Live data from Hacker News

The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

theguardian.com

61–70 of 599 posts

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

#61
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what the article is about.

I'm reacting to the central conceit of the piece, that this process of royal consent is somehow undemocratic. This is the system of government that the people of Britain have chosen, and the impact of the queen is exclusively a political problem. If there was a serious difference between the will of Parliament (Commons) and the Queen, the result is a foregone conclusion.

> the system of government that the people of Britain have chosen

As a "person of Britain", I have certainly never had any say in the system of government.

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

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, does that mean that the Queen has implicitly agreed to a lot of controversial legislation (e.g. Internal Market Bill, and Brexit more generally), or the process of the proroguing parliament last year? It seems she might be a lot more conservative (lowercase) than many might like to think.

The Queen’s job is to be above the fray of any particular moment’s politics and politicians. She represents the abstract institution of state, regardless of who is calling the shots today. In the same way that Americans can be loyal to America even if they hate the President... the British people have a specific human being to which they can feel the same loyalty.

> the British people have a specific human being to which they can feel the same loyalty

In particular so do the British Armed Forces, who swear allegiance to the Crown [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Armed_Forces#Command_o...

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

#63

Isn't Britain a Constitutional *Monarchy*? Did they forget that? There's still the House of Lords and the House of Commons for a reason. The monarchy and the landowners are still a thing and are still a ruling class.

It seems like there are two groups of lords, one group has been heavily shown in the media(think Downton Abby or the aristocratic family having to sell or have tours of their estate). The other set of lords is not really shown in media and they are large landowners in London and other cities in Britain and are extremely wealthy and powerful, see the Grosvenor family - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Grosvenor,_7th…

Not really. You don’t have to be a landowner or an aristocrat to become a lord. The ‘Downtown Abbey’ style lords, called ‘hereditary peers’ are on their way out, there’s not many left. Most peers are appointed by the government of the day supposedly as a result of doing something useful for the country as a whole. I think that certain members of the clergy become peers by default, likewise top judges, ‘The Law Lords’? Otherwise the majority of appointed peers, who are given the title of “Lord” or “Baroness” when they are appointed, are politicians that have been promoted out of the way of the young crew coming up, retired senior lawyers, judges, business people, doctors that sort of thing. Once appointed you are a Lord for the rest of your life.

So the House of Lords is democratic in the sense that lords are appointed by elected politicians, but its less democratic than say the European Commission, where commissioners are also appointed by elected governments but have a fixed term of office. Which is less democratic than the Houses of Parliament, which is less democratic than a proportionally elected government like the Germans have and so on, but I digress.

Basically its a continuation of the idea that the British state has had the ability to create Lords for thousands of years, but now they don’t pass the title on to their children and they dont get given a bit of land to build a castle on. I think there are probably a few hereditary peers that are actually just the great great grandchildren of very successful Victorian businessman, just because they have the title ‘Lord’ does not necessarily of aristocratic lineage dating back to William the Conquerer.

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

#64
post #14

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…

Yes, this is very true. The Crown plays a useful and vital role in the Westminster system. (I'm in Canada.) It can't just be tossed without something to replace it. But I'm not sure the monarchy offers anything not provided by a nonpartisan and mostly ceremonial presidency, similar to Ireland or Germany.

> It can't just be tossed without something to replace it.

Why not? I admit I'm more familiar with the Belgian situation than the British Crown, but to me it always seems not very difficult to replace the monarch with almost nothing. I don't see why we need any kind of president, even though that's what people always talk when there's talk of doing away with the monarchy. The real leader of the country is the prime minister anyway.

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

#65
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what the article is about.

I'm reacting to the central conceit of the piece, that this process of royal consent is somehow undemocratic. This is the system of government that the people of Britain have chosen, and the impact of the queen is exclusively a political problem. If there was a serious difference between the will of Parliament (Commons) and the Queen, the result is a foregone conclusion.

How so? According to the article the Queen can simply veto any law that would restrict her power to veto.

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

#66
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property owned by the Crown is not the property of Elizabeth, as a person. If QE II were to abdicate, for example, she would not get to keep all of it. It's the property of the Crown, the office of the head of state. It belongs to the state, in practice. If she's advised to abdicate, she would, and she's advised to transfer all Crown property to a republic, she would. The royal family does have many billions in perso…

Do they actually though? If they do, how come Edward VIII had to go begging after his abdication?

AIUI he was effectively disowned by the rest of them, for placing his marriage above the stability of the institution. It could well have led to a British republic. And the next king did pay him an allowance anyway, apparently.

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

#67
post #54

How does one even become a monarch? They weren't always hereditary, and it would be interesting to see what they were based on. Seems like you need some kind of divine recognition, as otherwise you're just a dictator.

The straightforward answer is that you are born the heir of someone who is already the monarch. A better answer for the UK in line with your point about religious recognition is that you are anointed monarch. There is a coronation ceremony where the heir is anointed with holy oil (chrism) by the Archbishop of Canterbury. After that, they stop being an ordinary person and become monarch. You can see part of the corona…

Actually, not true. What you're referring to is known as primogeniture succession, but there were also elective monarchies and tanistry, and probably more that I don't know about. Sometimes succession was limited to the immediate family, sometimes a 'bloodline', sometimes any eligible nobles.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_succession

For example that article mentions the Kingdom of Italy was briefly had this as the succession law:

The Kingdom of Italy was designated a secundogeniture for the second surviving son of Napoleon I Bonaparte but, failing such, provided for the emperor's stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais, to succeed, even though the latter had no blood relationship to the House of Bonaparte

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

#69
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The straightforward answer is that you are born the heir of someone who is already the monarch. A better answer for the UK in line with your point about religious recognition is that you are anointed monarch. There is a coronation ceremony where the heir is anointed with holy oil (chrism) by the Archbishop of Canterbury. After that, they stop being an ordinary person and become monarch. You can see part of the corona…

Actually, not true. What you're referring to is known as primogeniture succession, but there were also elective monarchies and tanistry, and probably more that I don't know about. Sometimes succession was limited to the immediate family, sometimes a 'bloodline', sometimes any eligible nobles. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_succession For example that article mentions the Kingdom of Italy was briefly had thi…

> Actually, not true.

Actually, it is true but not exhaustive. Nor was it intended to be. I was addressing the context of monarchy in the UK, as the rest of the comment makes clear.

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

#70
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article? Apparently what is widely assumed to be a pro forma aspect of the legislative process has, in fact, been used to make substantive changes to legislature before it's even presented to parliament and this is done in a manner outside of public view.

On the other hand, is this process really that different than the usual process of legislation being crafted in private by people who aren't the Queen before it's presented? It is worrying that the Queen can just say no before legislation gets off the ground, but that's true of many of the more powerful MPs, too. I'm in the US, so I'm not exactly familiar with the process on your side of the pond, but over here, we h…

>It is worrying that the Queen can just say no before legislation gets off the ground

The commonly-held belief in the UK is that the Queen gets to do this exactly one time before she is abolished completely, on the assumption that millions of people would riot if she used her power in such a direct fashion without a truly extreme reason (like a nuke blowing up Westminster or something).

Post reply on HN