Abolishing the Monarcy.

[Helendee]

Good or bad idea and reasons for your opinion?
I don’t feel strongly either way but I am curious about what aspects of becoming a Republic are more beneficial than the UK’s stable current system.

@PlanDeRaccordement

I’d keep it if I were British. There isn’t really anything else to attract tourists. And they do work as goodwill and charity ambassadors more than far richer types like Richard Branson who is busy spending his money on making luxury space ships instead of doing any charity work. As far as being wealthy they’re not even in the top 100 rich people of the world, they’re not that rich. From what I read most of the money they get from Crown estates is to preserve the historical buildings and antiques- pieces of history. Think of them as living pieces of history. A palace is much more interesting if a queen lives there than as a ruin or converted to offices.

There's nothing else in the UK to attract tourists ???? What ????

I'm not keen on these Status Quo vs Nobody Knows scenarios.

Totally agree with this

StoneofDestiny I did spend quite a while trying to work out who Richard Raisin is

They may give patronage but others do the actual work

Quite - and yet people still say "look what (insert royal) does for (insert charity)"

In fairness, few would expect a 94 year old Queen to put in an 8 hour day, and in the case of Charles's meddling many probably wish he wouldn't, but let's not pretend most do a lot beyond a few speeches, handing out the gongs and turning up occasionally so they can be seen "doing something"

And even that can end up costing some charities more than they can hope to make through their royal patronage

Get rid. And give them a house and a pension and all the castles, artwork, jewellery and so on to be put into museums so we can all have a gawp at it all. For free.

Abolish. I used to be v pro but Prince Andrew’s vile behaviour and the Queen’s quasi enabling of it all by turning a blind eye for so long has left me cold.

It would save us all a lot of money.

@strawberriesatmypicnic

It would save us all a lot of money.

It would save us £1.24 a year each. That’s not even the price of a coffee.

Yes we need a Republic. Once the Queen is gone then we really honestly have to ask ourselves whether we really want to keep the Monarchy. I certainly don't. The ridiculous inflammatory antics of certain members of that family have called the purpose and function of the entire institution into question. I think they are a ridiculously overprivileged spoiled family who exist only really as a figurehead but don't actually do anything that benefits the average person.

I would be more than happy to democratically elect a head of state who we can hold accountable and remove if necessary. If a democratically elected head of state or their family behaved the same way that the Royal family has done over the years we would have been able to boot them out of office but we've been forced to put up with behaviour from them that is not decent or acceptable.

I wholeheartedly object to the British taxpayer being treated as a bottomless piggy bank for funding their lavish lifestyles and their protection and their other abuses of public funding. I object to having to put up with the endless string of scandals and infidelity that surrounds this family. I object to our prospective next monarch being a spoiled remorseless philanderer who married his mistress and is so far out of touch with normal people it makes him an object of contempt.

I object to a blind eye being turned to a member of that family who was clearly involved with a disgraced child abuser to a very uncomfortable degree and nothing has been done to hold him to account. I think it's a disgrace that members of that family are allowed to get away with their hypocritical bleating and endless self promotion and commercial exploitation of their connections for profit. I am disgusted by their obvious involvement with nasty tell all books and smug virtue signalling interviews. I'm just sick of the whole lot of them. Don't even get me started on their dodgy "non profit" or the very creative tax arrangements that seem to benefit them all.

It would save us £1.24 a year each

First off that is a very conservative estimate. Second, £1.24 x 65 million people or so could pay for a hell of a lot of nurses or teachers.

@TrufflyPig

I'd like to see their constitutional role removed and the constitution modernised and properly formalised instead.

This too, if we can't abolish them we can at the bare minimum make their role purely symbolic. The Queen and Prince Charles have both meddled in politics to suit their own needs.

This.

@KeflavikAirport

"It would save us £1.24 a year each

First off that is a very conservative estimate. Second, £1.24 x 65 million people or so could pay for a hell of a lot of nurses or teachers."

These figures maybe true.

To compare stats - the French Presidency costs France £91.million pa that's £1.43 per person and the Italian Presidency costs £181.5 million pa = £3.08. pp.

So, even if we abolish the monarchy we would have to pay for something else, so financially there is no monetary gain.

However, there's a hidden advantage to having a monarchy

The birth of Prince George, a new future heir to the throne, back in 2013 was a cause for great national celebration.
It was also a cause for great economic celebration as the birth of the Prince caused an extra £247m to be injected into the economy from everything from royal baby themed merchandise to extra consumption of food and alcohol to celebrate the occasion.

Now, assuming that President Macron of France isn’t suddenly thrust into the spotlight of fame by producing a child that captures the public’s imagination, it’s fairly reasonable to assume there’s virtually no economic benefit to having a presidency.

People don’t understand how the money works, we’d be poorer without the monarchy, the royal duchy is worth billions, it all goes to the state (it’s effectively an 80% tax). The royal family then get some of their money to keep themselves going - roughly 20% of it, which is an enormous figure.

If we abolished the monarchy, all the property would be sold off abs the wealth from it only taxed at ‘normal levels’ so we’d only get 29-40% of the money.

We honestly get a great deal from them!

I wish people would stop using the term tax payer and saving us money.
Half the people in this country don't even pay bloody tax, a large percentage are claiming bloody benefits and a significant majority as seen by the vaccine plan are classed as vulnerable costing more than they contribute.

And yet they moan about the queen.

Depends who you ask. Republic puts the annual cost at close to £350 million once all the hidden costs are taken into account. And other presidential models are far cheaper.

That is kind of ironic given that the RF are the ultimate parasites.

It would save us £1.24 a year each

Well then, give me my £1.24. You could buy the ingredients for a meal with that, shopping judiciously. Better £1.24 should buy some veg at the supermarket for a struggling family, than be put towards yet another designer frock for Kate or a new Landrover for Charles to transport his deer carcasses in.

But if we didn't have the royals who would do important things like cutting ribbons at the opening of a new garden centre?

We tried to be a republic once ... it didn't last that long and we asked the son of the king we killed to come back.

We'd need to do it better than we did then.

Absolutely get rid.

@Twizbe

We tried to be a republic once ... it didn't last that long and we asked the son of the king we killed to come back.

We'd need to do it better than we did then.

To be fair, that was quite a while ago.

@KeflavikAirport

Have the earning from 'Royal tourism' been factored in?

VisitBritain reckons that tourism linked to royal residences such as Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle adds up to 2.7 million visitors a year.

And a consultancy called Brand Finance estimated in 2017 that the monarchy’s annual contribution to the UK economy to be around £1.8bn a year, drawing in an additional £550m of tourism revenues a year, and an increase in trade, from the Royal Family acting as ambassadors, supposedly worth £150m a year.

Surely this would be another Brexit- something ideological that we don’t really need to do that will cause a massive rift and cost time and money.

Thanks but no thanks.

the birth of the Prince caused an extra £247m to be injected into the economy from everything from royal baby themed merchandise to extra consumption of food and alcohol to celebrate the occasion

And that's a good thing??

Tourism linked to royal residences? You mean like Versailles? Don’t you think there’s a tiny chance that it might actually go up if we could go inside and see all of it properly? All those paintings and so on that belong to the nation but that we never get to see?

Surely the shit show that has been brexit has shown some of you that just saying abolish with no alternative in place would be a disaster. Sometimes keeping the status quo is better.

Also I think Americans call their president Sir & First Lady Ma’am? What’s the difference (if I’m right)