UKC

The Duke of Edinburgh has died.

It seems likely that the Queen will be less likely to live as long now. I realise that this may well be an incorrect assertion, but if we take the idea forward:-

Then the Australians are more likely to have their political and legal constitution to change over a short period into a republic.

If that does happen, with a little luck, there may be some chance of a rational and sensible discussion of changing the royal involvement in our constitution, to lessen it, and to reduce the fiscal burden that they cost the country.

A series of surmises, on my part, but a realistic possibility.

PS In relation to anyone who is not a supporter of the royals, or is actually a republican being superbly left wing and a Corbyn supporter; that is absolute rubbish.

No chance. The British love entitled overlords. Why else would we be in such a position both constitutionally and politically?

Errrrr thanks very much, all great stuff, but can I please suggest that you sit down and have a nice cup of tea

I agree. I think the queens passing may well instigate a proper debate. 

I'm actually in favor of a monarchy, but trimmed down with minimal reliance on the public purse. But mainly because I'd worry about how we'd change the rest of the political system. Would we go to a presidency for example.

I'd certainly sell of masses of land or make conservation land, and property which was seized generations ago and remained part of the crown estate.

I’m not sure those out with (and perhaps within) the UK realise how toxic a heritable head of state is to social mobility. 
 

I can see no issue making the Prime Minister head of state.

Wouldn't you need a pretty big constitutional change if there was no monarch?, not that we have a written constitution, on how governments are formed and could be dissolved?

However I think the UK is ripe for some big changes, especially the house of Lords.

I'm actually too removed (7 years) now to vote anymore in general elections. So I'm not sure I'd get a say.

I can think of two:

1. Boris

2. Johnson

The idea that, under our current system, making some old Etonion PM head of state somehow advances 'social mobility' is laughable.

Their head of state is the governor of HMP Australia, surely. 

I thought they rejected getting rid of the queen last time more because of what next than whether or not they wanted the queen.

Does our current head of state wield any power? The Prime Minister is, to all intents and purposes, the head of state.

Why is it? I would have thought it was pretty far down the list if you want to increase social mobility generally, unless you want that mobility to include the possibility of becoming head of state.

Scandinavian countries and The Netherlands seem to do ok with constitutional monarchs.

'As long' as what? Obviously, she will die sometime. Everybody does.

What are you talking about?

???

Yes. The Monarch has the authority to withhold Royal Assent for any Bill passed by Parliament, for example. It doesn't happen in practice, but that's not the question you're asking.

The question posed by the referendum was a loaded one - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Australian_republic_referendum

There are many reasons why but I suspect the inescapable class categorisation we have is one driver. We, as a population, are too accepting of the privilege of inherited wealth/power/status and too accepting that we have ‘our place’ in society.

This is much less of a feature in Norway and Sweden (I’m less familiar with Danish and Dutch society).

Have and wield are different.

It’s a bit like having a sword; nothing wrong with that but if you actually use it in anger, it’s going to get taken away very quickly and you’re never going to get it back.

Nevertheless, the power formally exists.

As a general contextual comment, very few Australians were aware that the Queen's representative had the formal power to dismiss the sitting Prime Minister and to appoint the Leader of the Opposition in his place - until that actually happened in 1975.

But it's kind of good to have it there, if needed. It's potentially another level of protection if things go rogue. 

Not really, because if it ever gets used there’s going to be an outcry, the powers will be stripped and the legislative process repeated.

Given how tight lipped the royals were as things went very rogue during the Brexit campaigning, and as the same people moved on from manipulating public opinion over Brexit to manipulating government opinion in response to Covid, it’s clear the royals are abundantly clear on how illusory a lot of their position is.

Yes but it will have stopped something serious from happening.

I don't know what you expected re Brexit?

That was the will of the people. As much as it's a mistake, I don't think it raised to the level for the Royals to step in.

Should they have been more vocal in their support of the EU is another question.

But you seem to say it's illusory, but then that their powers would be stripped. So they do potentially have the power to step in?

I feel this is a simple concept.

It’s an illusory power because if they use it to stop assent of a bill, their power will be stripped, and then the replacement process will be used to assent the bill.

Just how fast would the right wing media turn on the royal family if they prevented team blue from passing a law?  Look at how they bandied around words like “traitor” against those advocating against Brexit.

