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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Goodbye Monarchy, as is

458 replies

Poopoolittlerabbit · 14/11/2022 00:00

that’s it really. I’m not fussed about the ‘king’ -
happy to downgrade the entire system.
the jewels, the palaces, the changing of the guard belong to the country, and/or people … if Charles buggers off we keep all the tourist attractions, and all that people say makes the royal family worth while ££
now the Queen has gone, the ‘firm’ needs to go
done with them. AIBU?

OP posts:
vera99 · 25/11/2022 11:30

derxa · 25/11/2022 11:22

I don't want you as President

Firstly I'm not standing for a role that doesn't exist and that would be your democratic right. But I have no equivalence for "your" monarch who is my Head of State.

“What power have you got?”
“Where did you get it from?”
“In whose interests do you use it?”
“To whom are you accountable?”
“How do we get rid of you?”

Tony Benn - 5 principles of democracy...

Popgoestheweaselagain · 25/11/2022 11:35

vera99 · 25/11/2022 11:30

Firstly I'm not standing for a role that doesn't exist and that would be your democratic right. But I have no equivalence for "your" monarch who is my Head of State.

“What power have you got?”
“Where did you get it from?”
“In whose interests do you use it?”
“To whom are you accountable?”
“How do we get rid of you?”

Tony Benn - 5 principles of democracy...

You're so committed to democracy, and yet you have a lot of hatred for people who voted to leave an EU system that they disliked - mainly because they felt there wasn't enough accountability.

Blossomtoes · 25/11/2022 11:43

I’d have a lot more sympathy with anti monarchists who base their argument on lack of democracy if they were half as concerned about its lack in the electoral system. Less than half the electorate voted for the landslide winning government in 2019. Just 37% of the electorate voted to leave in 2016. Forgive me for not having much faith in democracy when it’s currently working so badly.

vera99 · 25/11/2022 11:53

Popgoestheweaselagain · 25/11/2022 11:35

You're so committed to democracy, and yet you have a lot of hatred for people who voted to leave an EU system that they disliked - mainly because they felt there wasn't enough accountability.

I don't hate ordinary leave voters just the charlatans, schemers and liars that brought this about. Contempt for the conman and compassion for the conned. Farage, Johnson, Gove and all the rest of those 2nd raters don't give a monkey's cuss for most of the folk who voted the leave indeed they probably privately hold you in contempt.

Popgoestheweaselagain · 25/11/2022 12:09

vera99 · 25/11/2022 11:53

I don't hate ordinary leave voters just the charlatans, schemers and liars that brought this about. Contempt for the conman and compassion for the conned. Farage, Johnson, Gove and all the rest of those 2nd raters don't give a monkey's cuss for most of the folk who voted the leave indeed they probably privately hold you in contempt.

"I was a citizen of Europe with freedom of movement and was able to live, retire and work all over the continent. That was taken away from me by insular, narrow-minded "British' patriots that probably have pictures of the RF on the wall and talked endlessly of British exceptionalism and WW2."

But you don't hate them, right?

greenhousegal · 25/11/2022 12:27

To me it's all about the frocks, the jewels, and the tiaras.

If the RF comprised an all male cohort in grey suits, no one would have any interest.

So shallow isn't it, because the RF do damn all else that couldn't be done by the serfs outside the gates of the castle.

Henuinequest · 25/11/2022 12:30

‘What power have you got?”
“Where did you get it from?”
“In whose interests do you use it?”
“To whom are you accountable?”
“How do we get rid of you?”

Yup - and the Monarchy fails any democracy test on all accounts…
in fact the monarchy and Putin seem to have a lot in common

DownNative · 25/11/2022 12:37

vera99 · 25/11/2022 08:21

I was a citizen of Europe with freedom of movement and was able to live, retire and work all over the continent. That was taken away from me by insular, narrow-minded "British' patriots that probably have pictures of the RF on the wall and talked endlessly of British exceptionalism and WW2. I've had enough of this backwards-looking, flag-waving dinosaur mentality. I hope to see the end of the British Royal family as head of state before I die and the birth of a new forward-looking Republic proud to be at the heart of a peaceful Europe.

