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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Abolishing the Monarcy.

880 replies

Helendee · 17/02/2021 12:45

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.

OP posts:
rossclare · 17/02/2021 16:13

Not so well that i'd heard of it (and i'm a proud Daily Mail reader so i'm sure i would have read all about it there).

kurtrussellsbeard · 17/02/2021 16:13

Abolish. It normalises the idea that some people are better, more important and more deserving than others purely as a matter of birthright.

unmarkedbythat · 17/02/2021 16:17

@Andante57

I would be delighted to abolish it. The very idea that someone is born to superior status is offensive

Unmarkedbythat would you abolish titles and families who love in stately homes?

I would abolish hereditary titles. I'm not remotely qualified to get into ownership of stately homes and the like.
Gadzookery · 17/02/2021 16:17

keep. We'd need a head of state in any event.

DGRossetti · 17/02/2021 16:22

@Gadzookery

keep. We'd need a head of state in any event.
Doesn't have to be a human though does it ? A nicely polished franking machine could replace our head of state, and nobody would notice as long as it wore a hat.

As we discovered in 2019, the Monarch just does as they are told by the PM of the day and not a jot more - or else.

Anyoneelsewilldo · 17/02/2021 16:24

It’s a far better system than a republic

I disagree. You have no choice over your next monarch. By virtue of being born the next king/queen gets all that wealth and to live in luxury.

I’m in Ireland we have elected some wonderful presidents of late. Mary Robinson, Mary McAleese, Michael D Higgins. They get to live in the big house etc for 7 years then we vote in the next person.

You’re getting William (what has he ever achieved!). George (who knows what he will be like) and that’s it. No choice, no one who inspires you or has achieved anything.

Republic all the way for me!

kurtrussellsbeard · 17/02/2021 16:26

@DGRossetti 🤣🤣🤣

StoneofDestiny · 17/02/2021 16:27

Abolish.
A totally anachronistic institution that has no place in a democracy. An unelected, privileged and pampered extended family who are not in this position due to merit, just by accident of birth.
The very idea that people are expected to bow and scrape to anybody is horrendous.
Their existence perpetuates the myth that somehow tourists wouldn't come to the UK if they didn't exist. Ridiculous. People will always come to visit museums, palaces, beautiful countryside, interesting cities and stunning gardens.
Visitors go to the French and Russian Palaces despite their being no royalty. America has no royalty - doesn't stop tourists. You don't need to have the Romans around to enjoy Bath or York or monarchy to enjoy the castles and scenery of Scotland.
The pampered lifestyles of this extended and ever growing family is an affront to hard working taxpayers. Their existence has no impact other than gossip fodder for newspapers - and look how newspaper circulation has dropped.
We are lectured on environmental issues by one of the most extravagant families in the world, on animal welfare by 'hunters and shooters'. On the importance of family life by a dysfunctional and divided family.

It's pot luck what the heir turns out to be like - it could have so easily been Andrew.

We have an heir to the throne who has enjoyed the longest apprenticeship known to mankind, and his son also serving an apprenticeship for the same job. In reality they are simply unemployed men who have/had unemployed wives yet had no problem owning multiple houses, servants, cars, chauffeurs, nannies, gardeners, dressers, valets, butlers, stylists, cooks etc etc - all this funded by those who work and often struggle to own even 1 home with no extra help.

It's simply not justifiable by any balanced mind.

Lightwindows · 17/02/2021 16:28

I would abolish the monarchy. It doesn't sit comfortably with me that the royals are more important than everyone else purely because of the family they were born into and have access to better health care / education etc . Ideally I would like a society where everyone has an equal opportunity to progress based on their own merits and all have access to good health care and education rather than it being based on the family born into , and to me the first step to that would be to abolish the monarchy. Obviously there are others than benefit from being born into money/aristocratic families/ or just having the comparative advantages of being more middle class so achieving true equality would take a lot more than this and it's not a fully thought through idea. Changes to inheritance tax might be a way to even things up a bit. But to me abolishing the monarchy would be an important step in working towards a more equal society.

DGRossetti · 17/02/2021 16:30

America has no royalty - doesn't stop tourists.

Nor anyone aiming and achieving the role of President - as Barack Obama showed.

When are we due our first BAME monarch ?

Puzzledandpissedoff · 17/02/2021 16:30

The presence of the Royal Family is woven into every part of our constitution and laws

Yes, and that's a major part of the problem - not just because it would be difficult to unpick, but also because they'd use the system for all it was worth to protect their own positions

Actually I used the wrong tense there, since it's what they already do ...

CounsellorTroi · 17/02/2021 16:31

Abolish it. It's an anachronism.

