British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals | Hacker News Reader

British public support for monarchy at historic low, poll reveals

theguardian.com

51 pointsPaulHoule86 comments

The current monarchy format seems like it was necessary at the time of the transition away from pure monarchy in order to prevent too much opposition to the transition from blocking the transition. Like a compatibility layer with a legacy system.

Now the population that would have opposed the transition is long dead, so it seems reasonable to remove the compatibility layer.

Though, a more cynical take might be-- what if there is still latent support for reverting to a true classical monarchy, and keeping a monarchy in place dampens support. I.e. going from "no monarchy" back to "monarchy" might get some people excited, whereas going from "monarchy A" to "monarchy B" is less likely to stir up excitement.

Have you read Terry Pratchett? I suppose you could call him Sir Terry Pratchett in fact, but one of his characters would say that one of the design flaws of humanity is the bend in the knee. It's like someone left a coding error in their brains that says, "Kings, what a good idea".

I'm paraphrasing, but barely. Your comment just reminded me of that.

As i see it a monarch can have (or not have) an element of personal charisma. People liked Elizabeth. Commonwealth countries were not going to take her image off their currency and honor indigenous people instead but when it came to changing the money to honor Charles or honor indigenous people that’s another thing.

When I was younger I saw the Charles-Diana-Camilla triangle through the “it’s so awful to have to marry someone you don’t love” lens but today I see it as a lost opportunity for the monarchy if not the UK. There is very little choice about who’s going to inherit the monarchy (can’t select for ‘much better than average’) but you can pick somebody much better than average to marry into the family, and thus keep people interested in and emotionally connected with the monarchy, which is what it is all about. If people don’t care sooner or later it will become irrelevant and/or die out, if it cultivates that connection it can thrive.

I’ve been thinking about that on my own lately. It’s like the whole human race has imposter syndrome and thinks there needs to be an “adult” in the room.

I don’t know how many parents feel this way when bringing their first-born home from the hospital, but my spouse and I felt like the doctors were crazy to trust us, a couple of twenty-somethings, to take home a child and actually keep it alive and do all the things adults do for children.

Maybe that was wise of us to realize the level of our inexperience, but I think that feeling of inadequacy applies to most humans in many situations. We look for leaders to follow, intellectuals to learn from, heroes to worship, and monarchs to rule us. Otherwise, who is the adult in the room?

On taking custody of small humans, I like to say that if we weren’t able to make them at home ourselves we would definitely need a license to get one. It is illegal to own most other types of ape.

I've seen people argue for dispensing with democracy entirely in favor of returning to true monarchies - recently, on HN. It's baffling.

I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens at some point. Every revolution targets the problems of the day. Over time, people forget the problems of the past and start to focus on current day problems. Current day problems relate to the current day government system, and problems are blamed on the current system (right or wrong).

If we completely ignore what we’ve learned about monarchy historically, and just think about whether it could address some problems of today (e.g. lack of leadership accountability, manipulation of public opinion to steer voting, the divisiveness of every person having to think about politics, etc), I can see some appealing elements.

Benevolent dictatorship works for software, why not government?

"A total of 45% of respondents said either it should be abolished, was not at all important or not very important."

Not categories I would have combined in an analytical report.

Agreed. I for one feel that it’s not very important, and I wouldn’t implement a monarchy if designing a country from scratch, but I also wouldn’t remove the current one.

Agreed. The distinction between indifference to and desire to remove is quite strong

To me, a newspaper combining those groups says "most Britons in favour of a monarchy with some power, but we don't want to admit that" more than anything.

People who say they are indifferent do not support the Monarchy and just live with it. So there is a reasonable argument for combining those categories of your aim is to sample support.

Ask Americans or the French what they think of their republic and I doubt 45% will be against or indifferent.

Not that it matters:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/29/the-crowd-we...