This idea that the monarch could step in to meaningfully prevent the assent of a bill is a sheer fantasy.  Absolute fantasy.  

**** me.  We have the PM’s key advisor and Brexit cheerleader held in Contempt of Parliament for refusing to appear at a parliamentary hearing in to wide scale manipulation of the public through social media and an almost 50/50 vote and you’re going to fall back to “the will of the people”.  Seriously?  It was a near split vote with massive, gaping lies, misrepresentations and manipulations that one of the then most powerful people in government point blank refused to be questioned on by the apparatus of our democracy.  Sensible democracies require a supra majority for such a drastic change, we had neither that nor a fair campaign and you’re going to dismiss it all with “will of the people”.

What exactly do you consider an appropriate level for the monarch to intervene?  Rather than leave me guessing let me know.

Eh? I've said all along I've disagreed with brexit so don't try that shit. As the referendum was set up it was up to the government and the last election made it pretty bloody clear.

How could it be stopped?

There’s a difference between disagreeing with brexit and claiming legitimacy for the process.  

I don’t care which way you fell, claiming it was “the will of the people” strongly suggests you view the process by which the decision was arrived at was thoroughly legitimise and is to rather ignore the gaping democratic defecit in how we got here.

So you *do* recognise that the Monarch’s powers are illusory.  In a fantasy land where they aren’t, the monarch could have prevented assent of the bill with their “power” and then used their significant public platform to lay bare the rank scale of lies and manipulation, of which they will be more aware than most.

Hold on you said it's illusory. Then if it was ever used it would be taken away. Don't use confusing statements then.

Personally the obvious one would be an unjust war.

But I agree it's a power they will have once and once only.

So answer how could it be stopped! We had a general election and they won by a massive majority. 

It’s not confusing.  I’ve explained why it’s not.  I’ll explain again in a moment.

Pretty shit example given Iraq and Afghanistan?

And, as I’ve already explained, it’s illusory because once it’s stripped, whatever law they stalled from assent will just be put forwards again.  Their “power” won’t have stopped assent but paused it briefly.

It can’t.  Because the monarch’s power is illusory. 

Are you getting it yet?

No, because you just said that power would be removed if used.

So they have the power. Are you getting it's it would delay and bring attention to what is happening. It's still a potential stumbling block.

No it's not, at the time we didn't know what we later knew re iraq.

Are you reading what I’m writing?

Their power to defeat a bill is illusory.  Use it, bill is stoped.  Power is repealed.  Bill assents. Net effect of the “power” - a delay to assent.  So what is the power really?  A power to delay assent one one bill by. Few weeks or months.  The power to prevent assent is entirely illusory.

I feel like you’re deliberately not understanding this.

I feel you are being deliberately rude. I'm off for a bike ride.

Chill dude, stick to running. Or cycling.

Eh it's wintertree losing his cool.

You seem to have come round to my view that their ability to prevent assent is indeed illusory and at best they can effect a brief delay.

So it seems you actually agree with me that the power is illusory and that at best they have one shot at delaying - not preventing - assent and getting some public opinion to potentially shift - if we ignore the actions of the government aligned press.

You won’t have to look far to find strong evidence for other views at the time.  Further, “we didn’t research our case for war sufficiently” is hardly strong grounds to define it as “just” IMO.

I understand what you are suggesting; yet I think that it greatly simplifies the processes that would obtain in trying to repeal  the power of the crown in this circumstance. The only real winners would be the lawyers for 5-10 years. That is, unless we end up with Cromwell on one side, and Prince Rupert on the other again.

I'm sorry to everyone that I did not respond to my own thread, but work intervened with some other issues.

NB I'm buzzing off just now, not because I'm perturbed by the interactions of the thread, but because I need to get to bed. :-}

I don’t think that situation could possibly pertain for more than a few months.  For the duration of that process the ability of the government to pass law - in effect to govern - would be in question and the costs and risks posed to business would be so great that the problem would be compelled to sort itself out very promptly.  We simply couldn’t function with a decade long constitutional crisis.  

The scale of the inevitable constitutional crisis seems to me yet another  reason why the power is illusory - the monarch will be full aware of the harm that using it will wreak on on the nation, except perhaps if faced with the weakest of weak governments.

