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Comment by etrevino | Hacker News Reader

I used to work as a scholar of Britain (specifically executions in Early Modern England, but you pick up a lot along the way) and I've tried to explain to a lot of people the amount of influence and control that the monarch actually holds. I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing. The Queen can't create legislation, she can restrain it. She is purely a moderating influence in this sense. She could, in theory, name new people to the House of Lords, but the Lords is no longer a hereditary body and there is a mechanism for the House of Commons to override the Lords.

Parliament does have power over the monarch in some senses, of course, in that there is precedent for Parliament changing the order of succession or introducing a regency. This happened without the monarch's assent, though admittedly over a hundred years ago. But the British constitution is one that replies on precedence, not a formal document.

I've characterized the Queen's powers as "reserve powers" inasmuch as, if everything goes wrong and Parliament dies from a meteor strike, the government still legally operate provided there is a monarch (even if you have to reach deep into the line of succession to find that person). By law she has to call elections within a certain amount of time. Obviously there's nothing to force her to follow the laws, but that's true of any country. She (or her heirs) are the leaders of last resort.

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> I've tried to explain to a lot of people the amount of influence and control that the monarch actually holds. I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing.

She used her powers to get an exemption from transparency laws with regards to her personal wealth: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-que..., and Charles did the same to ban his tenants from purchasing freeholds: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/09/prince-charl....

This constitutional corruption of our laws by the most privileged family in Britain is indeed a bad thing, and one of the many reasons why the monarchy should be abolished.

Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled.

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled.

From a democratic/ideological perspective you might be right.

On the other hand, having a royal family it cute -- doesn't that count for something :)

I live in Denmark where we also pay the royal family some money, few privileges, etc..

My personal pocket philosophy is that the money we pay the royal family is the cost of a peaceful transformation to democracy.

A revolution like the French isn't free or without risks. Paying off the monarchy for generations to come is quite possibly cheaper.

A revolution would have incurred negative growth, and it's entirely possible that our economy would have been marginally smaller today, had we opted for a violent revolution.

Would be fun to see if anyone did that math? :)

In any case, if paying a bit of money and respect was the cost of a peaceful adoption of democracy it might have been worth it.

Just look to Syria, paying Assad an absurd amount of money to take a ceremonial role would probably have been a lot cheaper, and less risky.

> On the other hand, having a royal family it cute -- doesn't that count for something :)

Emphatic no from me on that one.

Economically, it might. It is commonly asserted that the British monarchy brings in far more money than it drains in the form of tourism. I would be interested to know how well this claim stands up to scrutiny.

On the one hand, most of the physical tourist attractions could be maintained without monarchy actually owning or inhabiting them - indeed, the tourism value of Buckingham Palace would perhaps be improved if you could actually go inside.

On the other hand, perhaps that would ruin the mystique - and the mystique is certainly worth something too, as the wedding of William and Kate is estimated to have generated several billion pounds in tourist revenue all by itself, which is enough to pay for several decades of monarchy.

If the royalty went away and the UK took possession of its lands, castles, and holdings, it could make a killing off tourism to those private or semi-private residences. Other European countries that are no longer monarchies do this just fine.

This is the point that people who say "but what about tourism?" completely and spectacularly miss.

Versailles is one of the most visited places in the world. Having no royal people in there makes zero difference to that.

We could have the tourism without the actual royals, 100% no problem there

A lot of this land and property is privately owned by the royal family but leased to the government, I’m not exactly versed in UK law; but a governmental attempt to seize a private citizens land seems like it wouldn’t be the smoothest thing to attempt to pull off.

What does a week at Buckingham palace cost on AirBnB?

> Economically, it might. It is commonly asserted that the British monarchy brings in far more money than it drains in the form of tourism. I would be interested to know how well this claim stands up to scrutiny.

Only because of Hollywood accounting.

Tourists don't come to England to see the Queen. Tourists can't see the Queen. Tourists come to see the Palace. The Queen doesn't own Buckingham Palace. The government does. If the Queen were to disappear tomorrow, tourists would still come to England to see Buckingham Palace.

The question really is whether the existence of the queen is what provides continued value for buckingham palace — without the monarchy, it becomes another relic of a bygone era, with no inherent quality to attract tourists beyond its history and aesthetic. Visiting a “live” structure is an altogether different thing — this is where the queen lives vs this is where a queen once lived (as opposed to all the other places kings and queens have lived)

It's total bullshit. France got rid of their monarchy a long time ago and it's not like their tourist industry suffers.

Getting rid of the monarch as the head of state also means your nation has to pick a new head of state, somehow. Regular elections and an office and bureaucracy around that isn't free either.

But the Brits already HAVE a head of state what they don't need in effect is another. There is nothing the queen does that couldn't be done by existing members of government.

No it doesn't. You may have Barack Trump the friendly Clown as a costume and post different silent actors each week.

It is useful to have a hereditary figurehead to open flower shows and the like. It keeps the elected politicians from forming a personality cult, and gives them more time to govern. Pardoning turkeys probably isn't the highest and best use of the us President's time

> It is commonly asserted that the British monarchy brings in far more money than it drains in the form of tourism.

It is however seldomly proven. Should that not be a requirement, like it is for the rest of us?

According to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw, the royal family brings in 160M pound from land property with a maintenance cost of 40M pound, and an additional 7000M pound from tourism

I expect to be downvoted for this but I think there is an appeal in an institution that dogmaticaly upholds a "higher" ideal of human behavior. They try to provide us with an example of how a hypothetical family with essentially unlimited resources that is born into this world with a social duty should theoretically behave. They also show us constant examples that human emotions are a factor regardless of your socio-economic situation. This provides the layman with an answer to the question "what would I do if I won the lottery and was instantly vaulted into the highest social circle?" Would you use your influence for the good of the people while maintaining a scandalous affair? Would you fall into the same emotional traps as the royals?

I think it's an interesting social experiment that may be worth the cost it requires to maintain.

What you describe is noblis oblige. It's a long standing cultural force ofarguable efficacy peculiar in particular to France/Britain.

Elsewhere, there are alternative viewpoints. The funny thing is that your proposed institution assumes the layman is the one who needs to be taught or reminded more often than not.

And then there's Prince Andrew.

> It is commonly asserted that the British monarchy brings in far more money than it drains in the form of tourism.

Ok, but how is that related to the political power of the monarchy?

I don't think tourists even know what powers the Queen actually holds.

Tourism in France works without any royal family to feed.

Stripping the Monarchy of their lands goes quite a bit further than just abolishing the monarchy. Removing the right to rule a county is one thing. Stripping a wealthy family from all their holdings seems to go a bit too far by any measure in a civilized society that values the concept of personal property.

>Stripping a wealthy family from all their holdings seems to go a bit too far by any measure in a civilized society that values the concept of personal property.

The concept of personal property can perfectly accommodate of a limit in how much a individual person can personally own, especially in regard to the distribution of wealth in the whole population.

> Stripping a wealthy family from all their holdings

An Act of Parliament could just ascertain that the Windsors exempting each other from Inheritance tax was unlawful, and ask the new Republican Revenue & Tax office to assess 40% IHT on every historical generational transfer of assets.

Just redressing the historical injustices that the Windsors benefitted from would strangely make them much less rich.

Do you let a thief keep the stuff they stole?

The way I read the GP's comment was that the meat of the argument wasn't the 'cute' part, it was the 'avoid a violent revolution' part. Wars are usually more expensive than peace.

We don't need a violent revolution, the people who place themselves above all other people and claim ownership of our lands and claim control of us as people could choose to denounce those positions and powers of their own will. No one is forcing them to claim sovereignty over other people, nor forcing them to claim sole right to income and assets that should belong to the nation.

Why would that result in the positions/powers being abolished, rather that succession kicking in?

Monarchy isn't a hot potato, that the current power-holder has to directly pass on lest it get "dropped on the floor" and cease to exist. Monarch is a belief of the people that a position of power exists and is "open" to be taken by a person with a claim on "right to rule." It's a thing you can convince people you deserve, at which point they put the crown on your head rather than shooting at you for wearing it. Succession gives a peaceful path for that transfer of power, but succession isn't the default; a power vacuum being grabbed at by random nobles—usually violently!—is.

If the current monarch stepped down, someone else without the same scruples would just step up. You'd have to, in effect, get every even-barely-theoretically-"righteous" noble to all agree to denounce the power, for the power to truly go away.

> nor forcing them to claim sole right to income and assets that should belong to the nation

In theory, it'd then be shared as belonging to the nation. In practice, you'd get the political class lining their pockets in the short term, and leaving us worse off in the long term.

Between letting successive populist governments have free reign over what happens to certain wealth, institutions and freeholdings and spunking it on policies during their 4 or 8 years in charge, and letting a somewhat stable (if sometimes self-serving) hereditary monarchy retain stewardship over the course of centuries - I'm inclined toward the latter.

Snapped my neck nodding too hard

"Cute".

Defending state supported inherited power, which has already shown to be corrupted and have abused that power, by saying it's "cute" is like saying pirates murdering and stealing are romantisised to being cute.

Don't confuse watching and enjoying Pirates of the Caribbean with thinking it's a good idea to murder and steal on merchant ships.

Russian oligarchs and mafioso also have their charm, but don't confuse The Godfather part II with a good idea.

That's a very fair argument :)

And maybe one day it will be time to do away with it.. but it does have a cuteness factor to it.

And politicians are unlikely to want to burn political capital doing away with a popular cultural institution.

So as long as they behave, remain popular, I doubt the monarchy will go away.

As mentioned elsewhere, they have actually not behaved.

And we've not even mentioned yet Prince Andrew's connections to Jeffrey Epstein, and how he's being allowed to get away with it because of his family.

Here in Spain the royal family is also paid in a similar way as Denmark and Sweden. However, they are corrupt and make deals with SA and other nations. They go on elephant hunts and are above the law as the Spanish secret service / police will try to defend them as much as possible. When something actually does come to light, they are allowed to leave the country without limit and live in SA with their millions of tax free money.

I don't see it as cute, more as a cancer. Sometimes they are benign but you still want to get rid of it in-case it actually ends up killing you.

It was just the previous King, Juan Carlos, his son (the current King) seems to conduct himself much better (no corruption, no elephant hunts, no tawdry extra-marital affairs).

But I do agree with you that the concept of monarchy (hereditary power/wealth at taxpayers' expense) has run its course.

Hunting elephants is legal and can help protection for the species. The real problem is in the context. Is going to an african tax heaven with some questionable people, suffering the second strange accident to the royal family in a short time, and justify the travel later claiming that he wanted to shoot an elephant.

EU project is only partially compatible with monarchy, you either have the power or don't and monarchs can only slowly lose more and more power to bankers with time. Thus, the current anti monarchy trend in many countries of Europe would be expectable. British probably see it coming and jumped of the train.

Not trying to put you down. I see the thinking behind your rationale, it is also somewhat detached from human emotional and political reality.