> Hill is a Christian, historian, pacifist, teacher, writer, activist and republican. At the start of the ceremony, which focused on the queen’s death, he was silent: “I wouldn’t interrupt somebody’s grief.” But when “they declared Charles rightful liege lord, and acknowledged our obedience to him as our only king”, Hill had heard enough. “I find this language very demeaning, and I called out ‘Who elected him?’” To his astonishment, he found himself surrounded by security, arrested and eventually charged under the Public Order Act 1986.

[snip]

> On the same day, a 22-year-old woman who allegedly held a placard reading “Fuck imperialism, abolish monarchy” was arrested in Edinburgh for breach of the peace.

[snip]

> Perhaps the most alarming story to emerge was that of a barrister threatened with arrest after holding up a blank piece of paper outside parliament.

My point is that public support is meaningless when expressing lack of support is criminalized. GOD SAVE THE KING on pains of imprisonment.

It's been said, quite correctly, that the UK is a republic with a hereditary president, while the US is a monarchy with an elected king. I see plenty of misconceptions about the UK royal family in the comments, from them depending on taxes (they don't) to the importance of the monarch in the government.

I don't really care whether the UK has a king of a president (except that the name change would be annoying) - but the country currently has much bigger issues, including the fact that it's slowly moving towards a single-party authoritarianism.

Absurd to say that the royal family doesn’t subsist on taxation when literally every penny they’ve got is derived from it in the first place

> I don't really care whether the UK has a king of a president (except that the name change would be annoying) - but the country currently has much bigger issues, including the fact that it's slowly moving towards a single-party authoritarianism.

While there is currently a Tory government, Labour remain the favourites to win the next general election. That doesn't sound like a recipe for "single-party authoritarianism" to me.

Labour are regularly referred to as Tory-lite and with the way it's being run by Keith people feel it's just the Tory party but in red.

That assumes fair and lawful elections, which is far from given.

First, the election system itself, known and first-past-the-post, allows a party to win a seat with having a minimal majority in the ward. We don't have to look beyond the most recent election, in 2019, where the Tories won 365 out of 650 seats (56%) while only winning 43.6% of the voters. [0] A proportional voting system would make the ratio much more realistic [1], but I don't see that happening any time soon. (Ultimately, any government with the power to change the system would have been elected using that old system, so what change it?)

Second, the Tories are doing everyithing they can to improve the chances to win as many seats as possible. For example, the recently introduced photo ID requirement - in the country that traditionally eschews any mandatory photo IDs - is heavily skewed towards Tory voters: many poor people can't pay the fees to get a passport and don't have a driving license; and while senior public transport passes are accepted, student IDs and transport passes are not; and so on.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2019/results

[1] https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/how-the-2019-election-re...

This seems like rather a biased summary of an obscure finding - can anybody point to the exact details that they've drawn these conclusions from (I don't doubt they are there), I had a quick look at the underlying report but it is difficult to navigate and I couldn't see a mention of monarchy.

It's almost like The Guardian is trying really really hard to put the most anti monarchy spin on business-as-usual social attitudes surveying...

That would be something new and unexpected, seeing anti-monarchy spin from The Guardian

Constitutional monarchs are a valid form of non political heads of state, and there’s a value in such heads of state. However, they should be citizens and residents of the country they “lead” - not residing over the seas. And they should dial the ostentation back to 4-5, in line with the other countries in Europe. Let Disney handle the Magic Princesses.

Why should they dial the ostentation back?

Their existence depends on the tolerance of the taxed. Burn that out and theyll have to work for a living.

Edit as I can’t reply…. Japan’s royalty has been around far longer but isn’t particularly fancy. Denmark’s is similar in duration to the post Norman uk, similarly “mild”. People don’t like seeing such behaviour in lean times.

I’m not sure. The most successful, enduring ‘royal family’ in the world appears to be the one that has been the most careful to conserve all the ostentation.

Well Japanese royalty is most certainly not ostentatious.

