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Comment by erehweb | Hacker News Reader

You may speak too soon. From https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/08/queen-death-...

"In many [Commonwealth countries] constitutions state that the Queen, specifically, is the head of state. In these countries, constitutions will need to be amended to refer to her successor. In countries such as Jamaica, where there is a strong independence movement, and Belize, these constitutional changes will also require a referendum, according to Commonwealth experts. This is expected to bring about a moment of political peril for the new monarch, who, after Barbados became independent in 2021, could face the loss of another prominent part of the Caribbean Commonwealth."

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> political peril for the new monarch

Losing almost any former colony is not going to make the top ten list of problems for the new King and might solve a few problems.

This is NOT a new development. With or without the Queen, countries under the sovereign have been planning to leave, which is not opposed by anyone.

Ironically, Commonwealth is actually getting bigger. The last commonwealth games was surprisingly well attended and celebrated.

bigger in population?

Or are countries *joining* ?

Why have you put joining inside asterisks? The simple answer is that yes countries have been joining [0]. Two new countries in 2022.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_the_Commonwea...

Interesting, they admitted the Gabon, which is a former French Colony with no link with the United Kingdom.

I use it as bold, when bold is not available. Is it not common?

The article is highly dubious. For example, it lists PNG as a state where "Questions are also like to arise ... over whether the new monarch could lawfully appoint a governor general", yet the Constitution clearly states "The provisions of this Constitution referring to the Queen extend to Her Majesty's heirs and successors in the sovereignty of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

One of the first sections of our constitution in Australia is this:

“2. Act to extend to the Queen's successors

The provisions of this Act referring to the Queen shall extend to Her Majesty's heirs and successors in the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.”

I’m surprised that apparently many Commonwealth countries don’t have similar.

Note that the Queen referred to there is Queen Victoria.

This is surprising tbh. When they changed the act of succession to remove default male succession, part of that was negotiating changes in succession acts around the Commonwealth. This implies that some or even most of those are unconstitutional? Weird.

Anyways, it would be more surprising if the Commonwealth didn't lose a couple now and if a couple more didn't make plans for when Charles dies, which won't be all that long from now.

I wish Canada was one of those, but all I'm reasonably hoping for is that we drop monarch icons on our cash.

The Commonwealth is not the list of countries that had QEII as their head of state. If you check the summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations you can read about it. That article has even been updated in the last 3 hours.

I am aware of that and did not say otherwise. I can see how you might have read that into what I said (as if I had said "across all") but my intention was across the countries in the Commonwealth that do share a monarch with the UK.

Unless you're saying there are countries not in the Commonwealth that have her as the head of state which is news to me, but maybe i am mistaken.

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