Being exposed to the atrocities of /most/ (im no expert) modern day monarchs and being an arab in the middle east, i find it REALLY hard to call what they do cute, or something math and money could fix. These problems, even dänmarks, evolved through strife, injustice and corruption.

Monarchies are necessary as-long as the region needs them .. i see politics more like an evolutionary process where monarchy is part of a nations dev stages.

I actually wish you were right.

In Denmark we have a constitutional monarchy... And while the constitution mentions the "King" many places.

We now have a Queen, and the role of the monarchy is entirely ceremonial.

Back in 1849 the Danish king signed the constitution, making the role of the king ceremonial, and giving us democracy.

Sure, this was in the aftermath of the French revolution. And hadn't the Danish king signed away his power we would likely have had a revolution.

Yes, monarchy in it's original/natural form is horrific. It's essentially a dictatorship, no different. But I'd money and a ceremonial role can grease the wheels for a peaceful transition is that so bad?

In Britain they don't have a constitution the same way. But I see many events throughout british history where the crown gradually signed away power.

> Yes, monarchy in it's original/natural form is horrific. It's essentially a dictatorship, no different. But I'd money and a ceremonial role can grease the wheels for a peaceful transition is that so bad?

Not saying its bad, just saying they wont do it. Theyre already rich beyond imagining- sadism and abuse are rampant, and the public doesnt seem to care.

Like seriously, how much cash will it take to convince the saudis to go ceremonial? Meanwhile another gay person is hung and a dissident is assassinated. That all said .. seems to be what the region “wants” - displeasure isnt high enough yet for regular folk to demand change.

In arabic there is a saying “the people earn the ruler they deserve”.

Beyond the short term moral qualm .. its just a step in the development of these countries - it could - and i was - worse. Better wiser days will come.

It might have been a mistake to use the word 'cute', monarchies are an ugly business.

But countries where the powers in charge are closely balanced enough that the transition away from a monarchy to something else slowly (maybe leaving the monarchy itself intact as in the UK) are much better than the ripping off the bandaid approach seen in Germany or France. Moderate political change is generally a better idea than radical change.

I think 'cute' is probably a good word - amongst other reasons to visit London, a portion of tourists want to take photos with the silly people with tall red hats, see Buckingham palace and then buy a mug with a photo of the queen on it. People crowd the streets to see if the silly old smiley rich lady will wave at you from her golden carriage. People listen to the queens speech not because they look at her as a tyrannical dictator, but usually because it gives some of the population the warm fuzzies.

I'm not saying that's worth more than a fully functioning democracy, or that they couldn't monetise themselves, but I think this is what OP is referring to. Something can be both 'cute' and an ugly business.

We're talking about a country where they are forced to pretend that someone can be born with an ability to rule. Hereditary monarchies a sick joke.

If people want to go and look at the English and think that it is cute they can. But that shouldn't influence the local decision making.

In Saudi Arabia you can go to a public punishment, and see criminals (e.g. gays?) get hanged or have their hands cut off.

If you're a foreigner apparently you'll be pushed to the front for a good view.

Also cute!

And parliaments aren't? It's not actually clear to me which is better or worse over the long term.

Some are bringing up points on wealth and for me that feels like it stems from envy which is also pretty ugly. I postulate that striping the royals of wealth will make no one here materially better off.

I've noticed that in the last five years or so there's been a trend to automatically dismiss any criticism or argument with "you're just jealous" rather than addressing it's merits. Any wealthy person is automatically immune from any sort of criticism - because if you criticize them it's only because you're jealous.

It's an ad hominem attack, nonsensical, tired, and, as someone who has experienced a lot of wealth envy in the past, always strike me as so incredibly insincere.

> Some are bringing up points on wealth and for me that feels like it stems from envy which is also pretty ugly.

This idea that criticism of wealth must be just down to envy is really quite a tired stereotype.

It makes even less sense when there's a hereditary class of people whose wealth and power is constitutionally guaranteed and, as we've discovered, who use corrupt means to maintain this by intervening in the lawmaking process to neutralise threats to their income.

It's not envy to realise that there must be a better system than this.

There is a difference between abolition of privileges reserved to a caste and striping of wealth people regardless of whether or not anyone is granted the possibility to obtain the same wealth by legal means.

False dichotomy. You don't have to sign up for a contract that give them even ceremonial powers forever or behead them in grotesque violence.

It is possible to negotiate a deal where they have no power and get to keep their properties but they have to maintain it themselves.

> It is possible to negotiate a deal where they have no power and get to keep their properties but they have to maintain it themselves.

Sure, it might be possible to get a better deal. Or it might not, is it worth the risk?

Giving a ceremonial role is a pretty solid carrot. And compared to violent revolution it's dirt cheap to offer :)

I'm sure it wasn't easy to convince the Danish king to sign the Danish constitution in 1849. It's not a given that it could have happened peacefully.

In the end, it might not last forever anyways. It'll last so long as the monarchy remains popular, because at the end of the day the votes can change the constitution.

It might be interesting to some that there is some possibility that QE2 isn't the rightful monarch anyhow.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Abney-Hastings,_14th...

Possession is 9/10th of the law...

Every single now living monarch sits on their throne because an ancestor of theirs took it from someone else. In this case, might makes right.

Seems like the right step then, might be to stage an insurrection, depose the queen, and take the throne, eh?

I'm looking at you, readers from Ireland and France. :) Have at it.

> I'm looking at you, readers from Ireland and France. :) Have at it.

They've already had at it. The French in 1066 and the Irish have invaded Wales and Scotland. So have the Dutch, Germans and Scandinavians for that matter, it's time to give someone else a run.

Ireland didn't get rid of the monarchy violently, it happened as a result of the Republic of Ireland Act, 1949.

Sweden's current monarch is king because his ancestor was adopted. His adoptive father's father was elected king (after Russian pressure).

Edit: The election happened as the king before him had no heirs.

> Sweden's current monarch is king because his ancestor was adopted.

Well, Karl XIV became king because he was elected by parliament, and then Karl XIII formally adopted him to make him and his family royal, not the other way around.

Either way, his son and grandson both married women that were descendants of Gustav Vasa in an attempt to bolster their claims, and that guy definitely took the throne by force.

So yes, you're right in that not every current reigning monarch has their position due to conquest, but most of them. And then that doesn't really matter, because the point I was making is that "rightful" is actually bullshit, it's 100% made up. It's political theater created to make it harder for presumptive conquerors to keep a throne, even if they have the might necessary to take it.

Or, as CGP Grey puts it "bigger army diplomacy"

Also, Michael Hastings isn't a descendant of Sophia of Hanover, which means his presumed claim would be invalidated by law anyway.

> On the other hand, having a royal family it cute -- doesn't that count for something :)

You might probably buy far more and far better distributed amount of cuteness without a royal family.

> A revolution like the French isn't free or without risks. Paying off the monarchy for generations to come is quite possibly cheaper.

Nothing is without cost and risk. Keeping a royal family includes a cost and it rise the risk inherent with any concentrated political/wealth power. It is not absolutely safer on all regard to go for a different kind of government of course, it’s a different trade-off.

>A revolution would have incurred negative growth, and it's entirely possible that our economy would have been marginally smaller today, had we opted for a violent revolution.

First, one might be willing to destitute royal caste from its privileges without willing to shedding blood and make widespread violence arise. The question is, if the people decide by means of a referendum to get rid of privileges, will the privileged few accept without trying to use violence to maintain their position?

Actually in France, they are several pretender to the throne[1]. It’s just that virtually nobody care.

>Would be fun to see if anyone did that math? :)

Maths on what? Societies are complex systems with many parameters whose evolution is subject to the butterfly effect. You can throw numbers in-between to decorate any thesis you would like to defend, it doesn’t give it any meaningful scientific credibility.

> Just look to Syria, paying Assad an absurd amount of money to take a ceremonial role would probably have been a lot cheaper, and less risky.

You say that like there was some kind of strictly internal consensus in the people of Syria to go for what happened rather than paying Assad. That sounds like an absurdly simplistic exposition of reality.

[1] https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2019/07/08/qui-serait-l-...

> First, one might be willing to destitute royal caste from its privileges without willing to shedding blood and make widespread violence arise.

How do you replace the people in power peacefully, if they don't want to go?

It generally works out best if you offer them a carrot.

My point was merely that if it avoids violent revolution, the size of the carrot your offering might not matter so much :)

Last time a Danish monarch used any kind of political power it was close to end in a revolution with a general strike.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Crisis

https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/danish-workers-str...

Bribing the monarch into being a figurehead is no guarantee either.

For instance, the monarchy didn't stop the rise of Mussolini or Franco.

Monarchies tend to want to continue the family business. I’d expect them to learn from the tragedies of the 20th century. As a result of the fascist movements, the Italian monarchy lost the crown and the Spanish lost it but only recovered it because of Franco’s whim. If I were a king, I’d use whatever reserve powers I had to oppose that kind of future for my dynasty.

In that article, from an 80 old day comment of mine, you did not understand my comment. You told me to read the article. You don't understand what I mean by justification. There is a difference between prescription and description. That article was descriptive, not prescriptive. You cannot justify universals if you believe only particulars exist. You can only justify universals if you are willing to accept a metaphysical reality and provide a grounding for the metaphysical. Not everything is proven in the same way. The scientific method is good for studying particulars, but it cannot prove a universal. For example, science assumes the laws of logic in its process, which it cannot prove or provide a justification for. Also the scientific method cannot justify the scientific method. You on the other hand will probably say "because it works." Something working is a value-judgement, and that is not independent of ethics. It also assumes induction and regularity in nature, but you obviously haven't heard about the problem of induction. Science cannot provide a justification for induction. Science will also claim things like we know things from observation or what is in the sense data. Did we observe that or sense that in our sense data? I would say not everything is proven the same way. You can use science for some stuff, but not everything.

Nope, it's no guarantee.

But it might it improve the odds?

Starting with a violent revolution tends to put violent people in charge of your democracy.

I suppose it worked reasonably for the Americans.

You cannot divorce Syria's situation from regional geopolitics. Simplifying it to not bribing Assad enough is a complete fantasy. Ultimately most of the problems stem from the hard realpolitik fact that the Syrian state have little military power to wield against significant adversaries. Their newfound alliance with Russia may be useful against rebels and terrorists and negating the meddling of the French and US, but it gets problematic when it comes to defending against Russian interests like Turkey and Israel. Syria is being carved up right now and no amount of bribing would help. Take a look at Kashmir if you want a better example of how to properly put down a protest.

> Simplifying it to not bribing Assad enough is a complete fantasy.

True,

I don't think anyone was convinced Assad would step down if given more time or money.

Just saying, that in that calculus offering a ceremonial role is still a cheap bargain -- assuming you can get the people in power to take the offer -- that's not a given.

> My personal pocket philosophy is that the money we pay the royal family is the cost of a peaceful transformation to democracy.

The transition is done, if you stopped now there would be no revolution to keep the monarchy.

> The transition is done, if you stopped now there would be no revolution to keep the monarchy.

True, now we're just paying interest on a purchase made generations ago.

