The Queen’s criticism of politicians was barely a whisper – to defend the constitution against no-deal Brexit, she needs to shout

The Queen is no stranger to accusations of serious crime. Lyndon Larouche, a prison time-serving Nixon aide and habitual joke presidential candidate, claimed she was the mastermind behind the entire global drugs trade.

Countless theorists accused her of orchestrating Princess Diana’s assassination, just as others will be peppering social media (if they aren’t already) with the notion that she arranged Jeffrey Epstein’s death to protect Prince Andrew.

Although it feels fairly safe to dismiss the above as products of hyperactive imaginations, I wish today to plant the seed of a criminal conspiracy theory of my own.

If Boris Johnson realises the threat to ignore a no-confidence vote, and if she fails to evict him from Downing Street, she will be guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence against her country.

The Queen must always be above politics, we are relentlessly told, to protect the integrity of this constitutional monarchy. And of course it’s true that the last time a monarch actively challenged the workings of parliament, it ended badly for both Charles I and the crown.

But the truth is that, when it suits her to flit down from her plinth of impartiality, Elizabeth II isn’t as far above politics as we are asked to believe. In 2014, in a faux spontaneous pre-planned remark that just happened to be overheard, she targeted Scottish independence referendum voters. She told a wellwisher outside a church near Balmoral she hoped the Scots would “think very carefully about their future”. David Cameron, panicked by the polls at the time, was said to be overjoyed.

Now the Queen is back at Balmoral, and once again a Bullingdon bread roll-chucker occupies No 10. In other ways, however, the situation is a little different.

For one thing, this prime minister isn’t fighting to keep Scotland within the Union. The Johnson-Dominic Cummings axis, henceforth known by the elegant portmanteau of Bummings, is pursuing an enforced no deal impeccably designed to drive it out. For another, Bummings is threatening a coup against the barely existent, ever fragile constitution the Queen exists above all to protect.

The front page of The Sunday Times features another regal intervention of a sort. With concern mounting that she could be embroiled in the oncoming crisis created by Bummings’ scorched earth policy, someone has seen fit to leak that she isn’t impressed by the current political class and its failure to govern.

Yer Maj, welcome to our world. One could respond snarkily with a bleak “ya think?” But rather than dwelling on how long it’s taken her to come to this party, or wake, we should celebrate her belated arrival.

But what, if anything, does she mean to do about the abysmal failure of her government in general, and specifically the Bummings threat to ignore a no-confidence vote, delay the election until after Halloween, and so impose the no-deal apocalypse on an unwilling parliament and people?

She could end this lunacy at will. If, at their next audience, she told Johnson she would not tolerate any such affront to democracy, and that at the first sign of him squatting in No 10 she will invite someone else to form a government, that would be that.

But she needn’t wait until then. Another judicious leak to that effect would do the trick. Even Bummings isn’t cocky enough to pick a fight with the Queen. Her authority, built more on her huge popularity than the vagaries of her constitutional role, makes her irresistible.

Monarchies survive or die by their ability to adapt. She courted disaster in the days after Princess Diana died by refusing to do so. But when she was menaced by the rage at her apparent indifference, she did adapt. She left Balmoral for London, and killed the threat with an adroitly judged live TV broadcast.

The present threat isn’t directly against the monarchy. Primarily, it is targeted at democracy itself. But if it comes to it – if Bummings does try to ram through no deal in defiance of all convention and with nothing approaching a mandate – this question will inevitably be asked: what point to a constitutional monarchy can there be if the monarch refuses to defend what passes for the constitution?

The follow-up question – wouldn’t it be safer to have an elected president with formal emergency powers if and when a government attacks democracy – wouldn’t be far behind.

In a state of volatility bordering anarchy, no institution should think itself safe. The political settlement that’s endured for centuries could collapse in the next few months – and when one ancient institution falls, the domino effect potential is obvious.

It is widely reported that various obscure figures at the palace and in Whitehall are conspiring to ensure that the Queen will be securely ring-fenced from direct involvement.

The conventional judgement persists that the gravest danger to the monarchy is political involvement. But as Bummings plainly agree, this is not the time for conventional thinking. The real danger to the monarchy is standing by and enabling her government to behave with the contempt for democracy of a military junta.

The Queen has amassed enormous political capital over 67 years of barely broken silence. She needs to spend it to defend us from a gangster administration.“I have a voice,’’ her father George VI yelled at Lionel Logue in The King’s Speech. She too, has a voice. She should consider using it before it’s too late.