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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

#511

Post by woofie11 »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #403
woofie11 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the right step then, might be to stage an insurrection, depose the queen, and take the throne, eh? I'm looking at you, readers from Ireland and France. :) Have at it.

Ireland didn't get rid of the monarchy violently, it happened as a result of the Republic of Ireland Act, 1949.

Historically, Ireland and France were England's sworn, mortal enemies (Scotland for a while too, but that's faded). Regardless of current forms of government, they have the best candidates to take the British throne by force.

A French or Irish monarch might also help bring UK back into the EU :)

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

#512

Post by MockObject »

girvo wrote: post #488
Nullabillity wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you let a thief keep the stuff they stole?

Historically, it seems to depend on how long ago they stole it.

Logically too, when the crime victims may have died centuries or even millennia ago.

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

#513

Post by MockObject »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #412
yccs27 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I don‘t buy your last argument. You could argue the opposite: When a person desires change, they either want it for their personal gain, or have seen the shortcomings of the current system and want change to get rid of them. Yet no system is perfect, and most changes have some tradeoff. When a person desires that matters stay the same, they are either profiting from the current state, or believe that the curre…

> When a person desires change, they either want it for their personal gain, or have seen the shortcomings of the current system and want change to get rid of them. The difference is that a man can rarely convince the others of a chance that is not in the interest of the many, but only in his own. If there be legitimately flaws in the system that he wishes to address, it will be far easier to convince the collective…

> The difference is that a man can rarely convince the others of a chance that is not in the interest of the many, but only in his own.

So political propaganda rarely works? Every political action is sold as beneficial to the many, but how many of them actually are? I feel like political dynamics are rather a bit less straightforward than you're portraying.

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

#514

Post by jsmith45 »

retrac wrote: post #43
jsmith45 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (As an aside, "What would happen if the British Parliament did repeal the British North America Act 1867 or Canada Act 1982?" is a rather fun hypothetical from the Canadian side.) The Queen would likely (rightly) refuse Royal Assent if parliament tried that, given that as she is also Queen of Canada, she could never legitimately allow the UK Parliament to do that. And if so some reason she did not, it would have no…

Yes. It's just a silly thought experiment, of course. I mentioned it, if anything, to highlight how, what the law says on paper, may not be the real law. Canada would, of course, simply ignore any such act. Even if there were a strong legal argument made in our own courts that it somehow abolished our sovereignty, we'd all agree to simply pretend otherwise.

Right. The difficult thing is determining the difference between the written law, the actual law, and mere custom.

For example, the custom is that the Queen will appoint whoever she believes to be most likely to hold the confidence of parliament as the prime minister. Obviously the best candidate is usually the leader of the majority party or a collation that has a majority.

De Jure, however, she may appoint anyone (besides herself?) at any time for any reason. She would be stupid to do anything other than what is customary, but if she did, I am pretty certain the consensus would be that doing was was legal if unwise. After all, this has already happened in a form by way of the Governor General in Australia infamously dismissing the prime minister to enable Supply to be passed, and new elections held, which clearly violates the custom.

The selecting prime minister case is also interesting as it is one of the few where the custom is not based on the advice of Her Majesty's Government because of the obvious conflict of interest there.

On the other hand, while all Royal Prerogatives are de jure the Queen's, many of them arguably can only be exercised by the State/Government, which is clearly a distinct entity from the Queen, despite the laws constantly identifying the two as one and the same (the laws identify both the hereditary office of the Monarchy and the executive organ of the state as the Crown, despite those obviously being distinct things in reality). For example, If the Queen tried to seize control of the Armed Forces away from her Government/MoD, this might be deemed unlawful despite control of the the armed forces being a reserve power, and her being the nominal commander in chief.

One of the nice things about a good written constitution is that it helps to differentiate what is merely custom vs what is the actual law. Of course, the actual law and the written law can still differ, but it does help to avoid assuming what is merely a custom is the de jure law.

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

#515

Post by jiofih »

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #425
jiofih wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it does - the experience of visiting Versailles, a sort of preserved museum that exist solely for tourism, is entirely different from visiting an actual royal palace. Despite the historical significance it was one of the least memorable places I’ve been to in France.

I think you've just proved the comment you are replying to correct though. You were still interested enough to visit knowing that it exists solely for tourism in advance, and presumably only came to your conclusion afterwards. These are not the sorts of places that people typically visit on overseas holidays more than once. So once the ticket has been bought, whether or not it is "an actual royal palace" is irrelevan…

I did not write this as a defense of keeping the monarchy around just for the curiosity value, or from the raking-in-cash angle, just highlighting that the experience is quite different for visitors.

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

#516

Post by zajio1am »

crumbshot wrote: post #295
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stripping them of their wealth and exiling them would be debasing the rule of law in your country.

As I understand it, it is quite possible to do this within the rule of law. To avoid the monarch refusing to enact this, it would need to be done in two stages: 1. A new Royal Assent Act, that makes assent automatic upon a bill passing both Houses. Assuming this in itself receives assent, it would remove the monarch's power to veto or refuse a bill (a power that hasn't been used for over 300 years anyway). 2. A Repub…

Abolishing monarchy is OK, but stripping monarch their personal wealth and exiles them would be contrary to UK commitment to human rights.

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

#517

Post by zepto »

ed_balls wrote: post #476
ed_balls wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of desperation to stop the new variants UK decided to vaccinate people with a single dose only.

Anyone care to explain the downvotes?

I’m guessing it’s because it’s unclear how your comment is relevant to the thread.

(I didn’t downvote you)

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

#518

Post by ric2b »

dTal wrote: post #175
lotsofpulp wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, having a royal family it cute -- doesn't that count for something :) Emphatic no from me on that one.

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…

> It is commonly asserted that the British monarchy brings in far more money than it drains in the form of tourism.

Ok, but how is that related to the political power of the monarchy?

I don't think tourists even know what powers the Queen actually holds.

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

#519

Post by ric2b »

jopsen wrote: post #149
crumbshot wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. She used her powers to get an exemption from transparency laws with regards to her personal wealth: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-que... , and Charles did the same to ban his tenants from purchasing freeholds: https://www.theguardian.com…

> 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…

> My personal pocket philosophy is that the money we pay the royal family is the cost of a peaceful transformation to democracy.

The transition is done, if you stopped now there would be no revolution to keep the monarchy.

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

#520

Post by Closi »

knorker wrote: post #502
Closi wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, I forgot an absolute monarchy is exactly the same as a parliamentary democracy operating within a constitutional monarchy. I also forgot that if you think Queen Elizabeth II could be considered a tourist attraction in England you also have to think that public hangings are great and that Salman of Saudi Arabia is also a total babe. What a silly comparison.

It's a difference in degree, not kind. Royalty in Europe has abused their power. It's inherited corrupt power, that time and time again has shown that given this power they abuse it. Is it the same? No. Just like how Anders Brevik is not as bad as Hitler. But yeah, Anders Brevik's crimes are "cute". Defending corruption and crimes because "at least it's not Saudi Arabia" is what's truly silly.

It’s a difference in structure and power balance.

The implication that if you think the queen has touristic value you must also think that Andres Breviks crimes were great is just a silly false equivalency.

It’s possible to think that the queen has touristic value, could be considered cute, and probably needs to be further seperated from power, but I suspect that’s too much nuance considering we have already hit Godwin’s Law.

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