Is that so bad? I assume it'll go away if the monarchy becomes unpopular.

> Is that so bad?

Is funneling tons of taxpayer money to some useless family of millionaires bad?

Yes, I think so. It's a moral failure and should just stop.

Worth remembering that we in the UK have already had a French style revolution with the monarch being decapitated in 1649.

It was considered a "bad move" and his son was restored to the role of head of state about 12 years later to correct it. :P

The idea of a powerless head of state has always appealed to me. I can't think of anything worse than someone like Johnson assuming that role.

-Living in Norway, whose monarchy is basically reduced to being on hand for when we need someone to officially open a new bridge to nowhere or provide apolitical statements in time of need, I am a pragmatic monarchist.

In the sense that keeping the royals around probably is cheaper and creating less fuss than becoming a republic. Precisely as the monarch is not elected, there is (the odd left fringe aside) very little controversy to be had.

Rather than electing a president (which, of course, will lead to a fraction of the population seeing their candidate lose), we've got our (ceremonial) head of state and everybody just deals with it. The monarch is very much aware that the survival of the institution he represents relies on him being apolitical and not attempting to boss parliament around.

Heck, the grandfather of the current monarch even won over a lot of the left when pointing out (in the late 1920s sometime) that he was the king of the communists, too - not just the bourgeousie, and asked the head of the labour party to form a government when election results indicated that was what the electorate wanted - despite attempts from the establishment to have him appoint anybody but the election winners.

Basically, as long as the royal family are as well behaved as they mostly are, they are probably cheaper and less controversial than any alternative. (While still being outrageously undemocratic, of course).

The main argument for abolishing monarchy around here probably is on humanitarian grounds - basically, it is hardly fair to have one's life cut out for oneself from birth?

> On the other hand, having a royal family it cute -- doesn't that count for something :)

Preferential hiring if they want a job as a reenactor or tour guide.

erm, the crown pays you, the currency was even named the crown?!?

What? We can castrate the royals, then keep them ceremonially.

The cutesiness of the Royal family is pragmatic as well. She can take some of the State Dinners that would otherwise go to the PM.

It seems silly but the US has to have the President go to everything and time is money to the President.

After watching The Crown (it's fiction I know), being royal seems to me to be incredibly tedious, boring and downright limiting. Sure you can jet off to a nice country, but you are very limited in what you can do, where you can go and who you can talk to. Mess up just once and the tabloid media will be all over you.

Honestly would much rather be poor and free than be "royal".

I do think they serve a purpose, and tradition is important to many people (I know the progressive-types want to pull all that down).

The Guardian article of Feb 7th appears to talk at length about something that happened in 1973. It (article) is quite convoluted but it looks like the Queen was trying to preserve her privacy as she perceived it at the time, perhaps in a heavy handed way.

From the other Guardian article:

"The number of tenants on Scilly caught by the exemption is not known but has been estimated at 100.

One of them is a 78-year-old retired oil executive, Alan Davis. He has been prevented from buying the freehold to his 1960s bungalow."

The Royal Family may not be to your taste but these two articles are hardly grounds for insurrection.

I am genuinely sobbing about Alan the retired oil executive's plight.

The underlying issue is that they intervened in Britain's lawmaking process for their own personal benefit.

It is of course not the only reason to abolish the monarchy. Just one more for the list.

"the monarchy should be abolished"

This is such a no-brainer, and I really don't understand why anyone anywhere in the modern world would want someone to rule over them.

From a common sense perspective I agree with you.

However I find it hard to reconcile it with the fact that many/most of the nicest countries on earth to live in are constitutional monarchies. Including Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, UK, NZ and Japan.

I don't know why this is, but it gives me pause in overthrowing the monarchy. It might be the existence of a monarch unites society in some way, or it might be that socities that move slowly rather than with revolutions tend to be more stable and comfortable.

I think, as with most things in the UK, we will get rid of the monarchy when it causes a problem that can't be dealt with in an easier way.

> However I find it hard to reconcile it with the fact that many/most of the nicest countries on earth to live in are constitutional monarchies. Including Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, UK, NZ and Japan.

Because it has nothing to do with wealth?

The detrimental financial costs of monarchies are a drop in a nation's budget.

Just as the prime minister gifting his best friend 1 million euro per year from the nation's budget wouldn't really impact matters much overall in a nation that deals with billions each year.

It would still be quite corrupt, of course.

> It might be the existence of a monarch unites society in some way

Of course not, it is almost always a decisive issue in countries that have a monarchy.

In republics, almost everyone agrees that republics are better, but in monarchies the issue divides the population, and those that are in favor of retaining the monarchy are almost always traditionalists who desire to do many senseless things simply because they are tradition and are afraid of change.

History has always sided with the progressives, for no man wants change for it's own sake. When a man desire change, he typically has thought well of it, and desires a change for a reason, but when a man desires that matters stay the same, he very thought little of it, and wishes that they remain so for their own sake.

I would point out that Sweden is unique on that list, as although they do have a monarchy, the king hold no legal/political power, not even in a "symbolic" sense.

A potential explanation for the phenomena you've observed is that it's uncommon for new monarchies to be started in the 21st century, so the countries that still have monarchies are all countries that for the most part have had stable forms of government for many decades if not centuries.

Also there are plenty of poorer countries with monarchies: Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, North Korea, Thailand, Cambodia, Bhutan, Lesotho, Oman, Qatar, etc. (I'll admit it's a bit suspect to label North Korea as a monarchy).

If you're suggesting some kind of causal link between monarchs and nice places, it seems a bit unfair to count "Canada, Australia, UK, NZ" individually, it kinds of pads the numbers a bit since it's all the same monarch.

Also, you haven't mentioned Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. Are they not nice places, despite sharing the very same monarch?

Hmm.. might be "Survivorship bias"? The not-so-nice countries are more likely to remove their monarchies / nice are more likely to keep them?

Also, Japan and the UK were not exactly nice when their monarchs had absolute power...

Maybe because all the insurrectionists were murdered, removing them from the gene pool, by our monarchs ancestors.

If conformity and deference are a necessary trait for survival that has to have some effect, even if it's a societal effect rather than a genetic one.

The Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Germany, France, Ireland, South Korea, etc. There are plenty of counter examples.

Yes, such it is a no-brainer to not remove the foreskin of one's children, or that alcohol is a far more dangerous hard drug than many that are illegal, or that democracy should be proportional, rather than distrct-based, or that fines should be proportional to one's wealth or income, rather than absolute, or that cars should mandatorily have their lights on, even during the day, or that organ donation should be opt-out, rather than opt-in.

Tradition has always been worth more than sanity or even human lives to many men. — as man will resort to absolute madness, so long as the madness be a tradition that has gone on for long enough.

I still remember, all the way back in the Nixon era, my dad grumbling: "Most people just want to be ruled by a king."

But I think a symbolic monarchy could serve a useful purpose by giving those people a ceremonial role in return for promising that they will never attempt to actually govern.

Edit: Deleted first sentence per comment below.

I think the symbolism of the state (in this case embodied by the monarch, but it doesn’t have to be a monarch) as a separate entity from the “government” is very appealing. In this way, you can have certain offices that work for the state and others that work for the government. The state/crown side would be apolitical whereas the government side would be politically appointed. But it would be helpful to have the two sides explicitly separated to have minimal interference.

I have no idea if this is how the British monarchy works in practice, rather just the view from my side of the pond. In the US, we have the concept of career vs political positions in government agencies, but in practice, there is a great risk of interference between the sides.

What does a monarchy have to do with Jan 6? And how does a ceremonial role impact operations or anyone’s life?

> I really don't understand why anyone anywhere in the modern world would want someone to rule over them.

Almost everyone wants someone to rule over them, or at least over their neighbors.

Do they? The UK's representational democracy has major problems but it's [supposed to be] about having MPs who work for the people, not having rulers.

Do you want someone to rule over you?

I don’t know anyone that wants management that can never be replaced.

Stability. The monarchy has been in charge for so long that getting rid of it would cause turmoil.

I'm not saying it's a good reason, just that it's a reason.

What turmoil would you genuinely believe would follow?

The more absurd thing, in my mind, is that citizens of dozens of countries, including first world nations like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, consent to having the monarchy, even though it is largely ceremonial. Certainly no one believes it creates stability, nor that turmoil would ensue if they abandoned it.

Not leaving the EU would also cause stability and prevent turmoil.

I'm dual-national English/Australian.

As an Australian, wtf are we doing with a monarchy? Makes no sense, it's just a holdover from the colonial past, bring on the republic immediately. (Anecdotally, the general consensus amongst my peers is that the Queen's death will be the trigger for this - no-one wants King Charles again).

As an Englishman - it's too deeply part of our culture to remove just like that. What would we replace it with? A President? How would that be different from the Prime Minister? It's not obvious how it would work, and it's not clear what we'd gain from that (except not having King Charles again). Who would the military swear loyalty to? How do we transfer hundreds of years of strong tradition into a new structure without breaking things? I know that smart people have thought of good answers to all these questions, but they're not part of the public awareness, they haven't had time to steep into the public conciousness (unlike republican ideas in Australia, which are pretty well-formed and accepted).

Because the powers they hold have to be given to someone else. Replacing them with an elected president or parliamentary appointed one potentially create there own issues and sacrifice the long term stability of a monarch.

If the crown was directly replaced with an elected president for instance, that would be an enormous amount of power for a populist leader to wield and the lack of policy responsibility would lead to populists leaders. If the president was appointed by parliament then there is opportunity for corruption.

So there would need to be far more drastic changes and many possibilities (like changing from a parliamentary system) would not be popular. Ideologically I don't think anyone should hold such power based on who their parents we're, but in practice I'm a soft-monarchists or conservative on the matter.

Edit - The powers don't have to be replaced, the holders of those powers do.

> If the crown was directly replaced with an elected president for instance, that would be an enormous amount of power for a populist leader to wield and the lack of policy responsibility would lead to populists leaders.

In practice, all of the powers of the Crown must be exercised, and must only be exercised, by the Monarch as directed by various configurations of notionally-subordinate officials (whether the Parliamentary majority or the Cabinet as executive committee of the Privy Council or...). Simply investing those powers formally in the institutions which direct them in practice would have no noticeable effect. Or investing them, with the same practical constraints, whether together or separately in, like, any random person chosen off the street. The advantage of a ceremonial Presidency in place of a monarch is that they could continue to do the ceremonial functions as well as signing where directed by the Cabinet, etc., without occupying the time of people with real and substantive responsibilities in government.

What powers would need to be replaced, exactly?

All abolishing the monarchy would do is enable people with more wealth and status than me, many of which who I can expect to not only hate people like me far more than the current monarch, but to have self and group interests that are directly contradictory to my own wellbeing, along with ideological motivations that, if carried out, would be extremely harmful to me.

At this point people who think the monarchy should be abolished get filed under "malicious actor who wishes to put themselves, or their ideological co travellers, as my master instead, or wishes to use the de facto power vacuum to enrich themselves at everyone else's expense", i.e. they put themselves into the "I would probably be better off if this person were to be dead" category.

