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The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

theguardian.com

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Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#311

Post by anikan_vader »

cossray wrote: post #283
anikan_vader wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would point out that Sweden is unique on that list, as although they do have a monarchy, the king hold no legal/political power, not even in a "symbolic" sense. A potential explanation for the phenomena you've observed is that it's uncommon for new monarchies to be started in the 21st century, so the countries that still have monarchies are all countries that for the most part have had stable forms of government fo…

Did you just list Saudi Arabia and Qatar as poor countries? They might be anything, but not poor.

Not as poor countries, but as poorer countries than the ones the parent comment mentioned. The GDP per capita of Saudi Arabia is around $23k - approximately half of that of Sweden, the Netherlands, or the UK.

Qatar is absurdly rich, but the wealth is inequitably distributed (unusually so). Although the GDP per capita is ~60k, the median household income (and the median per-capita income) are considerably lower than the countries the parent comment mentioned.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#312

Post by randallsquared »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #273
randallsquared wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really don't understand why anyone anywhere in the modern world would want someone to rule over them. Almost everyone wants someone to rule over them, or at least over their neighbors.

Do they? The UK's representational democracy has major problems but it's [supposed to be] about having MPs who work for the people, not having rulers. Do you want someone to rule over you?

If they weren't rulers, you could simply choose not to comply with those rules you found irrelevant or misguided. I note that you felt constrained to add the bracketed bit -- I would submit that that's the fig leaf.

You can argue that the doctor is being helpful when they tell a four-year-old "this won't hurt a bit", but the naked truth is that it's a lie, and the child has no actual choice in the matter. Similarly, you can argue that your MP or state senator has your best interests at heart (and some may!), but that doesn't mean they don't rule you.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#313

Post by Consultant32452 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #307
Consultant32452 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That group of elected officials is still spending your life to enrich themselves at no personal risk. By nature of the monarch owning you and the country, if the country loses the monarch loses.

This doesn't appear to be true at any time in history for a plethora of monarchies. Do you have anything to support your argument save for your well articulated but poorly reasoned thought process?

It's axiomatic of monarchy, not a thought process or reasoned argument. If the monarch owns all the wealth in the country, then if the wealth of the country goes down, the wealth of the monarch goes down. If the laborers die, if the resources are mismanaged, etc. then the monarch's wealth and power diminishes (because the laborer's lives and the resources are the monarch's wealth). A monarch may choose to spend their wealth (including your life) to take over more territory, but they are spending their own wealth to achieve that goal.

This is categorically different from a democracy where the leadership's wealth is separated from the nation's. If the laborers die, the President is not impacted in the least. A President may choose to spend your life and money to take over new territory and increase their power, but they are spending your wealth to do it, not their own. If the resources are mismanaged you are harmed, not the President.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#314

Post by RandomBK »

henrikschroder wrote: post #309
michaelmrose wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the Brits already HAVE a head of state what they don't need in effect is another. There is nothing the queen does that couldn't be done by existing members of government.

No, the prime minister is the head of government , while the monarch is the head of state , those are two different roles. You could merge them, South Africa-style if you wanted, but it's pretty unusual. Most parliamentary systems separate the two.

I don't disagree that a unified head of state+government would be unusual, but most parliamentary systems were also heavily inspired by the Westminster System, so that might not be a great argument one way or another.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#315

Post by stqism »

peruvian wrote: post #224
dTal wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economically, it might. It is commonly asserted that the British monarchy brings in far more money than it drains in the form of tourism. I would be interested to know how well this claim stands up to scrutiny. On the one hand, most of the physical tourist attractions could be maintained without monarchy actually owning or inhabiting them - indeed, the tourism value of Buckingham Palace would perhaps be improved if y…

If the royalty went away and the UK took possession of its lands, castles, and holdings, it could make a killing off tourism to those private or semi-private residences. Other European countries that are no longer monarchies do this just fine.