Fair point, enduring wasn’t the best word. But point is, the British one is a standout successful one, and also a standout ostentatious one. Every time there’s some big royal thing going on, people talk about how it’s too ostentatious and it will never survive like that, but revealed preferences seem to show that is its greatest strength.

Are those monarchies even tax funded? A separation between private ("house") and state property is usually much older than even the earliest traces of democratization and when they got to where they are today without completely losing their formal status, the house property will have survived just fine. Apply the supposedly not-feudal-at-all mechanisms of free market to those (land-)lords and you get something generously funded by nothing but privileged birth.

Some members of the ruling class prefer to present themselves as 'normal' people who are 'just like you'. For example, by not wearing a tie and by inviting you to use a chummy nickname for them, they hope you'll overlook the fact they're the grandson of a baronet and went to Eton.

Presumably jleyank thinks the same might boost the popularity of the royals.

Personally I'm not so sure - the level of ostentation surrounding the royals is so ridiculously over-the-top that you can't possibly take it seriously. Scale it back carelessly and it might start looking sincere, and that's the last thing we want.

> Constitutional monarchs are a valid form of non political heads of state

IMO, such a role should not be inherited. Locking a family in such a golden cage is cruel, and should be forbidden.

(I’ll ignore the possibility of an elected monarch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elective_monarchy))

> And they should dial the ostentation back to 4-5, in line with the other countries in Europe

Further back than that, IMO. Even non-royal heads of state can have too much grandeur (example: presidents of France). The real role model are presidents such as those of Germany and Austria.

If you ask somebody “Who’s the president of Germany?” I think it’s likelier to get the response “Does Germany _have_ a president?” than to get the right answer (currently Frank-Walter Steinmeier)

Do you think the “overseas” monarchy played a positive role in Rhodesia or Fiji?

In both cases you had a country going off the rails, the “overseas monarch” said “do what you want, but don’t attach my name to it” and they became a republic.

If Rhodesia had been a republic from the beginning, it would have been easier for them to get international recognition.

> And they should dial the ostentation back to 4-5, in line with the other countries in Europe. Let Disney handle the Magic Princesses.

Absolutely not. The pompous spectacle is the only thing about the monarchy worth paying attention to. I mean, just look at this jackass[0]. This is a grown man in an ostensibly modern country, whose privilege and position are taken so seriously people are expected to take public vows of loyalty to him and get arrested for disrespecting him, and he's dressed like an anime villain. The tassels on his cape are bigger than his head.

[0]https://www.instagram.com/p/CnXkIHPP0er/

In my view the elephant in the room is that the monarchy in the UK has demonstrably failed to be a check or balance on a party with a majority in Parliament.

Without a written constitution there is no limit on what a party with a majority in Parliament - which it can an achieve with a relatively small share of the vote - can do. Not a healthy situation.

I'm unsure how the monarchy could be a check and a balance when the "constitutional settlement" is generally considered to include the monarch staying out of politics publicly - the monarch acts on the advice of ministers, which is to say the monarch is essentially a rubber stamp with several enormous palaces they can be stored in.

There are checks and balances. When Boris Johnson unlawfully prorogued parliament, judicial review leading to a supreme court judgement eventually overturned the order, concluding his advice to the Queen was outside the powers of the Prime Minister. This is a fairly drastic outcome but Brexit was an interesting constitutional fuzzing campaign and we had a situation where the speaker of the house stretched the definition of impartiality quite a bit too.

Other checks and balances include His Majesty's Loyal Opposition and assorted members of Parliament who may disagree with whatever bill is under consideration (the opposition are currently a bit useless, you may be forgiven for thinking they don't exist) and the House of Lords, who scrutinize bills passed from the commons (and do object to things quite frequently in spite of the irritation this causes to the PM of the day).

It isn't perfect, but as the system is currently set up I'm not sure the monarchy can be regarded to have "failed" to check or balance the party in parliament. As to whether the constitution should be written down - I think it would probably be useful, but it is unlikely - and checks and balances still work as shown in the prorogation case. As for first-past-the-post and the UK's electoral system in general - again, yeah, a problem. I'm British and it doesn't matter who I vote for since whoever the conservative candidate is will be returned for my constituency, guaranteed. However, that's also not something the monarchy can change.