Like the monarchy is not already richer than you! They definitely feel their status is above yours.

At least the new rich overlords wont ask me to pledge allegiance to them during a citizenship oath like the do in Canada. Not just the queen, but also to her heirs like the great Prince Andrew The Pedophile.

If you don't want a single person to rule over you then it makes more sense to just select a head of state on a criterium that anyone can see doesn't have anything to do with their right or ability to rule. If you ask me this beats accidentally giving the head of state some degree of legitimacy just because they happen to be elected.

About 40% of the public expresses authoritarian personality traits. From Wikipedia[1]:

> The authoritarian personality is a personality type characterized by extreme obedience and unquestioning respect for and submission to the authority of a person external to the self, which is realized through the oppression of subordinate people

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality

This is so wrong that it's basically offensive.

Considerably more so-called progressive folks (and others) put their faith in US Presidents they favour, than do subjects of most Monarchs, let alone the UK Monarch.

The level of demagoguery I witnessed around 2008 and 2016 in the US was ridiculous, people were spellbound as if their leaders were Disney characters brought to life.

Most Democratic Heads of State are elected on highly superficial and preformative presentations of themselves, effectively the result of giant PR and communications mechanations.

Other Heads of State - like Von der Leyen in the EU, have barely any democratic legitimacy.

QE2 has a narrow range of power, and she's actually done a pretty good job at it frankly, giving legitimacy to the notion that there is likely a lot that people can be brought up into. It's obviously not something that one would create from nothing in 2020, nor would anyone want more power bestowed than they have, but it works fine.

The US has Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump, the UK is stuck with QE2 and Will and Kate. I'd take the later if I could.

The British monarch, as the saying goes, reigns but does not rule.

Yes, that's the saying. But here's an article that says that they do more ruling than people say...

Everyone want someone to rule over them, except, perhaps, the libertarians.

Any bureaucrat of any government have more power in your life than you think. And over time, we're giving them more and more power to regulate our lifes. (I'm not even talking about politicians here, they're more powerful than any absolutist king of the history).

Libertarians in fact love being ruled over most of all - they just call the rulers "property owners".

Erm, abolishing the monarchy doesn’t mean nobody is ruling over you.

At best, it means the person a tally ruling over you loses the fig leaf (minor, at this point, because everyone recognizes it such) of doing it in someone else's name who has no real substantial role.

> I really don't understand why anyone anywhere in the modern world would want someone to rule over them

There's currently a government in Westminster making laws and dictating to us that the vast majority of the country didn't vote for. The public also has the power to change a monarchy, with the only real difference being that the "election" and transfer of power is less peaceful.

Democracy is of course better, but representative democracies in large nations are about as participatory as a monarchy.

The cost of changing the status quo is, for me, not worth the benefit.

There are any number of wrongs that can be corrected. Is “abolishing the monarchy” the best use of the limited budget for societal change?

And is it worth, on top of that, the risks of unintended consequences?

I’d feel similar being implored to surgically remove my appendix and tailbone.

It's more figurehead than actual rule of thumb and the transition from rule-control to being a legacy rubber stamp has been something that shifted a while ago.

Let us not forget the diplomatic aspect they afford and I'd say from that aspect alone - done more good than the elected politicians. Whilst the media love to focus upon the negatives, you can't overlook the positives and initiatives - the prices trust and other chartable involvements and then tourism. Though the diplomacy aspect is something that you have to respect the Queen and been a national asset in that respect.

So far from a no-brainier as you say if you look at their involvements beyond the headlines.

As an aside - if America had a royal family, the prospect of Trump on legal currency bank notes would be zero.

> It's more figurehead than actual rule of thumb and the transition from rule-control to being a legacy rubber stamp has been something that shifted a while ago.

TFA is literally about how it's actually not just a legacy rubber stamp, and the Queen gets involved more than a figurehead would.

> As an aside - if America had a royal family, the prospect of Trump on legal currency bank notes would be zero.

We don't know that. What if the Trump family was the royal family? I don't think this is an unfair question - Prince Philip is probably just as much of a racist as Donald Trump is, if not more so...

I can see you really dislike the whole idea of monarchy, but "grass is always greener on the other side". Republics, including mine, have a lot of corruption woven into their political systems. Many recent presidential elections around the world were very close, with the losing side relentlessly accusing the winners of corruption and conspiracy.

There is no happier afterlife once you get rid of a monarchy. You get a quasi-monarch with an opportunity to change him/her every X years and all the vile, disgusting, hateful polarization that comes with those elections in the era of Twitter.

If you kick out Elizabeth, I would probably offer her Czech throne in my turn. Can't be worse than who sits there today after winning a slim majority.

> one of the many reasons why the monarchy should be abolished.

Doesn't that just shift corruption to the next party? I don't see why logically switching the ruling party would abolish corruption. It might even increase it.

Speaking from a very corrupt eastern european country -- practice shows that each change of power lessens corruption somewhat -- who knows what next leaders will dig out, better stay safe. The longer same functioneers stay in power, the deeper is corruption.

That's no good, in the Soviet Union corruption only lasted for 5 years until it was replaced by the new one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-year_plans_for_the_nation...

What are you talking about? The USSR was ruled by the same party its whole existence.

Hey neighbour! Our lot aren't deterred, each government is about as corrupt as the last...

there's never a guarantee that anyone isn't corrupt, but switching from an opaque, land-owning monarchy to something like the German presidency which has the same function (mostly symbolic, but has some emergency powers), at least gives clear transparent procedures, is accountable to the public in formal ways, draws a regular salary, and isn't living off inherited wealth.

What exactly is the justification for having those tasks, if they're deemed necessary, executed by some hereditary, secretive, uber-wealthy family rather than by someone who is actually a civil servant?

> What exactly is the justification for having those tasks, if they're deemed necessary, executed by some hereditary, secretive, uber-wealthy family rather than by someone who is actually a civil servant?

The easiest ways to corrupt someone are offering them wealth, opportunities for their children, or a popular reputation; the royals are relatively immune to all of those.

> offering them wealth, opportunities for their children, or a popular reputation

The government literally pays them and promotes them as a symbol of the nation - how is that not offering them "wealth, opportunities for their children, or a popular reputation"?

Monarchy is superior to democracy in a very important way. When a monarch sends you off to die in war, the monarch is spending their own resources: you. And therefore the monarch's own wealth and power is at stake. In a democracy the president sends you off to die at no cost to themselves and only really strands to gain from the kickbacks.

> And therefore the monarch's own wealth and power is at stake.

They have a tolerance of how much resource can be wasted. President's kickback isn't worth anything when the resource wasted can actually cause problem for the nation(Only at this point the monarch will start paying attention). So i am pretty sure they both are similar in this context.

The President is not the nation, and therefore problems for the nation are not problems for the President. It doesn't matter how much resource the President wastes, it doesn't impact their bottom line. This is especially true in democracies with term limits where the Presidential power has a known end, but the President's personal wealth does not.

In a proper democracy, a group of elected officials convene and then give permission to the president to send you off to die.

That group of elected officials is still spending your life to enrich themselves at no personal risk. By nature of the monarch owning you and the country, if the country loses the monarch loses.

Because currently we have a ruling party, and the queen can interfere before that ruling party tables a bill to parliament.

Also, the Monarchy is effectively a mechanism for it's powers to be controlled by ministers, this means parliament can and has been effectively shut down temporarily to avoid debate at the whim of Government Ministers against the will of parliament itself.

Perhaps, but let's sort the problem at hand first?

The monarchy in the UK only seems to benefit themselves and tabloid newspapers. While the Queen has been a dutiful monarch (whos work ethic I happen to respect), the rest of her family seem pretty terrible with their crazy shenanigans.

"the Queen has been a dutiful monarch (whos work ethic I happen to respect)"

What work does the Queen actually do?

She is the head of state, a job for which the president of the USA has to pull double duty while also being the executive. It is an incredibly tedious job, requiring her to go to endless factory openings funerals, and so on. She doesn’t really have to do those things, but she has done them dutifully for 75 years or so. As far as I’m concerned it’s amazing and probably does a measurable amount to contribute to the stability of the country. Can’t prove it, of course.

As an American citizen it is why I don’t mind presidents that I don’t like have a large secret service revenue, fat salary, and so forth both during and after their presidency.

EDIT: "secret service retinue", not "...revenue"

I don't know exactly what she does, but she always turns up and doesn't mess around or offend people, unlike the rest of her family.

She's like a grandma the nation respects, even though you suspect there might be a sinister side to her.

That’s what the article at play here discovered: she makes sure no law can ever touch her pot of gold. Oh and god forbid any law force them to use a seatbelt.

More than most women her age, I think it’s fair to say. If the Queen was lazy she could have abdicated two decades ago with some justification.

Corruption amongst other members of the upper and ruling classes is not a good reason to avoid dealing with the most undemocratic of them all.

Also, the wider principle is that there shouldn't be an untouchable hereditary ruling class at all. It's an absolute nonsense.

Most countries have a hereditary ruling class. At least with the Royal Family, you know who they are.

Indeed, and they should all be targeted for removal.

One of the key problems in many human societies is that most of the wealth and power ends up concentrated in the hands of the undeserving few, who use it to further enrich themselves and their families, at the expense of everyone else.

Another key problem is that every now and then someone declares themselves more deserving than the current few who are in power and lines them up against a wall to be shot by a death squad.

> the monarchy should be abolished

Sure, that's a fine idea.

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled.

Why, for using the power they rightfully have? Or just for the crime of having money? This seems very petty.

Here is Vox, of all places, arguing in favor of constitutional monarchy

https://www.vox.com/2015/9/9/9294955/queen-elizabeth-constit...

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled.

On what grounds exactly?

Not advocating OPs approach, but I"m pretty sure you could find them guilty of at least one act of treason.

"For unknown reasons, Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home was not advised of Anthony Blunt's spying, although the Queen and Home Secretary Henry Brooke had been fully informed. In November 1979, then PM Margaret Thatcher formally advised Parliament of Blunt's treachery and the immunity deal that had been arranged"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Blunt

It's a model of monarchical disposal that has been successfully used by Germany, Greece and Romania.

Letting them stay and keep all their vast wealth would risk allowing them continued influence.

Also, the birth of the United Republic should involve a peaceful transfer of power, so doing this in the French style is completely out of the question.

I didn’t ask how it would work. I asked what the grounds for removal would be?

Removal in what sense? Are you seeking clarification on why the monarchy should be abolished, or the benefits of imposing exile?

I’m not talking about the benefits.

I’m talking about what legal process is used, and what grounds are given for that process.

You need "grounds" to remove a monarch?!

What are their grounds for the power they currently wield??

You might need grounds to exile them. At least, you might need grounds for the public to see that as a reasonable step.

> What are their grounds for the power they currently wield??

In this case...Constitutional.

If you are going to do it legally, yes. I presume whoever escorts them out of the palace will want some legal authority to do so.

The grounds for the power they currently wield is that it’s the law.

