Queen Elizabeth and the U.K.?

Just think - We could have an annual national holiday on "End of monarchy" day!! Or "Royal death day" as it might become known. I am all for an Englishman's right to skive off work. Let's get rid of one member of the royal family per week and declare an annual national holiday in remembrance of each one......

Despite the fact that the Queen does personally inspire a fair amount of public support in the UK the sort of attitude I have outlined isn't all that uncommon.You'd never guess that from our press or from the BBC coverage of royal events.....But there you go.

As a secularist I obviously have some problems with the pseudo-theocracy that is a constitutional monarchy. On the other hand, I like the Queen. Not the title per se, but the person. I can not think of a more appropriate person to fill her position.However, ridding the UK of monarchy is probably the last step of secularisation. Right now, trying to get rid of the Queen is from a practical standpoint impossible - it's a constitutional quagmire of problems I'm lead to believe. I think it's probably best to start with the real intrusion of religion in public policy (mandatory worship at school, bishops with legislative powers, faith schools) and do so soon. For the process of dissolving the monarchy, I'd rather we take that slowly, it may require for us to commit to a written constitution (trying to rejig our present 'constitution' is probably an unworkable proposition). She's the freakin' Queen, that's the rationale I believe the land that the Royal family own and maintain on behalf of the country makes more money than their upkeep costs. Added to what tourist 'dollars' she brings in, and I'm fairly sure she's worth the small cost that was mentioned earlier in the thread. Then again, I'm not certain on that. In a constitutional monarchy, the two are somewhat the same. She signs bills to make them laws, heads up the justice system and imprisons people, appoints prime ministers, ambassadors, other ministers as well I believe; She calls for elections too, I think.Most of this is symbolic of course, she doesn't make any decisions that have not been decided already.She does have the power to dismiss the prime minister, but this would only be exercised if the prime minister loses a 'no confidence' vote and does not resign, and it's never actually been tested in modern times. We had a monarchy before we had an empire, the monarch is not necessarily an Emperor/Empress.I suppose, on the other hand, it should also be noted that she is the head of state of 16 countries.

The monarchy is an amazing throwback in a modern Western democracy, although benign, it still has tendrils into our secular institutions. For example, all judges swear allegiance to the queen and to uphold HER laws. If you get prosecuted it's by the Crown Prosecution Service and the case is you versus the Queen.(This does have the convenience of allowing the judiciary to be independent of government.)Parliament is opened by her and her permission is asked to form a government - ludicrously she is asked if we can go to war using her forces - and so on.It may be strange to those in the ex-colonies, but a lot of the commonwealth still see her as 'a good thing' - although some occasionally attempt a coup.We really need to sweep all this crap away - albeit it with dignity and in a nicely British way.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

And if you get sent to prison in certain circumstances it's not "State Penitentiary" or anything so un-civilised sounding. It's "At Her Majesty's Pleasure". Wiki on - At Her Majesty's Pleasure

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Incarceration: The term is used to describe detainment in prison or a psychiatric hospital for an indefinite length of time; a judge may rule that a person be "detained at Her Majesty's pleasure" for serious offences or based on a successful insanity defence.

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Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix 2nd quote box.

Yes, well, I can't bring myself to get worked up about it. It's benign, as you say. And I rather like the old ways. For example, I like the way that MPs resign by taking the office of the Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds. Apart from anything else, it confuses the fuck out of foreigners ... it would nearly have been worthwhile to keep pre-decimal currency on those grounds, just so one could explain to American tourists how many groats make a florin.I agree that a republic would be more "rational", in the vaguest sense of that word, but then so would eating nothing but health-food, and I don't do that either.

My questions were answered above, should have read thread before commenting.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

Does she have any veto power over bills that are submitted for her signature?If not what happens if as a matter of principle she refuses to sign a bill?

Actually, there was a group of people who got rid of the English monarchy and established a decent constitutional democracy back in the 1770's. Can't think of the country of the top of my head, but a google search should find it for you.Joking aside, as long as the monarchy allows the Parliament to run the country unimpeded there is very little reason to dissolve the monarchy (at least in this american's view). While the monarchy is quaint it still ties modern culture to past traditions. As long as the monarchy understands that its role is to serve its subjects I think the institution will continue to be a healthy one.

Yes. It hasn't happened for 300 years. It would be a crisis that will probably result in the monarchy being stripped of those powers.

On the downside, I believe it ignited a bit of a war...

If I remember rightly, Queen Anne once refused to sign some bill about soldiers' uniforms just to prove that she could, and that's the last time it happened.There was something that came up in ... I forget ... Belgium, or the Netherlands ... the Queen of whichever country it was had some sort of conscientious objection to signing a bill about abortion, so it was seriously proposed that she could abdicate in favor of her son, who would sign it and then abdicate right back in favor of her. I don't know how the situation was eventually resolved.

The monarchy ends.It probably depends on circumstances. It it is a bill that just about every sensible person thinks should be signed, then the monarchy ends. If it is a bill that just about every sensible person thinks should be vetoed, then the monarchy is strengthened.

As long as you can still bowl a maiden over, all is not lost.

From wiki

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The Act of Settlement 1701, passed by the English Parliament, applied in England and Ireland but not Scotland, where a strong minority wished to preserve the Stuart dynasty and its right of inheritance to the throne.[92] In 1703, the Estates of Scotland responded to the Settlement by passing the Act of Security, which gave the Estates the power, if the Queen had no further children, to choose the next Scottish monarch from among the descendants of the royal line of Scotland.[93] The individual chosen by the Estates could not be the same person who came to the English throne, unless England granted full freedom of trade to Scottish merchants.[94] At first, Anne withheld royal assent to the act, but granted it the following year when the Estates threatened to withdraw Scottish support for England's wars

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again, from wiki

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In 1990, when a law submitted by Roger Lallemand and Lucienne Herman-Michielsens, liberalising Belgium's abortion laws, was approved by Parliament, he refused to give Royal Assent to the bill. This was unprecedented; although Baudoin was nominally Belgium's chief executive, Royal Assent has long been a formality (as is the case in most constitutional and popular monarchies). However, due to his religious convictions, Baudouin asked the Government to declare him temporarily unable to reign so that he could avoid signing the measure into law.[4] The Government under Wilfried Martens complied with his request on 4 April 1990. According to the provisions of the Belgian Constitution, in the event the King is temporarily unable to reign, the Government as a whole fulfills the role of Head of State. All members of the Government signed the bill, and the next day (5 April 1990) the Government declared that Baudouin was capable of reigning again.

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