Why has an eco-extremist been given a royal seal of approval?

King Charles has pulled off an impressive PR rehabilitation since his Coronation in 2023. The British public now hears little about the aristocratic indulgences he was famed for as a prince, from his insistence on wearing ironed shoelaces to his portable loo seat. Nor do we hear a great deal about the quixotic beliefs of this self-confessed eco-nut who used to hold conversations with his plants. But sometimes the mask slips.

This week’s announcement by the King’s Foundation was one such moment. Charles’s private charity, which he established in 1990 to advance his ‘philosophy of harmony’, has named 35 of its favourite ‘changemakers’ under the age of 35 to celebrate the charity’s 35th year. They were identified, we are told, after an ‘exhaustive search’ across the UK and selected on the basis of their ability to advocate for the ‘change we want to see in the world’.

Of course, the ‘we’ in that sentence probably means Charles. At the very least, his underlings will have chosen figures likely to chime with his sensibilities. As such, these choices offer an alarming insight into the curious priorities of the reigning monarch.

One of the ’changemakers’ is environmentalist Jack Harries, who was arrested in 2019 at an Extinction Rebellion (XR) protest. Harries, making what he presumably believed was a brave stand against the evils of the fossil-fuel industry, glued his hands to the door of a hotel that was hosting a petroleum conference.

Although XR has been edged aside recently by other eco-groups like Just Stop Oil and Youth Demand, it pioneered the use of disruptive stunts and street theatre to draw attention to its mad demands. Its members would often paint their faces white and dress in red cloaks, performing choreographed dances in public, incanting about the impending climate apocalypse.

When XR burst on to the scene, it called for the planet to become ‘Net Zero’ by 2025 – ie, this current year. In layman’s terms, that would have meant ending 80 per cent of the world’s energy use and abolishing modern agriculture, at a minimum. If implemented, this plan would have killed literally billions of people by a conservative estimate.

Harries later relinquished his membership of Extinction Rebellion to pursue other forms of environmental activism, including setting up his filmmaking company, Earthrise Studio. His website modestly describes him as a creator of ‘original’ films and an ‘experienced’ public speaker. If you haven’t heard of series such as ‘A Seat at the Table’ or ‘The Breakdown’, then, clearly, you should have – if only to get an insight into the hysterical strand of climate alarmism that he and our monarch seem to buy into.

It’s not just environmentalism that Charles’s charity is keen to big up. Next on the list, we come to Barnaby Horn, a milliner who makes hats for drag queens. A long article chronicling his ‘path from drag to couture’ also reveals that he asked his fellow students to crowdfund – that is, pay for – his degree at the Royal College of Art. ‘Just being so open about it’ helped, he said. According to the King’s Foundation, Horn ought to inspire us thanks to his ‘queering of classic hat shapes’ and his ‘unique voice’ in the hat industry.

Another who caught the eye of the King’s Foundation is Kyle Frank, ‘founder and formulator’ of Frank’s Remedies, a vegan skincare product. ‘After a few years of struggling and my condition worsening, I visited my GP’, Frank writes. ‘He confirmed and diagnosed me.’ Not with anything too serious, thankfully, but with acne. The dramatic, self-pitying tone of Frank’s pitch clearly found favour with the King’s Foundation, which has lauded his resilience in the face of a ‘five-year battle’ with the common skin condition.

We could go on to Florence ‘Flo’ Hamer, who specialises in traditional basketry, ‘green woodworking’ and ‘endangered crafts’. Or Momoka Gomi, who uses textiles to ‘explore memory, time and identity’. But by now, you probably get the picture. These people perfectly embody the Guardianista sensibilities of the modern aristocracy.

If the picks for the ‘35 under 35’ changemakers are any indication of Charles’s true beliefs (and his past green pronouncements mean there is reason to suspect they are), then this is yet more proof of the necessity of democracy – of the wisdom of the masses over the follies of the elite. Whether it’s Net Zero or gender ideology, the overclass’s ‘luxury beliefs’ desperately need reining in.

Hugo Timms is an editorial assistant at spiked.