You definitely need grounds to exile them / strip their wealth.

Taking away their political powers / their status as royals is one thing, but exiling someone is punishment. You can't just hand out punishment for no good reason.

If they commited crimes that were illegal at the time they were commited they should stand trial for that, but I very much doubt any of those are serious enough to warrant exile.

It is important to note that these "monarchial disposals" as you call them were used to get rid of monarchs that abused their powers, led their nation into wars, commited horrendus crimes, etc.

While you can take away their powers pretty easily via a law everything else, such as striping their wealth, would be punishment that needs to be justified. The Queen hasn't started any wars or genocides as far as I am aware, so how would you justify this punishment?

Her being a royal is completely legal after all!

I don’t understand the drama. Selling the royal estate kind of defeats its purpose.

The people who bought a lease knew exactly what they were paying for, it’s not something you buy to “leave for your children”...

Leasehold is extremely common in UK property. Virtually all properties in multiple-unit buildings (flats/apartments) are leasehold, so “buying a lease” is pretty normal.

If the Monarch’s exemption to the normal leasehold laws was secretive and not known to buyers at the time, then it’s a problem.

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled.

>Not casting one's former monarchs under the guillotine.

Where is your joie de vivre, my friend?, for the revolution is at hand!

>Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled

I'm guessing you're not a Brit? A problem with that is the British people support them - about 72% for 21% against and I think they've been clearly in favour for at least the last century. So you can't really do it unless you get a dictatorship in to go against the people.

The eurosceptics never gave up in the face of impossible poll odds; why should republicans?

You never know. Future monarchs may be less popular.

72% figure comes from a vote or a poll?

Btw, Can the brit people name any other candidate to be the queen or the king? From the existing family or a new one?

That would be awesome, because there are some great. Brit scientists which would make a great king or queen.

> Btw, Can the brit people name any other candidate to be the queen or the king? From the existing family or a new one?

Theoretically yes through parliament, who approves succession issues in a complex system with precedents that about 3 people understand. William of Orange becoming King is probably the most notable example. Recently there was a curios case where succession laws were change so that females inherit equally, but everyone with the Queen as their head of State hate to change their laws at the same time, had one country not done so, or the wrong gender babies been born at the wrong time along with a few untimely deaths, the countries would have ended up with different Monarchs.

Poll. Who knows how it would work. There was a satirical novel on how it might go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen_and_I_(novel)

I’m surprised, given recent presidential elections in the US and elsewhere, that the advantages of not having an executive that individual citizens can covet hasn’t become more widely appreciated.

I believe they tried that during the English Civil War which led the removal of the monarchy (and execution of Charles I), England being declared a commonwealth and the creation of a short-lived written constitution (the Instrument of Government). Apparently it didn't turn out too well because Charles II was restored to the throne.

> “Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled.”

Should this be extended to all families with significant hereditary wealth? Or just the royal family directly?

Stripping them of their wealth and exiling them would be debasing the rule of law in your country.

As I understand it, it is quite possible to do this within the rule of law. To avoid the monarch refusing to enact this, it would need to be done in two stages:

1. A new Royal Assent Act, that makes assent automatic upon a bill passing both Houses. Assuming this in itself receives assent, it would remove the monarch's power to veto or refuse a bill (a power that hasn't been used for over 300 years anyway).

2. A Republic Act, that transfers all powers, abolishes the monarchy, strips them of their wealth, exiles them, etc.

Where is the debasement here?

The underlying assumption of the parent commenter is that “rule of law” means something other than 50%+1 of the House of Commons voting something into effect.

For instance, if parliament passed a law allowing “The Purge” to happen yearly, would murders committed on that day be “rule of law”? If you don’t think so, perhaps you agree there are some inherent principles to rule of law that aren’t simply a majority vote of a legislature. (For instance, perhaps there’s an assumption that exiling someone who hasn’t committed any crime is a violation of due process rights, rights as a citizen of the country, etc.)

This is the major question that liberalism tries to solve. This is why in a liberal democracy, minority protection all the way to the individual is a top priority -- the 51% are not allowed to do anything they want.

Yeah. We don't need a government if all we want is majority rule.

I think what the other commenter was trying to say was not that it would be impossible to do so, but that it would not be "right", so to speak.

While you could of course exile them like other countries have done in the past, why would you do that? What reasoning would you use to justify exiling them, striping them of their personal property etc. ?

Abolishing the monarchy is one thing, it can be justified pretty easily, the interests of the people. Anything beyond that however would be punishment, what have they done that is currently illegal that warrants that punishment? Punishing them simply "because they are royals" doesn't really work out, that isn't illegal after all.

Technically just abolishing the monarchy / taking away their powers would suffice.

It wouldn't have to be deemed a punishment, merely a procedural item as part of establishing the Republic of Britain and eradicating any trace of royal privilege.

> Technically just abolishing the monarchy / taking away their powers would suffice.

It wouldn't suffice, because they still derive a great deal of power from their inherited wealth. What's the point of abolishing the monarchy if we permit them to remain as landlords for huge swathes of the country? Then they're still lording it over people economically, even if no longer doing so constitutionally.

I hope you'll excuse me for phrasing it this way, but it would not be a punishment only because a punishment is a lawful injury, and your "Republic Act" is decidedly unlawful: by interfering with the royals' persons, property, privacy, &c, without any clear finding of wrong-doing on their part, the act is offensive to the common law, the ECHR law, and other fancy international law. (Good legal scholarship has shown us in recent years that most of the ideas in the ECHR and other international conventions are derived from the English common law, a rich tradition of which you should be proud.)

I am no fan of the royals and other nobles and look forward to the day when they all work for a living and wear seat belts like regular people. Yet, we must acknowledge that rule of law means law for the bad, the useless, and the rich. The ends don't justify the means.

Sometimes, what you're describing is called "rule by law" to distinguish it from "rule of law", because one practical aspect of rule of law is that everyone is subject to the law, even lawmakers.

This is not an intuitive concept by any means, but it helps to think about it in terms of the origins of the common law: the underlying idea is that the long acceptance of something or practice of something by regular people is a sound basis for its legitimacy. This still finds expression in the theory (in the US, anyways) that the speed limit should be the speed at which 85% of people drive. On this footing, the legitimacy of law is more about observation than about the decision of a particular person or administrative body.

Some things to contrast with the common law are "positive law" and "statute law". Legislation passed by Parliament is indeed statute law; it's not common law. Yet, to a significant degree, common law ideas and ways of judging remain prevalent in the United States, the United Kingdom and the other English speaking countries. It's the common law that defines most crimes with which you'd be familiar. It's more relevant than you think.

Although Parliament is indeed sovereign and Parliamentary sovereignty is said to mean that Parliament can not be bound even by Parliament, there are contemporary limits recognized to Parliament's law making authority. Sometimes they are even called "constitutional", referencing the unwritten English constitution; and sometimes they are clearly linked to the Convention on Human Rights. Either way, what we see here is an assertion of the old idea of "transcendent law" that binds everyone, even the law makers -- and that is what rule of law is really about.

Abolishing monarchy is OK, but stripping monarch their personal wealth and exiles them would be contrary to UK commitment to human rights.

Exile is a bit of a silly suggestion.

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled.

With regards of being stripped of wealth, what makes the Royal Family different to other cases of inherited wealth? Should I not bother saving up money for my kids?

I think scale of anything makes rules different. How we look at Amazon is not how we look at your small bakery although they are both companies.

But, I think a lot of people are this extremist and abhor any form of inter-generational wealth. Basically, every individual should start from 0 and "prove" themselves. You are free to do anything except sacrifice and save for your own family.

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled.

As a more serious response to this: to do so is applying a law change retroactively and flies into the face of any semblance of a nation ruled by laws. — what they are doing is not illegal as they did it, a such, they cannot be punished for it by a retroactive law change.

Why would it be a retroactive law?

A new Act of Parliament would be needed anyway to establish the United Republic, it could be included in that. Perhaps as a 100% wealth tax on the first X people in line to the throne, or similar.

Exiling them as punishment for something they are doing now when it still is illegal is a retroactive criminal sanction.

It wouldn't be as a punishment or sanction, it would be a procedural event as part of the transition to a republic.

- They aren't prisoners of war; they're “detained enemy combatants”, so the Geneva Convention does not apply.

- It's not not a criminal incarceration; it's an involuntary psychiatric commitment so your usual rights to due process don't apply.

- You see, we're not giving lesser rights to this group; we're simply giving more rights to the other, so it's fine.

- It's not a form of punishment; it's simply a procedural event to exile, so we can do it to someone who committed no legal crime.

And this is the grim, grim reality of human rights. — simply doing the same thing under a different name is enough to overstep them.

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled.

What about billionaires?

You know, millionaires don't need all their money either.

How about we take all their money and exile millionaires, billionaires, and the monarchy?

For billionaires, I agree with that.

For high-end millionaires (say $100 million or more), I can still get behind that.

For low-level millionaires who legitimately worked for their money and built their business, absolutely not. A million dollars is not a lot in 2021.

I say this as a not-millionaire.

If you're suggesting a purge of the wealthy upper classes whose income is mostly derived from unproductive rent-seeking, then yes, I agree. Good idea!

Yes, all kinds of heritable wealth are problematic. But when it comes with heritable political power, doubly so.

Considering the loose political funding and lobbying regulations in the US (etc.), both de jure and certainly de facto, the wealthy seem to purchase political power on key issues that benefit them. This isn't the same as the power in a constitutional monarch, but in aggregate it may actually be worse than one.

Yeah, who would want to live in a society where obscene wealth is redistributed?

Can you even make a case that monarchs earned their wealth?

They "earned" it the same way billionaires earned it. By getting wealthy competitors to fight each other and consolidating their monopoly position whenever possible.

Exclude first-generation millionaires and we have a deal.

And that’s how country X ended up having every successful entrepreneur emigrate or set up their business affairs so as to have assets held offshore.

I view British monarchy as tyranny prevention mechanism. Democracies are notoriously weak and can collapse at any momemnt by a charasmatic leader. Any long lasting democracies need some serious mechanisms to squash the tyranny. In American version this is achieved by having 3 almost equally powerful branches of governments. In British version, this is achieved by subdued monarchie. It's much like injecting a dead virus in the body. As monarchie already exist in the British system, there cannot be a separate tyrant rising up. At the same time, monarchs themselves cannot become tyrant as they have been heavily subdued to essentially act as dead-man walking. In many ways, this is more ingenious than American system, although more expensive and less intutive. In American system, there is still a good chance that a single party can dominate all 3 branches and tyranny might still emerge. In Briish system, this is near impossible.

Why would you want a solution that makes one family be treated as if they're above everyone else by birth? Is that the signal that as a country you want to give your citizens? I cannot understand how people consent to monarchies in so called developed countries while at the same time making huge fusses about everything else related to equality.

In Spain, Franco succeeded in being a dictator despite the presence of a king. It doesn't work to prevent tyranny.