There’s just no realistic situation I can see where the “power” could possibly be used in the UK.  

We actually agree on almost all of it. The issue is you think that stumbling block is inconsequential and I don't.

re Brexit, after the last election it was baked in. 

I found it like Trump in 2020. I wasn't that upset when I woke up thinking he'd won because I felt the people knew what they were voting for this time - how ever much I hated him. And if 150 million American's had voted then that was outcome that we had to have and I had to respect it this time.

I think the same re Brexit which will severely impact my kids and other people in my family. But it's pretty much baked in. We had the chances to stop it and the public overwhelmingly backed Bojo. Incredible as it seems.

As long as might otherwise have been, had the duke lived longer. His death may shorten her life.

I am reiterating what a senior Australian politician said on BBC Radio 4 recently. (Including the bit about if the duke died, then the queen may not live as long as if he lived).

In another thread, someone said that anyone who does not agree with or support the royals, must essentially be far left wing, and a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. I am saying that this is totally false, neither being true.

"More than 1,000 laws have been vetted by the Queen or Prince Charles through a secretive procedure before they were approved by the UK’s elected members of parliament, the Guardian has established.

The huge number of laws subject to royal vetting cover matters ranging from justice, social security, pensions, race relations and food policy through to obscure rules on car parking charges and hovercraft."

The Guardian 'Royals vetted more than 1,000 laws via Queen’s consent', Mon 08 February 2021.

Well you’ve been claiming their power to stop anything is “real” when it turns out you also don’t believe in that power and think it’s actually reduced to the power to introduce a “stumbling block”.  I’m not sure even that power is measurably real.

The election that happened 3 years after the Brexit vote?  In those 3 years the depths of deception of the vote leave campaign were laid bare and there was nary a squeak from the palace.  It rather suggests even a stumbling block is a step to far for the monarch. After the 2019 election we had the blatant act of democratic vandalism in the prorogation attempt; if the monarch truely had the power to be a safety valve as you claimed, surely that’s another time to intercede?  Reviewing the last 30 years it seems astoundingly clear to me our current monarch is going to remain stoutly apolitical come hell, high water or the largest democratic deficit since democracy was restored after WW2.  

That article also suggests the royals were vetting some laws in order to lobby for changes to protect their interest:

The investigation uncovered evidence suggesting that she used the procedure to persuade government ministers to change a 1970s transparency law in order to conceal her private wealth from the public.

The documents also show that on other occasions the monarch’s advisers demanded exclusions from proposed laws relating to road safety and land policy that appeared to affect her estates, and pressed for government policy on historic sites to be altered.

Which rather reinforces tocatta’s point on hereditary.  Most other rich people wanting a chance to subvert a planned law at least have to buy a minister a drink to find out what’s going on...

So an admission of a royal corruption?

Who knows? That seems a pointless speculation.

I think it is true that the question of making Australia a republic will be revisited after the eventual death of the current Queen. Whether or not that would have any effect on the status of the monarchy here in the UK - again, who knows?

I did write that it may be an incorrect assertion that the queen may die earlier, but it does happen with many couples who are devoted to one another.. Others have similarly speculated. If that were to happen, it would certainly have a lot of consequences most likely.

That is why there is a question mark in the title of the thread, but the intent was for others to put both sides of the consideration. Plus to put forward other novel ideas.

Who is it that asks someone to form a Government and become Prime Minister - it's the Head of State.

So if the Prime Minister IS the Head of State, what's to stop them continually choosing their own self no matter how many MP's the other side has ?

The question was basically to remove the Queen as Head of State, and replace her with whoever the ruling party at the time wanted - i.e. a job for one of the boys.

No wonder it was rejected.

And that action was taken without any reference "upstairs" to the true Head of State - the Queen.

My memory may be a little hazy, but wasn't the representative in question "retired" fairly quickly afterwards.

According to Collins dictionary you could have gone the whole hog and used "inwith "......

That's correct.

He retired early in December 1977 - i.e. a couple of years after his dismissal of the PM.

I have heard that, previously, when offered a change of head of state, the Australian people, faced with a choice between a local politician and the status quo, opted for the status quo as they trust politicians even less.😆