A lot of this land and property is privately owned by the royal family but leased to the government, I’m not exactly versed in UK law; but a governmental attempt to seize a private citizens land seems like it wouldn’t be the smoothest thing to attempt to pull off.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#316

Post by sytelus »

etrevino wrote: post #13

I used to work as a scholar of Britain (specifically executions in Early Modern England, but you pick up a lot along the way) and I've tried to explain to a lot of people the amount of influence and control that the monarch actually holds. I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing. The Queen can't create legislation, she can restrain it. She is purely a moderating influence in this sense. She could, in theory, name…

I view British monarchy as tyranny prevention mechanism. Democracies are notoriously weak and can collapse at any momemnt by a charasmatic leader. Any long lasting democracies need some serious mechanisms to squash the tyranny. In American version this is achieved by having 3 almost equally powerful branches of governments. In British version, this is achieved by subdued monarchie. It's much like injecting a dead virus in the body. As monarchie already exist in the British system, there cannot be a separate tyrant rising up. At the same time, monarchs themselves cannot become tyrant as they have been heavily subdued to essentially act as dead-man walking. In many ways, this is more ingenious than American system, although more expensive and less intutive. In American system, there is still a good chance that a single party can dominate all 3 branches and tyranny might still emerge. In Briish system, this is near impossible.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#317

Post by Consultant32452 »

xfer wrote: post #277
Consultant32452 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monarchy is superior to democracy in a very important way. When a monarch sends you off to die in war, the monarch is spending their own resources: you. And therefore the monarch's own wealth and power is at stake. In a democracy the president sends you off to die at no cost to themselves and only really strands to gain from the kickbacks.

> And therefore the monarch's own wealth and power is at stake. They have a tolerance of how much resource can be wasted. President's kickback isn't worth anything when the resource wasted can actually cause problem for the nation(Only at this point the monarch will start paying attention). So i am pretty sure they both are similar in this context.

The President is not the nation, and therefore problems for the nation are not problems for the President. It doesn't matter how much resource the President wastes, it doesn't impact their bottom line. This is especially true in democracies with term limits where the Presidential power has a known end, but the President's personal wealth does not.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#318

Post by throwaway_kufu »

Wingman4l7 wrote: post #280
zepto wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t ask how it would work. I asked what the grounds for removal would be?

You need "grounds" to remove a monarch?! What are their grounds for the power they currently wield??

> What are their grounds for the power they currently wield??

In this case...Constitutional.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#319

Post by labster »

scoopertrooper wrote: post #287
jopsen wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled. From a democratic/ideological perspective you might be right. On the other hand, having a royal family it cute -- doesn't that count for something :) I live in Denmark where we also pay the royal family some money, few privileges, etc.. My personal pocket philosophy is that the money we pay the royal family is the cost of a peacef…

Bribing the monarch into being a figurehead is no guarantee either. For instance, the monarchy didn't stop the rise of Mussolini or Franco.

Monarchies tend to want to continue the family business. I’d expect them to learn from the tragedies of the 20th century. As a result of the fascist movements, the Italian monarchy lost the crown and the Spanish lost it but only recovered it because of Franco’s whim. If I were a king, I’d use whatever reserve powers I had to oppose that kind of future for my dynasty.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#320

Post by dane-pgp »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #308
throwaway_kufu wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a common phrase bandied about: “Democracy is the worst form of government, besides all the others.” It’s oddly used as a pro-Merica. To which I normally say the US isn’t a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic. I don’t know why I do that, it only causes people to dig in deeper to their position. Their argument generally boils down to the US has elections and elections = democracy. I can even see hints of…

> To which I normally say the US isn’t a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic. I don’t know why I do that, it only causes people to dig in deeper to their position. Perhaps because this is both pedantic and wrong? A state can be both a democracy and a republic, and many are, such as the United States.

> A state can be both a democracy and a republic, and many are, such as the United States.

Always has been:

"But a representative democracy, where the right of election is well secured and regulated & the exercise of the legislative, executive and judiciary authorities, is vested in select persons, chosen really and not nominally by the people, will in my opinion be most likely to be happy, regular and durable." -- Alexander Hamilton, 1777

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-01-02-01...

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