>> In many ways, this is more ingenious than American system, although more expensive

Is it though (more expensive)? I've heard they spend 1.5 billion dollars per year for the president (flights, security, meetings, etc). And that's the explicit part; the implicit one is the election spendings which last year constituted 6.5 billion dollars; if they come from special interest groups, I suspect, they should be somehow payed back in the form of legislation, tariffs, taxes, and projects appeasing those special interest groups (so taxpayers will probably pay way more than what was donated).

Yes, this is very true. The Crown plays a useful and vital role in the Westminster system. (I'm in Canada.) It can't just be tossed without something to replace it. But I'm not sure the monarchy offers anything not provided by a nonpartisan and mostly ceremonial presidency, similar to Ireland or Germany.

Here’s my point of view: it would be extremely simple to change our system to give reduced powers of our Governor General to an unelected president named by our prime minister every five years.

But because the Canadian government rammed the constitution down the throat of the Quebec government, any constitutional change is now a political impossibility. And now Indigenous groups are demanding a seat at any constitutional discussion, which is absolutely appropriate but also fraught with uncertainty.

So the lack of change to our constitutional monarchy is not because we cannot think of how to replace it: it’s because Pierre Elliot Trudeau done goofed.

You're certainly right. It's generally agreed that Canada could become a republic simply by amending the constitution to outline a new law of succession that established a de facto presidency, that would be "heir" to the monarchy, and then advising the Queen to abdicate as Queen of Canada. Then the new head of state inherits the office of the Crown, and is now the President as outlined in law. Elegant, really.

But, politically, the unanimous consent of the provinces to do so is essentially impossible to obtain, due to the history you mention. Canadians also simply don't care much about this. My impression is that most people are basically republicans by sentiment, but their level of actually caring about this is near zero. I'm in that camp myself. I'd like a republic. But the headache of opening up constitutional negotiations? Gah! That has never ended well in our history.

Monarchy is inherently undemocratic and has no place in a modern democracy. I am quite certain Canada would continue to function just fine (or even better) without someone pretending they were divinely appointed at the top.

You'd have to be prepared to get rid of the entire concept of the "head of state". The USA has proven quite well that having the head of government and head of state combined has substantial problems. A head of government needs to be somewhat competent and deliver results, but a head of state needs to project "gravitas", "dignitas", and other virtues. In the case of the UK, the prime minister has been relieved of the need to project these qualities and be a "mascot", but a US president has not.

In theory, the people themselves are the source of legitimacy for modern governments. But the media and some of the population demands a figurehead that provides centralized moral leadership.

> It can't just be tossed without something to replace it.

Why not? I admit I'm more familiar with the Belgian situation than the British Crown, but to me it always seems not very difficult to replace the monarch with almost nothing. I don't see why we need any kind of president, even though that's what people always talk when there's talk of doing away with the monarchy. The real leader of the country is the prime minister anyway.

The Belgian situation seems fairly dysfunctional. Is the monarch completely absent from politics? This happened in 2007-11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007–2011_Belgian_political_cr...

In Brazil in the 19th century liberal democrats thought a monarch was unnecessary, after 67 years of successful politics under a king. Upon abolition the country devolved into a long succession of military coups and dictatorial governments.

There have obviously been successful countries without monarchy, but it is very risky to say that a figurehead does nothing. Reserve powers are a pretty real restraint.

I think the political situation/crisis in Belgium have little to do with the position of the monarch, and more with the somewhat unique situation of Belgium. It's a small deeply divided country; many of the top parties in the 2019 election participated only in the Dutch or French regions. While regional parties aren't unique to Belgium (e.g. SNP in Scotland), the way the votes are split between the two regions is a pretty big problem, and much of the disagreement stems from which list (Dutch or French) people in BHV could vote. This is an issue that goes back to the country's founding in various forms.

> The Belgian situation seems fairly dysfunctional. Is the monarch completely absent from politics?

The monarch appoints "preformateurs" and "formateur" who are elections start talks between people from the different political parties and (try to) form a cabinet, in different stages of the process. That's where he (or possibly she in a few decades, when Filip dies or abdicates and Elisabeth becomes Belgian's first Queen, if that's still a thing then) has by far the most influence in politics.

Some people he shouldn't even have that influence, and I'm inclined to agree. In any case, finding another process for that is probably the most difficult issue to deal with in case we would transform to a pure parliamentary democracy.

Reserve power ... I don't know. I don't think he has enough power for that. Maybe symbolically, maybe that counts for more than I think. Some say the king and/or the whole royal family is one of the few things that still hold Belgium more or less together.

If indeed having a figurehead can protect us from civil war and other kinds of chaos, then by all means, let us have a figurehead.

The reserve powers of the Crown have been reduced even more in Canada than in the UK, and there are several cases in just the last decade where the Lieutenant Governor or Governor General has had to make a decision. For example, if there's a motion of no confidence in the first sitting of the legislature, and the Prime Minister loses power immediately, the right answer is contextual. Sometimes another election really would be appropriate, in many cases the opposition can form a working government, if given a chance.

None of these problems are insurmountable, of course. And you could just keep an executive -- I personally prefer just replacing the Governor General in Canada with a president, preferably indirectly elected. Still, patching the constitution would be pretty involved, if you wish to fully excise the executive in its current form from the Westminster system.

So if after an election there are two different coalitions with different Prime-ministerial candidates who both claim to be the best chance at a stable government, who makes the choice to go with one of them, or to call fresh elections?

This happens in countries with and without a monarch - Spain re-ran their elections in 2016 and again in 2019 because no party could present themselves to the king as viable (a.k.a a majority coalition). Israel, without a monarch, has been re-running their elections for two years now because a weak coalition forms, governs for a minute, and then falls apart.

Parliament. A cabinet needs approval of a majority in parliament. At that stage of the process, the monarch has no influence, even now. I'm not sure who decides whether or not to hold new elections, but I'm pretty sure it's not the monarch.

You're 100% right. The UK would be served just as well by a nonpartisan president.

All the evidence is that you'll end up with something more like a Kardashian and I doubt they'll bring in the billions of tourism dollars world royal fans do.

Stay Classy, Britain.

> nonpartisan president

Oxymoron.

You have to vote for a president right otherwise you end up with ... well Oliver Cromwell. A Dictator by any other name.

Why? The Queen was not elected. She's not a dictator. The de facto head of state in Canada is the Governor General who represents the Queen. The office is, in practice, appointed by the Prime Minister. Also not a tyrannical dictator. (Except with her personal staff, for the last one.)

Nonpartisan in the sense that the Queen is nonpartisan. So of course, partisan. Still, nonpartisan like not publicly wading into political debates, and not opening up the office to the vulgarities of electoral politics.

For example, Germany elects its president by convening both the Federal and State legislatures together, who then vote. By pulling in all the regional parties and legislators, the President has to have broad support across party lines. It's also convention that the President doesn't wade into daily political issues. The result is a largely ceremonial office, usually held by a broadly respected statesperson with former government experience. Which is what you want for the "emergency button" you hope you don't have to push in the first place.

Consider the examples given, countries like Germany, Ireland, India, etc

Where presidents have actual executive power such as USA, France, Russia, the issue you bring up can, at least in theory, occur.

And a republic. That said - what would happen to all the stuff owned by the crown?

I'm not sure if the postal service still is, and the prisons could probably be let go - but I think there's a lot of land, especially in the south owned by the crown.

Property owned by the Crown is not the property of Elizabeth, as a person. If QE II were to abdicate, for example, she would not get to keep all of it. It's the property of the Crown, the office of the head of state. It belongs to the state, in practice. If she's advised to abdicate, she would, and she's advised to transfer all Crown property to a republic, she would.

The royal family does have many billions in personal holdings as well, of course.

Royal Mail was privatised years ago.

Abolishing the monarchy would also obsolete the Sovereign Grant, so all the surplus income from the Crown Estate would go to the state without the royal family leeching their cut.

That said, there are some Duchies that are privately owned. In my opinion, these should be seized by the state during the establishment of a republic - if we're going to abolish the monarchy, we need to go the whole way and strip each member of all their inherited wealth too.

It's the very least they deserve, and would provide a much needed clean slate for New Britain.

"The Crown plays a useful and vital role in the Westminster system."

What role does it play that an elected official isn't better suited for?

I'll bite.

One way to look at it is that with a portfolio of investments you want to spread your risk amongst different classes. If you are securing an IT system then you have defence in depth. If you produce medical devices you want to have physical and logical locking mechanisms (see Therac-25). The US style is to make everything elected: judges, sheriffs, presidents, governors, DAs and school boards are all elected. Which means that they are all vulnerable to the same class of failure.

Note: This particular role mentioned in the article, of providing consent/impact to certain broad classes of legislation, are not included in my argument above. I'm merely replying to your statement that an elected official is always better suited to all roles.

While what you are presenting is all factual and true, it completely ignores the new discovery that the Guardian has made: that the monarch has used Queen’s Consent, which was thought to be a mere legislative formality, to steer the government in a self-serving direction. We were not publicly aware of such a deep involvement.

> Obviously there's nothing to force her to follow the laws, but that's true of any country.

Not quite. The laws that are unenforceable, because they apply to the 'person at the top', act as a bright line; in any country with a sufficiently capable citizenry, this line is the indicator that the 'person at the top' needs to be made to step down.

Edit. I'm thinking of the Magna Carta as an example, where the monarch was held accountable by the barons who forced him to sign. Seems like the barons make my point, since they're not planning on enforcing their agreement within the legal framework. One of the provisions in that document was:

> Under what historians later labelled "clause 61", or the "security clause", a council of 25 barons would be created to monitor and ensure John's future adherence to the charter.[44] If John did not conform to the charter within 40 days of being notified of a transgression by the council, the 25 barons were empowered by clause 61 to seize John's castles and lands until, in their judgement, amends had been made.

Interesting, does that mean that the Queen has implicitly agreed to a lot of controversial legislation (e.g. Internal Market Bill, and Brexit more generally), or the process of the proroguing parliament last year? It seems she might be a lot more conservative (lowercase) than many might like to think.

The Queen’s job is to be above the fray of any particular moment’s politics and politicians. She represents the abstract institution of state, regardless of who is calling the shots today. In the same way that Americans can be loyal to America even if they hate the President... the British people have a specific human being to which they can feel the same loyalty.

> the British people have a specific human being to which they can feel the same loyalty

In particular so do the British Armed Forces, who swear allegiance to the Crown [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Armed_Forces#Command_o...

I thought the Navy didn't. I recall something about how they weren't eligible for certain ceremonial roles that the army and RAF were due to never having sworn an oath to the crown.

> The Royal Navy is the oldest of the three services, and it was established by the sovereign's prerogative. For that reason, recruits have never been required to swear allegiance, but they do sign an attestation or engagement form on entry. The same applies to the Royal Marines.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7289504.stm

I think they changed that recently- the first Navy veteran to be a Yeoman Warder ("Beefeater") at the Tower of London got the post in 2011, after the rules were changed to allow it.

David Allen Green (as usual) has a decent take on UK constitutional matters.

