The British Monarchy

What are your thoughts on it? What should be done with it, if time and priorities allowed?

My thoughts, copy and pasted from the UK election thread:

I was talking to a British person here, so the "you" refers to them.



Remove all legal power from the Crown, and instead give it to a popularly-elected President(or whatever title you prefer, Chancellor, etc.). The President will be free to exercise his powers, as he'll be held accountable by an election every... 5 or so years. The British can decide the number.

The Crown can remain a traditional institution, rather than a legal one, and will be divorced from government assistance; surely they're rich enough to not need it. The Crown will likely be held in high esteem still, even if it lacks legal power. They'd still informally be the rulers of the country, probably maintaining titles and such, but divorced from any real legal power.

Or, maybe even, they could formally remain rulers, but all legal power is now in another office, newly-created or otherwise.

This way, you still maintain a head of state(who is worth something for a change), as well as a distinct royal family to maintain your "Britishness." This will make integration into a greater EU far smoother, as there will no longer be a pesky legal monarchy business(though it could still be maintained at the state/provincial level, but that's beside the point).

Officially a Republic, but with a monarchy that has no legal duties yet with about the same worth as the current system. Think the way many nobles retain their titles and all that but no longer have any real power.

...Or alternatively, you could just do that, but instead of creating a new office, give all power to the Prime Minister, making him both head of state and government, much like the U.S. President.

Many possibilities of what divorcing the monarchy from legal power could entail.

So... what are your thoughts on the Monarchy? (and not just my proposal, you can have your own as well, of course)

Kill them.

Put the real ones back on the throne.

In reality all the legal power is with the government these days anyway so the Monarchy is essentially a traditional office than anything else anyways.

Well the only power HM has is to veto a bill and this will never happen, unless it was something like someone abolishing elections.

The Queen's speech opens parliament once a year but the PM writes the speech.

The PM asks the Queen to dissolve parliament and that's about it.

President Blair? No thanks.

Taniciusfox said:

Remove all legal power from the Crown, and instead give it to a popularly-elected President(or whatever title you prefer, Chancellor, etc.). The President will be free to exercise his powers, as he'll be held accountable by an election every... 5 or so years. The British can decide the number.

[...]

The Crown can remain a traditional institution, rather than a legal one, and will be divorced from government assistance; surely they're rich enough to not need it. The Crown will likely be held in high esteem still, even if it lacks legal power. They'd still informally be the rulers of the country, probably maintaining titles and such, but divorced from any real legal power.

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But what is the point or your proposal? Why they should started it at all in your opinion? And if they should do something why not restore absolute monarchy?

Change for changes sake, USA #1 I guess

azzaman333 said:

Kill them.

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...Well gee. That's... blunt.

Any particular reason for that?

Hoping for a native Australian dynasty, perhaps?

Couldn't that be done through an act of the Australian legislature without the need for bloodshed, though?

ParkCungHee said:

Put the real ones back on the throne.

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My dusty knowledge of British history reveals itself... which family would that be? A quick wiki search shows the current house and the houses of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Hannover all technically being the same but with name changes...

So I assume you mean the House of Stuart? Any particular reason why?

Taniciusfox said:

My dusty knowledge of British history reveals itself... which family would that be? A quick wiki search shows the current house and the houses of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Hannover all technically being the same but with name changes...

So I assume you mean the House of Stuart? Any particular reason why?

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Everyone loved Bonnie Prince Charlie...

Snorrius said:

But what is the point or your proposal? Why they should started it at all in your opinion?

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ParadigmShifter said:

Change for changes sake, USA #1 I guess

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Exactly, I just don't see how this could possibly benefit us.

I remember we did a similar poll on this in Norway too. If we abolished the monarchy who should be president? Most people wanted the King or the Crown prince... We just dislike our politicians too much. The Royal family don't have any opinions so we don't mind them as much.

There's no real republican movement in the UK, even those theoretically opposed to the monarchy tolerate it as both an ingenious money-making scheme, a quaint tradition, and also a fundamental pillar of our political society.

To remove the Queen would mean we'd have to practically recodify 1000 years worth of laws, and change our msot fundamental constitutional instruments.

Unless it happens violently, swiftly and revolutionarily, ain't gonna happen.

The irony is that it's the Yanks who are obsessed with our monarchy, we are just like /meh. Unless you work for the Daily Mail or the Daily Express.

BCLG100 said:

In reality all the legal power is with the government these days anyway so the Monarchy is essentially a traditional office than anything else anyways.

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All the more reason to formally remove the legal powers and transfer them to Parliament, the PM, or another new office if you ever get the time and have nothing better to do, yes?

ParadigmShifter said:

Well the only power HM has is to veto a bill and this will never happen, unless it was something like someone abolishing elections.

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Which seems good, but why not transfer that power and some real ones to a new office that actually has a function, rather than one that will rarely ever be used? Until the time comes when they veto something against national interest... they're pretty much leeches. Sure they smile and wave... but I think an elected politician does that quite well too.

President Blair? No thanks.

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Going by the American system, if you despised a President/Chancellor/etc. so much, you could vote his enemies into Parliament to oppose him, or maybe even impeach and remove him...

Snorrius said:

But what is the point or your proposal? Why they should started it at all in your opinion? And if they should do something why not restore absolute monarchy?

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Absolute monarchy isn't accountable to the people, unlike a system where all officials are elected in one way or another. The Papacy could be an exception here, but that monarchy is elected by clerics and not the People or their representatives(unless the Catholics elect the clerics, which I'm pretty sure they don't).

ParadigmShifter said:

Change for changes sake, USA #1 I guess

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Well I won't deny I think we have a good thing going with separation of powers and checks and balances between these independent branches.

But yes, change for change's sake. That's why I said if priority and time allowed for the change... meaning that Brits were so bored with nothing to do they'd finally be able to consider the legitimacy of a monarchy.

Taniciusfox said:

So I assume you mean the House of Stuart? Any particular reason why?

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Stuarts are fudgingg catholics, they can sod right off

Taniciusfox said:

...Well gee. That's... blunt.

Any particular reason for that?

Hoping for a native Australian dynasty, perhaps?

Couldn't that be done through an act of the Australian legislature without the need for bloodshed, though?

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Fastest easiest way to remove them.

Taniciusfox said:

All the more reason to formally remove the legal powers and transfer them to Parliament, the PM, or another new office if you ever get the time and have nothing better to do, yes?

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In short, the answer to the majority of that post, it's worked well for the past few hundred years. We've got no impetus to change it so what is the point?

Wait, you think we don't have independent powers?

House of Commons
Th Cabinet
House of Lords

Indeed, you get removed from succession if you marry a catholic here

Why give the monarch/president any more power?

PM has all the power anyway assuming the party is behind them. Sadly, most of Labour were conned into voting for the Iraq fiasco.

Taniciusfox said:

Absolute monarchy isn't accountable to the people, unlike a system where all officials are elected in one way or another. The Papacy could be an exception here, but that monarchy is elected by clerics and not the People or their representatives(unless the Catholics elect the clerics, which I'm pretty sure they don't).

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You still have not said why your changes are necessary. What's bad in constitutional monarchy?

But yes, change for change's sake. That's why I said if priority and time allowed for the change... meaning that Brits were so bored with nothing to do they'd finally be able to consider the legitimacy of a monarchy.

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Changes for change's sake is quite useless. There are always better/more necessary things to do.