Nohomemadecandles · 17/02/2021 16:32

We do a really good job of voting people in... Hmm

justcannotwithyou · 17/02/2021 16:33

@CoronaIsWatching

Prince Andrew is just what they're all like behind the PR spin

Prince Harry and no loyalty to the monarchy or the country in the end

Prince William having affairs left right and centre, all covered up

Prince Charles and Camilla both vile in their treatment of Diana (what The Crown and see for yourself)

Only one I like is Kate Middleton but she's not even a blood royal

I'm not sure how prince Harry wanting to bugger off with his wife is a problem, especially since the family is so terrible in your own words? Surely he has done the exact thing we would tell him to do if he posted on here of all the things his family has done?
RustyBear · 17/02/2021 16:34

It's a throwback to a feudalistic society we no longer live in
Actually monarchy is much older than the feudal system.

rosy71 · 17/02/2021 16:35

I think the whole Brexit fiasco should have taught us that there should be a viable alternative ready before any decisions are made. It's not so simple as to just abolish the monarchy. What would replace it and how would it work? We still need a head of state.

Anyoneelsewilldo · 17/02/2021 16:35

@StoneofDestiny another good point!! I don’t know how you bow and scrape to the monarchy. They are unintelligent over privileged people who you as a likely hard working person who earned what you have must bow to. I couldn’t do it!

And agreed @DGRossetti at least with a republic there is a chance for a president and representative who isn’t white.

Lifeaintalwaysempty · 17/02/2021 16:36

Definitely abolish the monarchy! Interfering in laws to protect and hide their wealth- wealth that they are not entitled to!

DGRossetti · 17/02/2021 16:40

@RustyBear

It's a throwback to a feudalistic society we no longer live in Actually monarchy is much older than the feudal system.
So is republicanism - in fact it was probably readopting the Monarchy that did for Rome.
rawalpindithelabrador · 17/02/2021 16:40

I'm not sure how prince Harry wanting to bugger off with his wife is a problem

It's more his whingy, bratty, victim mentality hypocrisy that is. Barefoot lectures on the beach about climate change but private jets, more lectures about caring for the environment blah blah blah big 16-bathroom house in a draught-prone area and selling your soul to Netflix and Oprah to keep it running, probably more whining about how hard done he is. We're all drops of rain falling to the ground speeches sounds like he's stoned AF. Then his wife with a straight face in a country where women often die in childbirth, get kidnapped and forced to marry, suffer FGM about how done by she is and surviving not thriving waaa no one asks me if I'm okay. Embarrassing AF.

peak2021 · 17/02/2021 16:41

I'd keep the monarchy, albeit slimmed down and modest. I would take away formal powers such as choice of Prime Minister. A president would cost us taxpayers just as much if not more, and there is no agreement as to the alternative way of choosing a head of state (which is why the Australians still have the Queen).

I also find some appeal in a part of public life which does not have party politics. Imagine President Blair for example. Presidents of the Republic of Ireland seem to have been the exception, those such as President Chirac or Hollande more like the average elected one.

Retrospectdiva · 17/02/2021 16:41

We live in a 2021 modern, Western society and we have a ruler who we have to courtesy to and call Ma'am, Queen and call her offspring Prince/ Princess. They have untold riches and own most of Cornwall.

Surrounding these people are Dukes and Earls and other titles. The inbred aristocracy. We ran out of royals in the 17th Century and had to import them in from The House of Hanover. Read up on 17th Century history and see what devastation they subsequently inflicted on the Irish and Scottish.

As someone said up thread, they prop up the class system. People who emigrate to the UK have very little chance of being accepted when we have a dreadful class system where the indigenous people carve themselves into sections and look down on the ones below them.

When I think of a class system, I think of a 3rd world backward joint, 200 years behind the rest of mankind and here we are in the UK with our very own one.

Get rid of the monarchy and let's put this shit to bed. I can't stand H&M but if it brings about the end of the monarchy, I'll happily get on board their train .

DGRossetti · 17/02/2021 16:44

And agreed @DGRossetti at least with a republic there is a chance for a president and representative who isn’t white.

I really couldn't give a shiny shit about colour, sexuality, or any other irrelevance to the role as head of state. Just that they are chosen - and subject to - the same rules as anyone else.

It's entirely because the current Monarch is unelected that they have fuck all power. Believe you me, we'd scream the second any Monarch actually did anything to affect the running of the country.

So we have this fiction that they scribble on vellum as it they have a say. Of course they fucking don't. Instead we have this vague, shadowy amorphous "government" figure behind the scenes.

DGRossetti · 17/02/2021 16:45

I would take away formal powers such as choice of Prime Minister.

You can't take away what they don't have.

babbaloushka · 17/02/2021 16:48

They can keep one nice palace, the rest can be turned into tourist points or reallocated. I hate Tim Martin but imagine a Buckingham Palace Wetherspoons Wink.