Largely agree but your wording is interesting - ‘generally considered’, ‘staying out of politics publicly’.

I think that there has been a degree of constructive ambiguity in the past. No more and it’s 100% clear now that the King / Queen would rubber stamp even the most extreme legislation. With FPTP, weaknesses in Lords appointments system, no written constitution etc then that’s a big weakness.

> I think that there has been a degree of constructive ambiguity in the past.

Not really. Since what you're calling for specifically is the Monarch to start blocking bills: it was established in the Bill of Rights Act 1689 (which would form part of the basis of a constitution if codified) that Parliament is sovereign, and the actual Sovereign can only act on the advice of parliament apart from when exercising royal prerogative, which is done on the advice of ministers.

One example of royal prerogative is proroguing parliament, which we've discussed. Another would be giving, or not, Royal Assent to a bill. The last time Royal Assent was refused was in 1708: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Militia_Bill and that was also on the advice of ministers, as they'd changed their mind about a law that had completed its passage through parliament.

In other words, what you're asking for has not happened in over 300 years.

The Lords is the check and balance. For a while we had the high courts as well.

The monarchy are supposed to leave the people alone to govern.

The popularity of the British monarchy in the US is a complete mystery to me.

Looking at it objectively, why should we like or support any monarch or monarchy?

Its anti-democratic. It’s not merit based. These people did nothing to earn their position—as were just born into it. The ceremonies and events are a drain on state resources. The monarchy as a whole is just the remnant of a system of government that spent hundreds of years dominating and suppressing other forms of government.

I really don’t get why they are so popular here.

Likely an extension of American reverence for fame. There’s not too much difference between American examples of fame for fame’s sake and those born into the monarchy? Just a guess from someone as perplexed and uninterested as you.

“X% think the monarchy is ‘quite important’”, or summat. Next poll, please, please, please drill into why these folks think it is important. Because I’m trying to come up with something for which the monarchy is important, and I’m truly at a loss as a non-resident.

EDIT: all great answers (except the snarky one) that gave me some insight, thanks.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/29/the-crowd-we...

Because they'll imprison you if you say it isn't.

The strongest argument for the monarchy, in my experience, is the alternative is someone elected - and have you seen the people who get elected?

Given how insane voters are, it's really a pleasant surprise that politicians are as sane as they are.

The presidents “whose names everybody knows” aren’t representative for the full set. In Germany or Austria, for example, presidents don’t have much power and the role doesn’t carry much grandeur and because of that, attracts different people.

I live in Canada. Some benefits of the monarchy vs the US system:

* Much of the pomp and prestige of the state gets vested in the Governor General. Whereas in the US the president gets treated like a monarch

* People swear allegiance to the monarchy and the state. They serve that rather than the leader

* In the event the prime minister goes truly insane, there is an outside check on their power.

People dismiss these but we have some pretty recent experience down south of someone who could have stood to have less than absolute authority.

(Much of the difference also comes down to parliamentary vs presidential system. Presidential system has had awful results everywhere it has been tried outside the USA)

Monarchical countries as a rule tend to be more stable than others.

> People swear allegiance to the monarchy and the state. They serve that rather than the leader

Oaths of allegiance in the US are sworn to the Constitution, not to any particular leader.

> Much of the difference also comes down to parliamentary vs presidential system

Pretty much all the ways you mention in which the Canadian system is superior to the US system are nothing to do with monarchy vs republic at all, they are about parliamentary vs presidential. Canada would have all the same advantages if it became a parliamentary republic like Ireland or Germany.

> Much of the pomp and prestige of the state gets vested in the Governor General. Whereas in the US the president gets treated like a monarch

The only truth in that statement is that, should the president start behaving like a monarch he can be removed just like King George or Louis XIV were thanks to the second amendment. How about the Governor General?

