham and Mo Farrah. You certainly won't be surprised to learn that Queen’s Young Leaders are sponsors of Common Purpose.
The Commonwealth Secretariat: the information gateway between Commonwealth Nations and the United Nations
The Commonwealth Secretariat is the focal point for multilateral intergovernmental consultation and information exchange among the member states. It was established in 1965. In their 1991 Harare Declaration, the Commonwealth Heads of Government identified the protection of the environment, through the principles of sustainable development, as an area of priority.
The Commonwealth Secretariat provides information to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, as evidenced by this 1997 Report on the implementation of Agenda 21.
One further key question that has remained largely unanswered to date is, "What role do Universities play in the transformation of 21st-century society?"
The Association of Commonwealth Universities and its Common Purpose Connections
A memorandum of understanding between the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Association of Commonwealth Universities was announced in September 2017. The Chief Executive and Secretary General of ACU, Dr Joanna Newman, said:
Higher education has extraordinary power to transform our world for the better and tackle the grand challenges of our time. Universities will be central to meeting every one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — not only through the vital research they undertake, but also through the skilled and globally aware graduates they produce ... This partnership is a really powerful way of harnessing the power of universities for the common good.
The Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) has “over 500 institutional members and a range of networks connecting higher education professionals from across the Commonwealth.”
At an international conference in France in 1990, the Talloires declaration was adopted. This was the first official statement made by university administrators of a commitment to environmental sustainability in higher education. The Talloires Declaration was a “ten-point action plan for incorporating sustainability and environmental literacy in teaching, research, operations and outreach at colleges and universities.”
In 1991, the Halifax declaration together with a "six-point" action plan was signed in anticipation of the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Brazil in 1992.
Following that Rio de Janeiro Conference in 1992, the ACU held their 15th Quinquennial Congress in Swansea, Wales, in 1993.
Point 1 of the Swansea declaration urged universities of the ACU to seek, establish and disseminate a clearer understanding of sustainable development — “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations" — and encourage more appropriate sustainable development principles and practices at the local, national and global levels, in ways consistent with their missions.
The Cre-Copernicus University Charta is the EU equivalent of the ACU declarations cited above. The preamble of this Charta tells its readers that:
what is required is a comprehensive strategy for building a sustainable future ... as highlighted by Rio Conference (UNCED) in 1992. This requires a new frame of mind [my emphasis] and new sets of values. Education is critical for promoting such values.
The ACU has 82 members within the UK. Readers will be familiar with ACU member institutions such as Bristol University, Exeter University, Liverpool John Moores University, Oxford Brookes University, Plymouth University, the Open University, Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Manchester.
Many, such as Sheffield Hallam University, direct their undergraduates towards Common Purpose courses. We can also reveal that the University of Bristol are sponsors of Common Purpose.
ACU member Heriot-Watt University has campuses in Scotland, Dubai, and Malaysia. It also boasts that it has "partners in 150 countries and 30,000 students studying worldwide." It partners with Common Purpose and, together with partners University of Albany New York and Common Purpose, held a Global Leadership experience at its Edinburgh campus in January 2018. Common Purpose ran a similar programme in collaboration with Heriot-Watt University in December 2017 at its Malaysian campus.
One role of universities has, therefore, been to shift societal values in the wider population “at the local, national and global levels.” We believe that this has been a key driver of the recent phenomenon of 'nudging'.
Association of Commonwealth Universities and Nudging
In a 2018, the University of Manchester announced that it would “work in collaboration” with Sheffield Hallam University “to help tailor vital public sector services using behavioural insights expertise as part of a new government framework."
Just two years previously, Dame Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester, had, alongside Sir Howard Bernstein, CEO, Manchester City Council, been a contributor when leaders from across the Commonwealth visited Manchester as part of a CSC Leaders programme.
Commonwealth100
Commonwealth100 is “aimed at young Commonwealth citizens … aged 16-29.”