The World Cup clearly shows how popular flag waving is globally, so it seems bizarre to attempt to use that as a stick to beat the British people with....🤷‍♂️

DownNative · 25/11/2022 12:40

Henuinequest · 25/11/2022 12:30

‘What power have you got?”
“Where did you get it from?”
“In whose interests do you use it?”
“To whom are you accountable?”
“How do we get rid of you?”

Yup - and the Monarchy fails any democracy test on all accounts…
in fact the monarchy and Putin seem to have a lot in common

You say that, but you've not bothered to elaborate on this with supporting evidence. The answer to the fourth and fifth questions, for example, is the Westminster Parliament if you know your history. 🤷‍♂️

lfYouLikePInaColadas · 25/11/2022 12:56

DownNative · 25/11/2022 12:37

The World Cup clearly shows how popular flag waving is globally, so it seems bizarre to attempt to use that as a stick to beat the British people with....🤷‍♂️

Those gosh-waving twits are a tiny minority of each country.

Blossomtoes · 25/11/2022 13:04

Who gives a shit about flag waving? I notice there’s little willingness to address the democratic deficit in the process which is actually supposed to be democratic. All the power in this country has been voted for by a minority.

DownNative · 25/11/2022 13:26

lfYouLikePInaColadas · 25/11/2022 12:56

Those gosh-waving twits are a tiny minority of each country.

The World Cup is just one example amongst others that shows the popularity of flag waving globally.

We see it in the political scene too. Gibraltar Day? Polish Independence Day? US Independence Day? And many more.

Right now, millions around the world have flags out for the World Cup in their own countries.

You don't have to like it, but don't underestimate the collective power of flag waving.

And you missed my point which was it seems bizarre to attempt to use that as a stick to beat the British people with....🤷‍♂️

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 25/11/2022 14:20

Popgoestheweaselagain · 25/11/2022 11:35

You're so committed to democracy, and yet you have a lot of hatred for people who voted to leave an EU system that they disliked - mainly because they felt there wasn't enough accountability.

If so, they've been sold a pup.

What they've actually done is removed the checks and balances preventing our more draconian governments (I have the Blair lot particularly in mind here) from pretty much doing precisely as they please and removing edicts which were actually in this country's benefit. Take, for example, Norway. There are plenty of Norwegians who see the only discernible benefit of non-EU membership as having to pay through the nose for privileges member states get for free.

During the Blair days the words 'civil liberties' and 'surveillance state' were bandied around quite a lot. Fast-forward to 2022, and you're seeing women being arrested for uttering the phrase 'adult human female', and their names being entered on a police shit-list, having not committed any crime whatsoever, because someone's seen fit to report them for hate speech.

This isn't context to be taken lightly.

@vera99, I'm with you. And in response to the comment that antediluvian attitudes will prevail without the monarchy, sure they will. But a large, prominent and very visible symbol of the inequalities which pervade this nation would be gone. It sends the right message.

There is so much wrong with our so-called 'constitution' - if it can truly be said to exist in the first place, and enough historians have questioned that particular issue - that there are questions as to whether it's fit for 21st-century purpose. Those fossils in the House of Lords need to go, arguably before the Windsors. The system of a president serving two terms only has merit: both Thatcher and Blair are proof enough that the more longevity a PM has, the more despotic they become.

Yes, we need a fit-for-purpose system to replace what we have; no, it's not something to be done lightly, and it needs considerable time, thought and discussion to embed it. It wasn't as though that discussion wasn't already taking place during Elizabeth II's lifetime, but her death seems the right time to revist it.

I give it a decade before we're hammering the EU's door down clamouring for them to have us back. Whether or not they will is another question.

Blossomtoes · 25/11/2022 14:29

I give it a decade before we're hammering the EU's door down clamouring for them to have us back.

I entirely agree with that. And I hope I’m alive with enough wit to enjoy it. We don’t have a constitution and we most definitely need to get rid of the Lords, not least because it’s being stuffed with erstwhile Tory PMs’ mates. An elected second house would be a huge step forward. But we need to sort out our undemocratic electoral system before we do anything else.

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 25/11/2022 15:04

Blossomtoes · 25/11/2022 14:29

I give it a decade before we're hammering the EU's door down clamouring for them to have us back.

I entirely agree with that. And I hope I’m alive with enough wit to enjoy it. We don’t have a constitution and we most definitely need to get rid of the Lords, not least because it’s being stuffed with erstwhile Tory PMs’ mates. An elected second house would be a huge step forward. But we need to sort out our undemocratic electoral system before we do anything else.