> People swear allegiance to the monarchy and the state. They serve that rather than the leader

The Oats of Allegiances in America are to the constitution, a founding document signed and agreed upon by all states who formed the republic. It is the voice of the people. The president is only there to enforce it temporarily.

> In the event the prime minister goes truly insane, there is an outside check on their power.

Is it? Can realistically a foreign non-elected person interfere that much in the country's politics? That sounds like a slippery slope to say the least.

The prime minister controls both the executive and legislative branches, removing a lot of the checks and balances built into the American system. Not only that, but the absence of a real constitution -they just at some point decided the constitution wouldn't apply when truckers started protesting- makes the judiciary branch (appointed by the prime minister) pretty much able to do as it pleases.

I mean, I’m not here to argue that the monarchy is very important, but it certainly provides amongst other things: an element of cultural backward compatibility, a reliable tourist attraction, a small element of continuity and temperance to government, a bunch of figureheads and symbolic leaders, and another thread in the rich tapestry that makes a nation unique.

Also, the current royal family knows that they would be about two hours away from a republic being declared if they were ever to abuse their position, and as a result they are reasonably public spirited, insofar as billionaires go.

People in the US care a lot about their flag and their anthem (and their precious abstract 'Freedom'.)

Many people around the world care about their national football team doing well in the world cup.

If you can understand why those symbols are important, perhaps you can see why the monarchy might be an important symbol for some Brits?

The British public liked, in broad terms, not the monarchy, but The Queen. Now we have a King who's said his job is to prepare things for the King-in-waiting and few have strong feelings towards William either--and neither of them seem to have done anything of diplomatic note.

The monarchy does provide a great diplomatic and PR service to the UK. They're essentially soft power. The fact this is even a discussion point on this website is a great example. And The Queen was loved globally, far more than she was in the UK, yet Charles and William leave me cold frankly.

I'm happy the crown is being criticised and held to account but low support for the crown is hardly news and I doubt any major shift of opinion has happened regardless of how underwhelming the new King seems compared to his mother.

Yet I somehow think constitutional monarchies work. There is a reason (I don't know what) that the european ones are in the western richer + generally strong and high functioning democratic countries (Spain, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg).

The reason is actually well known. It even has a name: imperialism.

The Netherlands were practically bankrupt after the second world war, as was most of Europe. This, together with the fact that much of Asia was in a similar situation, has led to the exceptional wealth America quickly attained in a short period of time, as they were the only major industrial power left.

The colonies were no longer making much profit for the few years after WW2 either, to the point where Suriname got ejected more than it got liberated from imperial rule. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Luxembourg never even had colonies of note to get rich off (unless you count European wars as colonies).

Oil and natural gas together with heavy investment from the USA were more important to the western countries' current wealth than anything else. The USSR messing up the once powerful economies of eastern Europe also helped drive down competition, as did the unrest in most of Asia. Having some infrastructure and political designs from the height of imperial power sure helped, but imperialism is hardly the reason these countries are as rich as they are today. In fact, Spain and Portugal were much stronger and richer countries during the height of colonial rule yet they are comparatively poor to both north-west-European and the Scandinavian states today.

I don't think the separate is as strong as you suggest. Most of the world was ravaged by World War 2 but the Marshall Plan was designed to assist the previously imperial nations only.

Colonial empires were a net drag on the economies of these nations.

Constitutional monarchies are good for stability, at the expense of political freedom. They make sense for Spain and the UK since they are internally unstable, but not so much for Norway and similar countries that are on "cruise control".

Funny enough it feels like the popularity, if not support, of the monarchy has never been higher in Northern Ireland.

Charles snubbed the DUP when he visited and now it's announced that the Irish language will be used during the coronation.

We've been held under the thumb of these lunatics for so long that it's nice to see the same authority figures that they blindly adore step up and let them see their behavior is intolerable as we step further into the 21st century.