As for the Queen being a small c conservative, absolutely. British monarchy in this century is a badly run crime syndicate.

https://davidallengreen.com/2021/02/the-queens-consent-a-str...

It's called 'Royal Assent'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_assent

Certain bills (e.g. financial) are by convention not blocked by the Lords and so once these final bill has been approved it is sent to the queen for her signature to put it in law.

The last time the Monarch refused to pass a law approved by Parliament was 1704

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/2327561...

The article is describing a different process than Royal assent

Royal Consent is a murkier and more dangerous concept than Royal Assent.

The day the queen refuses to assent to a bill against the will of parliament is the day the monarchy ends.

Probably. The same applies to other monarchies. King Baudouin of the Belgians famously asked parliament to declare him unable to govern for a day so that he didn’t have to sign a pro-abortion law (https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/world/belgian-king-unable..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudouin_of_Belgium#Religious_...)

In my opinion? She would have consented to the final form of Brexit and the IMB.[1] I can't say about the process of proroguing Parliament, but I don't think she has the power to interfere in the running of Parliament. If she gave consent it was to the bill mandating Parliaments last no more than five years (which was a terrible plan) back when the Lib Dems and Tories allied.

Personally, I think that the best way to characterize the Queen is that she was liberal for the 1950s, but as times have changed and as she's changed she's become more conservative.

[1] EDIT: Because at the minimum they can be interpreted as affecting her finances.

So, I have a new link! And yes, she has agreed to a lot of controversial legislation, including Brexit!

This article has the thousand-plus laws she's been consulted on: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...

You may have missed this but at one point Johnson was actively touting the notion of proroguing parliament indefinitely so that it could not meet and reject a plan to Brexit without any trade deal in place.

And then 48 hours later, as if by magic, that plan (which would have required the Queen to publicly assent to an overtly-political variation of current norms) suddenly vanished without trace or comment.

Unfortunately this kind of proroguing has precedent in the Commonwealth since Stephen Harper (likely a friend of Boris) prorogued our (at the time minority gov't) parliament in 2008 to avoid an election that would have put a Liberal/NDP coalition in power.

Our governor general (and hence the monarchy) rubber stamped it then. I've never forgiven the institution.

The process discussed in the article (the Queen's consent, as opposed to the similarly named royal assent) applies only to legislation affecting "the hereditary revenues, the Duchy of Lancaster or the Duchy of Cornwall, and personal or property interests of the crown" - arguably Internal Market Bill and Brexit would be out of this scope.

The Duchy of Cornwall produces all kinds of goods which are exported to Europe. Brexit will definitely affect it.

In practice it's mostly ceremonial. It's not ceremonial in the way that she could do it and it would happen, but is in the way that AFAIK they haven't in centuries, and starting it outside very exceptional circumstances would mean that power would be taken away quickly.

As an example of an exceptional circumstance, in a Canada a few years back there was a minority government. The opposition parties banded together and formed a coalition with a plan to take over as a majority.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Canadian_p...

The Prime minister moved to keep power by requesting the Governor General (Queen's representative) prorogue parliament.

In this circumstance, the Governor General accepted the Prime Minister's request, which ended up rescuing the Conservative minority government. But I think most people agree that if she had decided otherwise, and allowed the majority coalition to take over, that would also have been an acceptable result. So this was, indirectly, the Queen making a ruling on a power struggle between a minority government and a majority opposition.

The Queen/GG were probably taking into account a very similar situation in Australia known as "The Dismissal" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional...

Considering how controversial this is 50 years later I'd say they did a good job in Canada to be as apolitical as possible, because sacking a sitting Prime Minister is definitely picking a side.

The Governor General did what the Prime Minister asked her to do, which is what they always do. The GG does not act on the advice of parliament but rather on the advice of the Prime Minister.

If you presented an example where the Prime Minister told the Governor General to do one thing, and she did another, then I'd agree that counts as the Queen/GG exercising power.

The article I linked lists two such examples. More importantly, my point was that in this case, although the GG chose to do as asked, that was by no means a set outcome. If she had done otherwise, as happened in 1896 and 1926, that outcome would also have been considered reasonable, and most likely not resulted in a public outcry and overthrowing the monarchy.

I still think it was a bad call allowing Harper to get away with prorouging parliament twice and giving the cons time to paint a coalition government as somehow "unconstitutional" and "undemocratic".

It's MORE democratic if anything.

This is exactly what this article is about, turns out it's not uncommon, bills have been held up or changes added before assent was granted at the request of the monarchy over a thousand times in the present Queen's rein.

That's like 150 times a year? Every 2 days? How is that 'exceptional'?

I wouldn't be surprised if the Guardian has a week of damaging headline from this.

Today's was the Prince of Wales added an exemption shafting home owners on 'his' land, causing people's homes to become worthless so that he can collect extra rent. A clear abuse of power.

> I wouldn't be surprised if the Guardian has a week of damaging headline from this.

Indeed. Apparently they are releasing this as a series. I am very curious to see what they have next. Though I have no idea about how actually damaging this would be for the royal family.

There is a common phrase bandied about: “Democracy is the worst form of government, besides all the others.”

It’s oddly used as a pro-Merica. To which I normally say the US isn’t a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic. I don’t know why I do that, it only causes people to dig in deeper to their position. Their argument generally boils down to the US has elections and elections = democracy.

I can even see hints of that in this thread applied to the UK, but I’m assuming those are Americans.

It makes me curious as a British Scholar would you call the government a Constitutional Monarch? Do you find it commonly referred to as a democratic monarchy or just a democracy consistent with what I tend to see in the US?

> To which I normally say the US isn’t a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic

It is a silly semantic debate. If you define "democracy" narrowly to mean only direct democracy, then no the US isn't a democracy. If you define "democracy" broadly, to include representative democracies with constitutionally entrenched protection of minority rights, then yes the US is a democracy, as are quite a few others.

Whether a country is a republic or a constitutional monarchy is rather orthogonal. You can have a representative democracy with constitutionally entrenched protections of minority rights, and with that you can either have a mostly ceremonial constitutional monarch, or a President. The later is a republic, the former is not.

I think the UK does fall short somewhat, in lacking a codified constitution, there is really no such thing as entrenched rights – other countries without an entrenched constitution include Israel and New Zealand. Then you also have countries like Australia, which does have an entrenched written constitution, but the rights protected by the Australian constitution are rather limited – protection against religious discrimination and the implied right of political free speech. But "democracy" vs "constitutional republic" isn't a good way of capturing those deficiencies.

> If you define "democracy" broadly, to include representative democracies

I don’t think this is a matter of being overly pedantic. What you have done is redefined “democracy” to “republic”.

To use a real world example you don’t find many historians that call the ancient republic of Rome a democracy, or a representative democracy.

A republic is just that, a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives.

Does the US have any characteristic besides elections that results in you calling it a democracy? Do you call China a representative democracy? They do elect representatives after all.

Yes, clearly I give democracy the narrow definition where the people directly manage the affairs of the State, not elected representatives. It’s not just out of tradition though it’s because other forms of government have other names and democracies from the beginning have nothing to do with elections or electing officials. For example in Ancient Greece, the original “democracy”, they had officials for certain purposes that were not elected, they were selected from the populace through a lottery.

I haven't redefined anything.

> A republic is just that, a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives.

In 1999, Australia had a national referendum on becoming a Republic [0]–to replace the Queen with a President. The referendum was defeated, despite polls showing a majority of Australian voters favoured becoming a Republic. Most observers attribute the referendum's failure to disagreements among Republic supporters over how to elect the President – many wanted a directly elected President, but the model proposed by the government had the President elected by the Parliament instead. Advocates of the indirectly elected President model were concerned that a directly elected President would become a political office, and transform Australia's political system from a Westminster-style parliamentary one into an American-style presidential system or a French-style semipresidential one. (The fact that Ireland has a nonpartisan directly elected President while retaining a Westminster-style parliamentary system did not seem to be considered.) Also, some were concerned about the fact that the government's proposal gave the Prime Minister the right to sack the President at any time for any reason, although if sacked the President would be replaced by the longest-serving state Governor (which is a non-partisan position) not by a candidate of the Prime Minister's choosing.

If "Republic" means "a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives", what on earth was Australia voting on – they already have that. The fact that Australia already has "a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives", and yet isn't a Republic, is pretty clear evidence to me that is not what the word "Republic" means.

> To use a real world example you don’t find many historians that call the ancient republic of Rome a democracy, or a representative democracy.

The Roman Republic was really closer to a plutocratic oligarchy than a representative democracy. The system was set up so the ruling class (the patricians, and even the wealthy plebeian families) had far greater representation than the poor free masses (to say nothing of the slaves). It was definitely not a system of "one person one vote" (or even "one man one vote"). What made it a Republic then? It became a Republic when they abolished the Roman monarchy. It effectively stopped being one when the monarchy was de facto reinstated with the Emperors, although in the earlier Roman Empire, the Emperors still retained the pretence that they were merely "first citizen of the Republic" rather than monarchs (the Principate); it was only in the later Empire that pretence was dropped (the Dominate).

Actually, the early US Republic wasn't a representative democracy either, it was a plutocratic oligarchy like the Roman Republic was – most people were denied the right to vote. Many states imposed voting restrictions based on race, gender, literacy, property ownership, etc; generally speaking, only middle-to-upper class white men were allowed to vote, and representation was very often denied to women, non-white men, and poor white men. It was really only in the 20th century as those voting restrictions were lifted that the US finally became a genuine representative democracy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Australian_republic_refer...

> what on earth was Australia voting on – they already have that.

As you said they were voting to replace the “Queen” and become a republic. But for the Queen Australia would be a constitutional republic, hence the vote to remove the Queen to become a republic.

It goes without saying the Queen (Monarch)is not elected and Queen’s heirs will succeed the Queen’s powers. It’s not enough that otherwise Australia has an elected parliament, even dictators in Roman republic were elected.

Because the UK and Australian Constitutions provide for unelected monarchs they are Constitutional Monarchs.

The US isn’t a “representative democracy” it is a Constitutional Republic. The fact that slavery existed under the constitution and was later amended to out law slavery never had and effect of the constitution providing for a Republic form of government at all times.

The US also needs to be viewed through a certain lens: 1) I believe it was only the 2nd attempt in history at creating a Constitution; and 2) the US only became an independent county through war and treaties. Maybe it was a plutocratic oligarchy in the beginning, but they were still elected representatives making it a republic, and that’s exactly why democracies do not have elected officials and the people manage the affairs of the state directly or otherwise temporary officials are selected at random. And as much of a plutocratic oligarch as it may have been, King George laughed when he heard about the concept of the elected “President” after losing the war and he famously said if Washington actually does give up the power “he would be the greatest man in the World.”

> It goes without saying the Queen (Monarch)is not elected and Queen’s heirs will succeed the Queen’s powers

The Queen has basically zero powers in practice. Her role is purely symbolic, with no practical relevance. Her symbolic existence, whether it be good symbolism or bad symbolism, does not change the fact that Australia already has, in every practical sense of the word, "a form of government where the people are represented by elected officials/representatives". You can even say that her rule over Australia is democratically legitimate due to the failure of the 1999 referendum to remove her.

