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Comment by highwaylights | Hacker News Reader

I think it’s incredibly naive to suggest that she could have abolished the monarchy just like that.

What about the legal system in the UK/Canada/Australia that have it in constitution that she as a veto to the passing of new laws as a balance.

Could the system be made not to require the monarchy anymore? Sure, it’s purely ceremonial and has been for her entire reign, but to say that the monarch can make that decision at whim on behalf of 15 countries is just not true.

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Cromwell found it really quite straight forward to abolish the monarchy. The bit afterwards he did not do so well.

On the contrary, whilst he managed to abolish a monarch, he failed to abolish the institution of the monarchy so spectacularly that people kept offering the crown to him until he died, at which point the original line of succession was restored without any effective objections...

> Cromwell found it really quite straight forward to abolish the monarchy.

Nonsense. Cromwell had to fight and win a very bloody civil war to abolish the monarchy. Despite that it was still restored after his death.

The Right of Parliament controls the constitution of the UK and has done since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, not the current reigning monarch.

One of the interesting quirks of losing the empire is that there are a lot of precedents for 'Westminster model' countries becoming republics. The straightforward way is to give the reserve powers of the monarch to a mostly-ceremonial President on the Irish or Israeli model, and vest the rest formally in the government (which coincidentally also makes them subject to more parliamentary oversight). In the case of Canada/Australia etc. the Governors-General are already performing such a ceremonial presidency in reality. All that's needed is a process for electing new ones; fairly straightforward.

You're right that it would require international cooperation, though: the British parliament doesn't legislate for the other Commonwealth Realms any more.

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