Closing Address, V Legislature

28th October 2017, Province of Tytannia

Ladies and gentlemen, as we approach the end of our business of the day, it is my solemn duty to bring the Fifth Legislature, and indeed the Ruling Council as we know it, to a close, which I will now do in giving this short prepared speech.

I'll start at the very beginning. It was approaching the end of the Easter holidays in 2013. I was in Year 10, studying GCSE History, and I had a homework assignment to write an essay about how British society changed between 1955 and 1975. I was carrying out some research, looking up the definition of society on Wikipedia, when I came across this unusual subject: micronations. Tiny countries which anyone can make, with everything a larger, more recognised country would have. I was immediately captivated by the notion of creating and running an entire country. I'd always loved playing strategy games on the computer, controlling armies and kingdoms, and as children me and my brothers would often make up silly role-play games; some of you may remember Jakeland. But this was different – hundreds, if not thousands, of people around the world were making their own nations, and they weren't just pretending: this was for real.

And so, naturally I was soon thinking about creating my own micronation, and thinking about what it might look like. It was obviously a bizarre concept to introduce to most people, so I knew I'd have to start small. On the 13th of April 2013, I came here on a usual weekly visit, and decided to try to claim my first patch of land – the back garden. Unfortunately, I didn't have the resources I needed to make a flag, so I went home and claimed a slightly smaller patch of land instead – my bedroom. 5 square metres, population: 1. A paper flag drawn using colour pencils, attached to the blinds with safety pins. A border sign written in permanent marker, propped up by the user manual for the old Nokia brick I had at the time. Humble beginnings indeed.

I first started to spread the word about the Empire amongst my online friends, and the first person to sign up to become a citizen was a certain Sir Alex Helliker. Sir Alex went on to become my legal advisor, and not only that, but also ended up becoming my housemate at the University of Birmingham. In a strange roundabout way, he's now probably going to play a key role in the new administration, after being a citizen all these years.

So I had a flag, and my first citizens were starting to trickle in, but I wanted more – much more. I started a blog, which we now know as our much-loved national newspaper, the Adammic Express. I started writing my first laws, creating the original version of the Supreme Directive, setting out my powers as the Emperor and the rights of the citizens. Like most legislation written by 15 year olds with no legal experience, that original Supreme Directive was riddled with inconsistent sections, ambiguous sections and a healthy amount of complete nonsense, but Sir Alex ratified it, and six days after Foundation, the process of setting up the Empire was complete. I was now ready to go bigger.

The first people I had to get on board were my brothers. They'd heard about what I was doing and were thinking about setting up their own nations. At lunch on the 21st of April, I persuaded them that we should all work together, and so we came back here later that day, this time with everything we would need to make a flag, and you can still see that very same flag to this day in the conservatory. And so, Tytannia was born. Before long, whole properties were joining us. Maternia. Primoria, or the Adammic Imperial Province as it was then known. Meanwhile, I was busy creating all the elements of government we would need to succeed in the long-term. The Adammic Army was created to secure our new borders, although admittedly back then it only consisted of Prince Jake and Sir Matthew armed with plastic swords. A Treasury was created to store our funds, and a system of nobility was put in place to govern the new provinces. We were also taking our first steps onto the world stage of micronations. I first contacted the Prince of Monovia, Harry Fitzpatrick, who put me in contact with the Emperor of Austenasia, Jonathan Augustus, who, as some of you know, it turns out is likely to be my 11th cousin. Jonathan got us into the Grand Unified Micronational, a great forum where I could meet a whole range of other micronational leaders from around the world. Interacting with them made me realise ways in which I could improve Adammia.

After a couple of months, I stood outside in Imperial Square and made my first speech to the people of the Empire. It was quite an important speech, because it was then that I announced that democracy would be coming to Adammia. Ruling as an absolute monarch had its advantages, but I thought it would be more fun to give other people a say. So, the original Supreme Directive was scrapped, and I began writing a new one, this time including the Ruling Council, and a directly-elected Prime Minister. On the 30th of June, a day we now celebrate as Democracy Day, we had our first ever referendum and the result was that the Ruling Council came into being; it held its first meeting the following weekend, on the infamous pink blanket just underneath the two trees outside. Before long we were having our first elections, and of course the Emperor Mother emerged victorious as our first ever Prime Minister.

Soon, things began to settle into a steady pattern of Council meetings; weekly at first, but people found this overbearing, so we soon switched to monthly meetings instead. My skills at writing laws were improving and towards the end of 2013 I went back over everything that had been written so far and drastically improved it. This began a cycle of constant improvement and increased professionalism in the way we conduct government business in Adammia, which has led to the very sophisticated system we have to day.

