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Comment by chasil | Hacker News Reader

Au contraire.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/09/queens-conse...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/08/queen-...

"Queen’s consent is a procedural rule, internal to the workings of parliament and of unclear origins, which requires the monarch’s consent to be obtained for certain types of legislation – before they can be presented for final approval by either house of parliament."

Also note that the Crown appoints new members to the House of Lords. This includes the supreme court of Great Britain, all members of which trace their seat to a Crown appointment at some past time.

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

"Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey advised the King to overwhelm opposition to the bill in the House of Lords by creating about 80 new pro-Reform peers."

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The Wikipedia page mentions that Kings Consent is a matter of parliamentary procedure and can be abolished with the stroke of a pen.

It's just a courtesy to save face for the Monarchy.

Sure, and the monarchy could be abolished by a simple parliamentary vote, and the weekly meetings where the PM briefs the monarch on anything that could hurt the latters financial interests could be abolished even more easily.

Except the monarch is a billionaire with power over even more money and public opinion and elected representatives are rightfully afraid of the monarchy's well funded and well oiled propaganda machine being turned against them.

The monarchy never tried to help me save face, why build entire government processes which do nothing but that for them?

Kings/Queens consent is for legislation affecting the royal household. Parliament is not bound by the monarch's consent in any case.

Every appointed member of the house of lords and the supreme court is appointed on the advice of the prime minister and cabinet.

I daresay you are a royalist.

"We now know there has been a persistent practice of applying those criteria so broadly that significant amounts of legislation regulating otherwise quite ordinary activities have required consent. The Queen pays tax, so (for example) finance laws require consent. The Queen is an employer, so (for example) child support and pensions laws require consent. And so on. Quite superficial connections to the interests of the crown are sufficient to trigger the Queen’s involvement.

"Even less information has been available on the substance of the process once triggered. All correspondence containing requests for consent, replies and the documentation of any related discussions have always been shrouded in absolute privacy. The only clue to their existence is the routine formulaic confirmation in parliament whenever consent has been given, which reveals nothing about the process through which that consent was secured. So it has been impossible to ascertain whether this is an essentially symbolic process, comparable with royal assent and perhaps justifiable as symbolically acknowledging the Queen as a formal part of the legislature; or whether it provided (or had the potential to be used as) a genuine opportunity for the Queen to veto legislation or influence policy.

"But it is now clear this process is far from merely symbolic. The documents uncovered by the Guardian provide remarkable evidence that this process accords the Queen’s advisers a genuine opportunity to negotiate with the government over changes in proposed laws, that they do sometimes secure such changes before giving consent, and that they are even prepared to threaten to withhold consent to secure their policy preferences."

All of the crown's powers can be changed or removed by parliament, the recent Prorogation of Parliament [0] case saw the supreme court of the UK reaffirm the "sovereignty of Parliament". So the (valid) issues with consent you are raising should be taken up with your local MP, since the power of conset is based upon the power of the UK's democratically elected body. By the by, I daresay I'm not a royalist.

[0]: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/decision-of-the-supreme...

I work in Iowa. I am not a British citizen.

"Since 1999, however, no further reform has taken place. The Wakeham Commission proposed introducing a 20% elected element to the Lords, but this plan was widely criticised. A parliamentary Joint Committee was established in 2001 to resolve the issue, but it reached no conclusion and instead gave Parliament seven options to choose from (fully appointed, 20% elected, 40% elected, 50% elected, 60% elected, 80% elected, and fully elected). In a confusing series of votes in February 2003, all of these options were defeated, although the 80% elected option fell by just three votes in the Commons. Socialist MPs favouring outright abolition voted against all the options."

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

I would think that a head of state with substantial assets administered by the government and a massive public subsidy for the royal family would be in a position to lobby the government. The ruling party in the UK at the moment is pretty favorable to the monarchy so it isn't surprising they would provide the monarch with some ability to lobby the government.

I'm not a royalist or British but I would be more concerned about the financial subsidy and the ruling party's deference to the monarchy than the theoretical possibility of them witholding consent. It isn't much of a negotiation if one side can immediately win though right? The prime minister can just threaten to go public that he can't obtain consent and the monarch has to back down immediately.

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