Yes, all of this.

A properly-constructed system of PR, not like the cobbled-together mess we were presented with at the last referendum, would be a good start.

DownNative · 25/11/2022 15:40

Blossomtoes · 25/11/2022 14:29

I give it a decade before we're hammering the EU's door down clamouring for them to have us back.

I entirely agree with that. And I hope I’m alive with enough wit to enjoy it. We don’t have a constitution and we most definitely need to get rid of the Lords, not least because it’s being stuffed with erstwhile Tory PMs’ mates. An elected second house would be a huge step forward. But we need to sort out our undemocratic electoral system before we do anything else.

We do have a constitution!

It's uncodified, but written across multiple documents. GFA is one and Scotland Act is another.

Constitutional experts are agreed on this.

Popgoestheweaselagain · 25/11/2022 15:57

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 25/11/2022 14:20

If so, they've been sold a pup.

What they've actually done is removed the checks and balances preventing our more draconian governments (I have the Blair lot particularly in mind here) from pretty much doing precisely as they please and removing edicts which were actually in this country's benefit. Take, for example, Norway. There are plenty of Norwegians who see the only discernible benefit of non-EU membership as having to pay through the nose for privileges member states get for free.

During the Blair days the words 'civil liberties' and 'surveillance state' were bandied around quite a lot. Fast-forward to 2022, and you're seeing women being arrested for uttering the phrase 'adult human female', and their names being entered on a police shit-list, having not committed any crime whatsoever, because someone's seen fit to report them for hate speech.

This isn't context to be taken lightly.

@vera99, I'm with you. And in response to the comment that antediluvian attitudes will prevail without the monarchy, sure they will. But a large, prominent and very visible symbol of the inequalities which pervade this nation would be gone. It sends the right message.

There is so much wrong with our so-called 'constitution' - if it can truly be said to exist in the first place, and enough historians have questioned that particular issue - that there are questions as to whether it's fit for 21st-century purpose. Those fossils in the House of Lords need to go, arguably before the Windsors. The system of a president serving two terms only has merit: both Thatcher and Blair are proof enough that the more longevity a PM has, the more despotic they become.

Yes, we need a fit-for-purpose system to replace what we have; no, it's not something to be done lightly, and it needs considerable time, thought and discussion to embed it. It wasn't as though that discussion wasn't already taking place during Elizabeth II's lifetime, but her death seems the right time to revist it.

I give it a decade before we're hammering the EU's door down clamouring for them to have us back. Whether or not they will is another question.

Well, if you can persuade your fellow Republicans over at Spiked of all that, perhaps you'll get a movement going for Republicanism. It seems they're feeling rather sore at being dismissed as flag-waving idiots for voting for Brexit, so might need to bring them a big bunch of flowers to smooth things over.

Bexit has a whole cutting off your nose to spite your face feeling about it. When it comes to these very final decisions like breaking up the Union or leaving the EU, I wish we could come up with some of sort of rule in which you have to win a larger majority, or win the the vote 3 times. Otherwise it's just keep having Referendums until the leave side win.

Heatwave22 · 25/11/2022 16:00

Poopoolittlerabbit · 14/11/2022 01:35

‘The elected lot are far worse direct your ire at them.’

no, because I expect better than a race to the bottom.

and I got to VOTE for the elected. It didn’t go how I might have preferred but at least I got a day in it.
I did not get a choice in an election for ‘king’ - I mean, king - seriously? Are we living in a Ham Christian Andersen story book? Is the Big bad wolf going to huff and puff ?
some over privileged prat is going to sign our laws? And we’re going to pay him, and his family, and his numerous hanger on ,
and the woman who used to be his mistress?

Amen!!

Popgoestheweaselagain · 25/11/2022 16:06

Heatwave22 · 25/11/2022 16:00

Amen!!

Didn't Boris Johnson also marry the woman who used to be his mistress? I get the bit about bing elected, but what's the mistress got to do with it? If we have a presidential system are we going to exclude anybody who's divorced or ever had an affair?

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 25/11/2022 16:12

Charles was heavily into environmental issues long before it became fashionable, or something you needed to be seen to care about.

