Royal deaths have always been spoken about in codewords to prevent the spread of the news of the death of royal family members. An email containing information about operation London Bridge – the death of Her Majesty the Queen, was leaked earlier this year. It was marked ‘official sensitive’ and was sent to several people including an ex-employee.
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Now that Queen Elizabeth II has officially passed away, here's what may happen in the following days, according to the leaked reports:
What will happen now?
According to a report published by POLITICO, the protocol shed light on specifics of how things will go down hours and days after the Queen’s death. Queen’s death day is called the D-Day and every day following it will be called D-Day+1, D-Day+2 and so forth. It includes the information on how things will go down for the following ten days. Here’s what the protocol looks like:
D-Day: A ‘call cascade’ will take place hours after the monarch’s death and all government officials will be informed. The prime minister will be told by the Queen’s private secretary. Flags across Whitehall will be lowered to half-mast. And the public will be informed through official notification delivered by royal households. A minute of silence will take place on D-Day.
D-Day+1: On the day after the Queen's death, an accession council will meet at St James’ Palace to proclaim Prince Charles as the king. At 3.30pm the cabinet and PM will hold an audience with King Charles.
D-Day+3: King Charles will receive the motion of condolence at Westminster Hall.
D-Day+4: A rehearsal for the procession of the coffin from Buckingham palace to the palace of Westminster would take place
D-Day+5: The actual procession will take on D-Day+5. The Queen will next lie in state at the Palace of Westminster for three days as part of Operation Feather.
The funeral
The Royal Family will make plans for the Queen's funeral, which is expected to take place 10 days following her death. The funeral will be held at Westminster Abbey, and a national two-minute silence will be observed at midday. Processions will take place in both London and Windsor, with a committal service at St George's Chapel. The Queen will be laid to rest at Windsor's King George VI Memorial Chapel. Additionally, all government social media will showcase a black banner in the wake of the Queen’s death.
All non-urgent content will be put on hold for later, re-tweets will be banned, London Stock Exchange will be closed including most banks in the UK. With such vital information being leaked, A spokesperson for the Welsh government confirmed:
It was marked 'official sensitive' and should not have been shared. We take the issue of information and data security very seriously and this is now being investigated as a potential security breach.
While this is the original plan, the fact that she passed away in Scotland may change things drastically.
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