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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

#381

Post by dagw »

djrobstep wrote: post #260
diegoholiveira wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone want someone to rule over them, except, perhaps, the libertarians. Any bureaucrat of any government have more power in your life than you think. And over time, we're giving them more and more power to regulate our lifes. (I'm not even talking about politicians here, they're more powerful than any absolutist king of the history).

Libertarians in fact love being ruled over most of all - they just call the rulers "property owners".

Nah, Libertarians all assume that they will be doing the ruling.

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

#382

Post by ed_balls »

zepto wrote: post #229
pasabagi wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps the idea that convention and precedent is the only thing holding the British system together makes it stronger. Coronavirus has been a pretty good litmus test for which countries have good governments, and which countries do not. The UK has consistently led the charts in terms of deaths and infections. I think it shows the fundamental defectiveness of the system itself - a defectiveness that has been pretty…

> Coronavirus has been a pretty good litmus test for which countries have good governments, and which countries do not. The UK has consistently led the charts in terms of deaths and infections. This is a rather silly metric. The UK is also one of the leaders when it comes to the vaccine rollout, far outstripping any European country, several of which could easily end up behind the UK in overall stats before this is o…

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

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

#383

Post by 7steps2much »

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??

You definitely need grounds to exile them / strip their wealth.

Taking away their political powers / their status as royals is one thing, but exiling someone is punishment. You can't just hand out punishment for no good reason.

If they commited crimes that were illegal at the time they were commited they should stand trial for that, but I very much doubt any of those are serious enough to warrant exile.

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

#384

Post by 7steps2much »

crumbshot wrote: post #240
zepto wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled. On what grounds exactly?

It's a model of monarchical disposal that has been successfully used by Germany, Greece and Romania. Letting them stay and keep all their vast wealth would risk allowing them continued influence. Also, the birth of the United Republic should involve a peaceful transfer of power, so doing this in the French style is completely out of the question.

It is important to note that these "monarchial disposals" as you call them were used to get rid of monarchs that abused their powers, led their nation into wars, commited horrendus crimes, etc.

While you can take away their powers pretty easily via a law everything else, such as striping their wealth, would be punishment that needs to be justified. The Queen hasn't started any wars or genocides as far as I am aware, so how would you justify this punishment?

Her being a royal is completely legal after all!

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

#385

Post by kenneth »

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…

Stripping the Monarchy of their lands goes quite a bit further than just abolishing the monarchy. Removing the right to rule a county is one thing. Stripping a wealthy family from all their holdings seems to go a bit too far by any measure in a civilized society that values the concept of personal property.

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

#386

Post by ampdepolymerase »

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…

You cannot divorce Syria's situation from regional geopolitics. Simplifying it to not bribing Assad enough is a complete fantasy. Ultimately most of the problems stem from the hard realpolitik fact that the Syrian state have little military power to wield against significant adversaries. Their newfound alliance with Russia may be useful against rebels and terrorists and negating the meddling of the French and US, but it gets problematic when it comes to defending against Russian interests like Turkey and Israel. Syria is being carved up right now and no amount of bribing would help. Take a look at Kashmir if you want a better example of how to properly put down a protest.

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

#387

Post by vinay427 »

pkd wrote: post #174
markdown wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled. What about billionaires? You know, millionaires don't need all their money either. How about we take all their money and exile millionaires, billionaires, and the monarchy?

Yes, all kinds of heritable wealth are problematic. But when it comes with heritable political power, doubly so.

Considering the loose political funding and lobbying regulations in the US (etc.), both de jure and certainly de facto, the wealthy seem to purchase political power on key issues that benefit them. This isn't the same as the power in a constitutional monarch, but in aggregate it may actually be worse than one.

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

#388

Post by kenneth »

oblio wrote: post #356
jonp888 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if after an election there are two different coalitions who both claim to be the best chance at a stable government, who makes the choice to go with one of them, or to call fresh elections? Under the Westminster system of government, I cannot see any alternative to having a seperate head of state that is not part of the government, even if they do nothing more than wake up every 5 years, appoint a prime minister a…

> So if after an election there are two different coalitions who both claim to be the best chance at a stable government, who makes the choice to go with one of them, or to call fresh elections? We, here in the rest of the world, use a magic number to determine that. 51% (or 50% + 1).

Belgium does a great job of proving that that doesn't quite always work.

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

#389

Post by Reason077 »

crumbshot wrote: post #91
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'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.”

Should this be extended to all families with significant hereditary wealth? Or just the royal family directly?

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

#390

Post by jiofih »

crumbshot wrote: post #91
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'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…

I don’t understand the drama. Selling the royal estate kind of defeats its purpose.

The people who bought a lease knew exactly what they were paying for, it’s not something you buy to “leave for your children”...

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