2014 was one of the best years we ever had. Watertopia and Myway had just joined us, and the Empire was also starting to take off at school. Amongst my year group, more and more people were starting to talk about Adammia, and I was having people ask me about it quite regularly, many of whom signed up as citizens. This was the golden age of the Adammic Army, operating out of our base in Astley Meadow, albeit not without a little resistance from a certain one-man insurgency which we soon dealt with. Around February time, I was invited by a teacher to give a class presentation about Adammia and micronations in general, which was fairly well-recieved.

Then came our first anniversary in April – the first Foundation Day celebrations were held here, with the now-traditional buffet and speech. It was also the day of the ill-fated Andromeda 1 rocket mission, which infamously failed to get off the ground in rainy conditions. A few months later, I finished school, and very quickly lost contact with many of my former soldiers; Astley Meadow was soon abandoned. However, this loss was compensated by the arrival of a new player on the scene: Will McCracken, representing a crippled empire in Devon which was a shadow of its former glory and seeking new leadership. We took them on board as the Colony of Borealia, and they soon contributed much to Adammia, building a furnace which could melt aluminium and copper. For a while, Sir Will was very influential in Adammia.

Back here, we were focusing on finance and the economy. The Contributions Scheme was supplemented by taxes from the sale of wine and advertising on my YouTube channel, bringing in a healthy stream of revenue. We had a far more robust economy than most micronations ever achieve, and it allowed us to invest in new projects, such as the Air Force's remote-controlled quadcopter, and the Populus Imperium monument in the conservatory, which we unveiled in October 2014. We finally got the rocket working with the Andromeda 3 mission, another huge moment for us. Adammia was starting to become influential within the world of micronations, so much so that I was elected Chair of the Grand Unified Micronational in September 2014.

After the huge amount of activity in 2014, things started to slow down from 2015 onwards. College turned out to be nowhere near as fertile of a recruiting ground as school had, although we did get Dearneland as our Air Force base in South Yorkshire. We also had our first overseas colony after the American territory of Adammic Columbia joined the Empire, led by Sir Grant Hawkins. Our internal politics was changing, with the creation of the Moderate and Labour parties in July 2015 to challenge the much older Liberal Party. The Emperor Mother soon afterwards won her third successive term to the Office of Prime Minister, giving the Moderates the upper hand in the first battle of this new political landscape. Towards the end of the year, Adammia had another crowning achievement when travel writer Jonny Blair became our first ever tourist, a rare honour for micronations.

Of course, as time went by the achievements slowed down and by 2016 Adammia was starting to enter decline. Only weeks after I made my first and only visit to the colony, Borealia voted to leave the Empire in an independence referendum at the start of August of that year, followed shortly afterwards by Adammic Columbia. There was some excitement after Sir Paul McKenna finally toppled the Moderates to become the first Labour Prime Minister, but I started university and the pace of government activity slowed to a crawl as a result. The economy plunged into recession. And so this brings us to our present situation. We find ourselves having to embrace new horizons in order to prosper once again, but we will never forget everything that we have achieved here. For all our troubles over the past year or two, I still earnestly believe that the Empire of Adammia is the most successful and influential micronation this side of Watford Gap Service Station. There are thousands of micronations out there, coming and going all the time. Some don't even last a week. Many of those that do last are nothing more than debating chambers, a legislature masquerading as a nation but with no resources to control. Micronations that last this long and have as many real-world achievements as we have are rare. A functioning economy. A model rocket flight. A tourist visit. A sophisticated political system. Over a hundred citizens. The Chairmanship of a hugely respected international organisation. Foundation Day. Granted, so much of this was all my idea, but it still would not have been possible without your support. It was you who came together and formed the identity of a new culture, a new nation. Every time I do a speech like this I reiterate the pride I feel for this mad project and I say it because it is true. Some of you have contributed more than others, but even those of you who just paid your Contributions and listened to what I have to say made a difference just by being here. That being said, I do want to pay particular tribute to those of you who did put that extra effort in, because without you the last 4 years would have been much more boring. Her Imperial Highness the Emperor Mother, Prime Minister for 3 years, you made Foundation Day and the New Years buffet and all these other events happen working tirelessly behind the scenes. And Sir Paul McKenna and Prince Jake, who also both served as Prime Minister and didn't mind me pestering for signatures for obscure documents too much. Sir Christopher Hall, our maverick one-man opposition who always had something to say when he did show up. And, of course, my grandfather Sir Reginald Hall – over four years of continuous service as our Minister of Finance as well as being Deputy Prime Minister for much of that time, your thoughtful and practical advice has been invaluable to us. So again, thank you all so much, I hope this has taught you something about politics and the way countries work. You'll still be part of the Empire and we'll continue to celebrate Foundation Day here, but at least on the politics front, for now it's time to hand over to a new generation of Adammians and I'd like to wish the new administration the best of luck picking up the reins. The sun may have set on the First Era of Adammic history but the story is far from over. With that, I'd like to announce that the Fifth Legislature of the Ruling Council is hereby dissolved. Once again, thank you.