According to Commonwealth Secretary General Baroness Scotland, as quoted on the Common Purpose website:
… building on the shared values of our Commonwealth Charter, Common Purpose is bringing together the talents of 100,000 or more of our young people from every continent and ocean to cooperate and co-create for a future that is fairer, more prosperous, more secure and more sustainable.
The Dhaka Tribune informs its readers that the Commonwealth100 programme:
would be piloted at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, in April 2018 [which] aims to create a generation of Open Source Leaders. Partners include Bank of Zambia, Scottish Government, Department of Higher Education Malaysia, Microsoft, and others.
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGM)
According to the Communiqué (CHOGM) Malta 2015, Commonwealth leaders “welcomed the adoption of the [United Nations] 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and, committed to support its implementation by 2030 — to ensure no one is left behind.”
Also at the Malta conference, Commonwealth Heads announced “their selection by consensus of the Rt Hon Patricia Scotland as the sixth Commonwealth Secretary-General.”
Further evidence of the strong links between the Commonwealth and the United Nations is provided by reference to the biography of Josephine Ojiambo, Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General. She was formerly “Chief of the Executive Board and External Relations Branch at the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA).”
The Chair-in-Office is the head of government of the Commonwealth country that hosts a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
In April 2018, former UK Prime Minister Theresa May was the Chair-in-Office when the UK hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London and Windsor. The 2018 Conference was headlined “Towards a Common Future”.
We should need no reminding that Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report, was a publication released in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). It introduced the concept of sustainable development and described the steps needed to achieve it. That 1987 report was the foundation from which sprang the Rio Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and ultimately UN Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030.
Theresa May was succeeded, as Chair-in-Office by Boris Johnson. Last week, in his keynote speech closing the Conservative Party conference, he announced a new green revolution:
As Saudi Arabia is to oil, the UK is to wind — a place of almost limitless resource, but in the case of wind without the carbon emissions, without the damage to the environment … we must build back better." [My emphasis]
Just four months earlier, on the International Day for Biological Diversity, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a video message:
COVID-19 - which emanated from the wild — has shown how human health is intimately connected with our relationship to the natural world … As we seek to build back better from the current crisis, let us work together to preserve biodiversity so we can achieve our Sustainable Development Goals.
Commonwealth Director-General Baroness Patricia Scotland and The World's Largest Lesson
The World's Largest Lesson is just “one part of Project Everyone's mighty mission: To share the [United Nations Sustainable Development] Global Goals with all 7 billion people on this planet.”
Content creators and distribution partners of Project Everyone include ActionAid; Amnesty International; the British Council; Comic Relief; the Ellen Macarthur Foundation; Google for Education; and — the Commonwealth.
A selection of short films has been produced in support of the Project Everyone Campaign. Contributors include Aamir Khan, Bill and Melinda Gates, Daniel Craig, Jennifer Lopez, Kate Winslet, Meryl Streep, Richard Branson, Robert Redford, Stephen Hawking, Emma Watson and others.
The purpose of the World's Largest Lesson is to “introduce the Sustainable Development Goals to children and young people everywhere and unite them in action.”
This short video presentation in support of the World's Larget Lesson features Baroness Patricia Scotland. Within the video, she tells her audience that:
Humankind has too often had to learn lessons the hard way. It is painful to look back and see how many mistakes we've made … The World's Largest Lesson is changing that in order to meet the sustainable development goals, which reflect the values and principles of the Commonwealth Charter.
The Commonwealth is now also closely following the United Nations' little known technique of using celebrities to promote its global goals.
Conclusion
Whilst the attention of the British public has, since 2016, been distracted by both Brexit and COVID-19 scaremongering, the British establishment, including the Royal family, has transformed the Commonwealth into both a propaganda division of world government and a training ground for leaders of the post-democratic era.
Not one of the inhabitants of its 52 member nations can cast a vote to elect the Commonwealth's senior officers, nor to approve its future plans and programs.
The governance of Commonwealth member nations "according to their respective laws and customs" has been sacrificed on the globalist altar of ‘sustainable development'.
