"The monarchy perpetuates the class system and undermines the proper recognition of merit.
There is not much wrong with Britain that isn’t the fault, one way or another, of the class system. At the apex of the system is our hereditary royal family.
The Royal Family buttress their position with unearned symbols of achievement. They accept posts as Chancellors of universities, debasing the currency of academic merit. They appoint themselves to top military ranks and medals that they have not earned,belittling the work of true military professionals and the memory of those whomade genuine sacrifices. They allow themselves to be nominated as patrons of charities, degrading the efforts of those who make genuine contributions.The monarchy undermines our reputation abroad and is bad for business (even tourism).
The antics of our royal family certainly evoke an amused interest among foreigners. The Royal Family doesn't convey the brand that our high-tech exporters want to project. If we want young people from around the world to come to our universities, or international investors to put their money into our businesses, we need to offer more than a quaint history. It is sometimes argued that royalty is good for tourism: but France has been a republic for over 130 years and attracts three times as many foreign tourists as Britain. The Palace of Versailles, which is the biggest tourist attraction in Europe, has more visitors than Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace combined, in part because it is fully open to the public, all year round. The British nation’s royal art collectionsand memorabilia, currently hidden from us by the monarchy, could behoused in galleries that would be a huge boost to tourism, both from within the UK and from abroad.
The monarchy makes it impossible to separate Church and State
One reason why we still have an established church in England, which discriminates in favour of one religion above all others, is the difficulty of disconnecting the two while the Queen is Head of both Church and State. This is a piece of religious discrimination which is a dangerous anachronism in a multi-cultural, mainly secular society."