> Funny enough it feels like the popularity, if not support, of the monarchy has never been higher in Northern Ireland.

A lot of that is about the Nationalist community feeling more confident, feeling that history is now on their side and they just have to wait out the inevitable. Demographic change is causing Catholics to outnumber Protestants. The future of the UK seems uncertain, Scottish independence may no longer be an immediate prospect, but its long-term odds (within the next few decades) seem quite decent, and Scottish independence when it eventually happens is likely to have a cascading effect on the stability of the UK as a whole, significantly increasing the odds of Irish unity. Sinn Fein could soon be running Dublin. The British monarchy begins to seem less a symbol of the hated oppressor, more like some charming elderly eccentric whom you know is not long for this world, and you might as well enjoy their hospitality in their last days.

A system where all the power is vested in a person who can never have any authority to use it works surprisingly well.

Our PM has all the authority but none of the power. He has to ask the King’s assent for everything - which curbs any real extremism.

The purists don’t like it but it works.

As you get older you start to understand why Chesterton’s fence is there.

Can you provide examples of how it curbs extremism? The Tories have been doing extreme stuff and I don't see any intervention from the monarch.

What are examples of the extremism you refer to?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_British_prorogation_contr...

That's not extremism. That's the way the constitution works.

What was intended to happen happened anyway.

The constitutional outrage was failing to implement the 2016 referendum that the people voted for. MPs acted with impunity and were rewarded by ejection at the following election.

The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act then set the matter on a statutory basis so the courts cannot interfere in the political process again.

I disagree and I think there's enough information available that explains why Boris Johnson, proroguing parliament in the way that he did was unconstitutional and extremist.

However, even if you are right and it is not extremism. That doesn't support the idea that monarchies prevent extremism. If the argument is, there has never been extremism in the UK because of the monarchy and therefore I cannot give examples of extremism then that's a specious argument.

How to abolish it? Just quit talking about it or caring about it. It's public attention that makes it anything at all.

Imaginary specialness invested in such a group of supercilious incompetents is baffling. Magical thinking.

Erm no.

The way to abolish it is to pick a new head of state (elections, draws, pulling a sword out of a stone, etc)

I quite like the idea of replacing the royals with a family of lions, and keeping all the laws otherwise the same.

>”replacing the royals with a family of lions”

Ah yes, the National Pride!

Erm, the regent has the right to be told, and the right to hear. I think I have covered all of them. A 'head of state' only because * people pretend they are *

Any position only exists because people pretend it is so. We make up the rules of our make believe and write them down as laws. Currently just ignoring those laws doesn't have a great power in changing them.

Sure. And this one is entirely ceremonial. Thus it can be obsoleted by, quitting the ceremonies. Just don't attend.

That's magical thinking. Ignoring it won't change the legal position of the monarchy in the UK.

This being the Guardian, it’s worth having a look at the survey itself and seeing what it actually says. The paper is not above misrepresentation when it is addressing one of its hobby horses.

It makes me wonder if support for monarchy is somehow linked to per capita GDP, like religiosity (with the US being the biggest exception).

Charles has never been a popular figure. I think if he were to abdicate things might pick up.

its 2023 why are there still kings and queens, who are quite literally above the law [enjoys sovereign immunity, meaning he can't be prosecuted under a civil or criminal investigation.]?

Compare with the US president. It's an elected office, but they are treated "like royalty". "The president is just a citizen" is an ideal for a republic, but it's pretty far from the case.

Some pretty big differences:

- The president is elected on his or her own merit.

- The president is treated like royalty for 4 years, then it ends.

- The president is subject to impeachment and prosecution for crimes.

- The president receives a very low salary and doesn’t get an ownership interest in any state resources.

they do consistently change at least every 8 years via democratic vote. That is the main point.

Time for Rexit !

Wait until they find out that Prince Harry is not genetically related to King Charles

wonder what % approve of the monarchies links to pedophiles

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