All the Queen's actual powers in Australia are exercised by her representative the Governor-General. She does not instruct the Governor-General what to do. Outside of exceptional circumstances, the GG does what the PM advises the GG to do. In exceptional circumstances (such as the 1975 constitutional crisis), the GG makes up their own mind what to do – they may inform the Queen of their decisions as a courtesy, but ultimately the discretion is theirs not hers. All the Queen does is appoint and dismiss the GG, and the Queen has always (in recent decades certainly) done so according to the advice of the Australian PM.

If the Queen is physically present in Australia, she can personally exercise her powers rather than going through the GG, but even there she is bound by the convention that she does whatever the PM and ministers advise her to do. In the utterly unlikely event that a constitutional crisis happened to coincide with a royal visit, she might be called upon to exercise some discretion, but I think in such a scenario she would quickly depart from the country so the GG could sort it out.

The only hypothetical scenario in which the Queen might have some real power would be if the GG and PM were engaged in a race to be the first one to sack the other – if the PM instructs her to sack the GG, and she knew the GG was about to sack the PM, she would have a choice whether to follow the PM's instructions immediately, or to delay doing so until the GG had the chance to sack the PM first. That situation has never actually happened (although in the 1975 crisis came close to that hypothetical without actually reaching it.)

She has some other extremely trivial powers – for example, when she comes to Australia, she doesn't have to produce a passport (indeed she doesn't have one) – which again, is primarily a symbolic thing. Anyway, at the age of 94, she has made clear she does not plan to ever come to Australia again, so whatever powers she has when physically in Australia are now exceptionally theoretical. We will have to wait and see who is her successor (most likely Princes Charles, although it is not impossible he could predecease her), when that is (her mother lived to 101, she will be 101 in 2027, but it is not impossible she might even live longer than her mother did), and whether that successor ever comes to Australia as King – it could happen that her death is followed by an Australian Republic, and Charles III or William V, King of Australia, might not make it here before one is instated.

> The US isn’t a “representative democracy” it is a Constitutional Republic

I'm sorry but the US government doesn't agree with you. To quote the educational materials the US Citizenship and Immigration Services provides to prospective US citizens: "The United States is a representative democracy." [0]

And the United States Congress doesn't agree with you either – to quote H. Con. Res 139 of 2003 (passed unanimously), the US constitution "established the United States as a federal union of States, a representative democracy within a republic." [1]

So, I think I will trust the US government and US Congress' position, not yours.

[0] https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/lesson-pl...

[1] https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CDOC-108hdoc94/pdf/CDOC-... see page 8 of PDF

> To which I normally say the US isn’t a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic. I don’t know why I do that, it only causes people to dig in deeper to their position.

Perhaps because this is both pedantic and wrong? A state can be both a democracy and a republic, and many are, such as the United States.

> A state can be both a democracy and a republic, and many are, such as the United States.

Always has been:

"But a representative democracy, where the right of election is well secured and regulated & the exercise of the legislative, executive and judiciary authorities, is vested in select persons, chosen really and not nominally by the people, will in my opinion be most likely to be happy, regular and durable." -- Alexander Hamilton, 1777

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-01-02-01...

An Alexander Hamilton quote is reaching pretty deep. Ever stop and wonder why you would quote that and not the Constitution directly?

It’s because democracy doesn’t appear anywhere in the constitution. The law of the land, the very document that establishes our form of government doesn’t mention democracy, do you think it’s an accident or oversight of the founding fathers?

Article 4. Section 4:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government...

Explain how the US is a democracy without providing the definition of a Republic and renaming that form of government as a democracy to suit your arguement.

Do you want a dictionary definition? Here’s the one from Google’s built-in dictionary.

de·moc·ra·cy

/dəˈmäkrəsē/

a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

You seem to think that you have some technical claim to correctness. You are in no sense correct, technical or otherwise. The reason that people probably get annoyed by your claim is that nobody likes a pedant, but a pedant who is not even correct by some pedantic argument is particularly irritating.

Moreover, nobody ever seems to subscribe to this weird definition where democracy is conflated with direct democracy except people trying to argue that the United States is not a democracy. I suspect motivated reasoning.

Explain how the US isn't a democracy without providing the definition of "direct democracy" and renaming that form of government as democracy to suit your argument.

In theory, I think it's possible for an anarchist republic to exist, where there are no elections or rulers, and also no monarchy or "private" interests owning the state.

I just watched Cromwell (1970) the other day and if you know of a decent but approachable popular history of the civil war and protectorate I'd love a recommendation.

I don't know much about it, but the anachronisms in terminology were pretty hilarious.

It doesn't go very far into the protectorate-- that's nearly always a separate book-- but I think that Christopher Hibbert's Cavaliers and Roundheads: The English Civil War, 1642-1649 does a really good job. More in depth but I think interesting to a lot of HN readers would be The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution by Christopher Hill.

If you have the time, I think that Veronica Wedgwood's (she published as CV Wedgwood) history of the era is pretty great. The writing is fun and engaging. The problem is, it's contained in four books:

The King's Peace The King's War The Trial of Charles I Oliver Cromwell

I don't think that Dame Wedgwood is really someone that academics read anymore (she's definitely old school history), but her scholarship is good and she wrote wonderfully.

While I have your attention: Any books on the church state duality? As an American with modern freedom of religion, the question of belief is very different than it was at that time. For instance, while belief was deeply personal and spiritual it was also extremely political. I'm not necessarily asking for a discourse here on that, but maybe a reference to firm up my thinking about how it was viewed at the time.

It's another Cromwell bio, but I think I found a book that could answer your questions on church-state relationships:

God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution, by Christopher Hill.

I can't remember any exact books on this, though it was basically the theme undergirding pretty much all of the politics of the time. Sorry I don't have more. It's been awhile!

I’m a fan of the “Revolutions” podcast.

> I've characterized the Queen's powers as "reserve powers" inasmuch as, if everything goes wrong and Parliament dies from a meteor strike, the government still legally operate provided there is a monarch (even if you have to reach deep into the line of succession to find that person).

Ignoring that the Queen and much of her staff would likely be dead, where exactly do you think Governments come from? Parliament would just reform and be recognized de facto until the laws were either reconstructed or replaced. Sometimes words have no meaning, and the queen has no practical power to do any of this, so it's basically irrelevant in my view.

Historically there are a lot more spontaneously formed kingdoms than parliaments.

> but the Lords is no longer a hereditary body

Wait, what? What's the alternative?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords says this:

> Membership is granted by appointment or by heredity or official function.

> Membership was once an entitlement of all hereditary peers, other than those in the peerage of Ireland, but under the House of Lords Act 1999, the right to membership was restricted to 92 hereditary peers.

Before the changes resulting in 92 remaining in the House of Lords, hereditary members numbered over 1200. Once in a blue moon the Conservatives would mobilise basically all of them and destroy any opposition to a bill in progress

So, 90 of those hereditary peers are elected, just, they're elected by other hereditary peers. So, just because you're a peer does not mean you have the right to sit in the House of Lords, whereas before you could. If I recall, you didn't have to ever sit, but if you wanted to show up, you basically could come in to vote.

The other two hereditary peers are not elected. They have some ceremonial role (though they can vote) that was thought prudent to retain. I don't remember (if I ever know) what it was.

>The Queen can't create legislation, she can restrain it. She is purely a moderating influence in this sense.

Assuming the only negative changes that can occur to a person or group's interests are from the government, this makes sense.

In reality, where we have enormous corporations who have the power and ability to negatively affect the lives of citizens in new ways previous legislators could not have envisioned, un-democratic checks against legislative action strongly benefit the powerful.

Except she has not exercised her right to stop the Brexit which is entirely damaging to the United Kingdom and which the population was lied into by their current prime minister Boris Johnson. She also will not abdicate to allow someone younger and with more sense to actually make the decision.

If that happened, the monarchy would’ve been abolished within an year.

Overriding a democratic referendum by someone who wasn’t even elected to rule...

That's what I used to think, but with the increasing tensions and polarization I'm not entirely sure anymore. Well, my perception is that the UK is not as divided as the US is, but if it were, then a Queen picking a side and wielding her powers might see the side she picked cheer her on.

Utter nonsense for too many reasons to go into. You could just as easily say that the Queen needed to make sure it happened while parliament was trying to stop it.

Even if it were feasible, the solution to the Brexit mess certainly wasn't "have the Queen override it". (It's an interesting theoretical question though: at what point and how could the Queen have stopped it? I guess she could have rejected the Act authorizing the Article 50 invocation - at that point it would have been even harder to argue a good case for doing so. After that, the process was running.)

What did you make of the debacle of the Fixed Term Parliament Act and the government being left unable to call a General Election in 2019 because of it?

Supposedly it removed the power of the Queen to dissolve parliament.

Lots of British people, me included, were deeply alarmed by it. Parliament was essentially rogue.

I agree with you that it was a debacle. It was meant to hold together the Lib Dem-Conservative coalition and once that went to pot it should have been scrapped. I don't think that it removed the Queen's (technical) ability to dissolve Parliament, instead it removed the government's ability to ask her to dissolve Parliament. It locked Parliament into a situation where no one had the power to do anything more than keep the lights on. It was gross.

* Had the Queen tried to dissolve Parliament I think they would have ignored her.

this is a fantastically explained comment...thank you for it

The Queen can't create legislation, she can restrain it. She is purely a moderating influence in this sense.

This isn't really guaranteed to be a "moderating" influence except in the most technical sense. The current queen does not seem very eager to grab more power, but one could easily imagine a more devious and power-hungry monarch parlaying the ability to interfere with some laws into greater political power.

Imagine a Trump-type figure in England. Popular on social media, eager to bend the laws, and calling on the support of a loud minority willing to sacrifice the principles of democracy. Now imagine that figure is also the King of England, with the current powers given to the monarch. Why would you want such a hereditary system?

Britain should scrap the monarchy entirely while they have the chance.

You could say this about a president, too. If one president grabs more power his/her successor can be assured of trying to exploit that power. All of these systems rely on people respecting established political norms. There's no way to get around it.

I'm not defending the monarchy, mind you, I'm just pointing out that it doesn't matter if the chief executive is the monarch or a president.

In general it has to be said a President is more likely to try this than a constitutional monarch, given that [i] Presidential elections select for people that are ambitious, have an agenda and are good at getting a large proportion of the population to support it and [ii]the President has a lot more theoretical legitimacy and generally constitutional power to assume 'emrgency powers' or sack a government

Well, we have fresh evidence of a president doing exactly that. Fortunately, this president wasn't for life.

I view the monarchy as Britain's system32. A backup in case the OS fails, or something like that.

How? If Parliament fails the queen doesn't start writing laws, we'd have had a revolution.

Parliament has failed many times, including at least once in the last decade. When it does, the Queen appoints whoever can form a credible government to be the prime minister.

That's exactly it.

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