Popgoestheweaselagain · 25/11/2022 16:31

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 25/11/2022 16:12

Charles was heavily into environmental issues long before it became fashionable, or something you needed to be seen to care about.

He's been rather lucky in that respect, that a lot of the things he was laughed at for have come into their own. Also his general frugality is likely to go down well during the cost of living crisis.

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 25/11/2022 16:35

DownNative · 25/11/2022 15:40

We do have a constitution!

It's uncodified, but written across multiple documents. GFA is one and Scotland Act is another.

Constitutional experts are agreed on this.

And a good many historians are not.

DownNative · 25/11/2022 17:57

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 25/11/2022 16:35

And a good many historians are not.

That seems very general - you'd have to be more specific.

An historian is not the same thing as a Constitutional Historian. Nor is a historian necessarily a Constitutional expert, let alone a leading one.

The leading authority on the UK constitution is Lord Norton and widely recognised as such. And so on.

Nevertheless, we CAN point to constitutional documents that demonstrate we have a written constitution, albeit an uncodified one. The Belfast Agreement is one such document.

If it were not so, we wouldn't be able to point to one.

It doesn't appear to me you've given much thought to what kind of written constitution you wish to see either or much of an idea how to get there in terms of obstacles in the road.....

prh47bridge · 25/11/2022 22:52

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 25/11/2022 16:35

And a good many historians are not.

I'm sure a good many mathematicians are not agreed either, but their opinion carries as much weight as historians. Historians are not, in general, experts on constitutional law. @DownNative is correct - we do have a constitution, but it isn't written in a single document. The Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee correctly stated in 2015:

"The United Kingdom constitution is composed of the laws and rules that create the institutions of the state, regulate the relationships between those institutions, or regulate the relationship between the state and the individual. These laws and rules are not codified in a single, written document."

The Supreme Court clearly recognises certain constitutional principles such as the sovereignty of Parliament, the rule of law and democracy. It also recognises that some Acts of Parliament are part of the constitution. So the highest authority on the law of the UK believes we have a constitution.

We have an uncodified constitution, which means there is no single document that sets out the constitution. This makes it easy to change the constitution, unlike in, say, the USA, where any amendment to the constitution requires a two thirds majority in both houses of Congress and must then be ratified by three quarters of the states within 7 years. Perhaps we should have a codified constitution. But to say that we don't have a constitution at all is clearly wrong, despite the fact that many people believe it is true.

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 26/11/2022 10:05

That seems very general - you'd have to be more specific.

Oh, dear. I hadn't intended to write a dry screed of text on those points, derailing the thread and boring other posters. There was a lot of that in the wake of the death of Elizabeth II.

An historian is not the same thing as a Constitutional Historian. Nor is a historian necessarily a Constitutional expert, let alone a leading one.

I'm sure most people are aware that within every broad academic discipline there are area specialists. That hardly needs pointing out. As for recognized experts in particular fields, wherever there's an intellectual question there is contestation, usually emanating from numerous different angles. This constatation will also take into account the particular ethical, political or theoretical biases conveyed through any of that person's research. Otherwise there would be no scholarly discussion. No self-respecting academic would ever accept a particular point merely because it was expressed by the eminent Professor Snodbury of Footlights College, Oxbridge.

The term 'constitution' is ambiguous. F.W. Hegel, no less, was one of the names suggesting it was founded on a series of abstractions, and that no country had managed to produce a clear one yet. de Tocqueville, writing shortly after Hegel, did so in words to the effect that the British constitution was subject to continual shift, and didn't in reality exist (forgive the lack of actual quotes and a cogent system of citation, won't you. I don't have the time).

Crossman, around the 1960s, reckoned cabinet government had been replaced by prime ministerial government (aka presidential). And that leads to the sideways point that the system of government we have now is something very close to republican; along the model of Plato's democracy. We could ditch the Windsors tomorrow and replace them with absolutely nothing, not that this is the solution I happen to think is needed.

The thing that throws a lot of this into stark relief is the very draconian, authoritarian Blair government. They come into power in 1997, and almost immediately bring in the most radical constitutional reforms seen since the First World War. HR Act reform, FOI Act, reform, Devolution of Scotland, N.I., and Wales, and something passing for Reform of the Lords. And this throws up additional, very significant questions. There's a much more recent study by Bogdanor, claiming that through these actions the old constitution was pretty much usurped and superseded with a new one.

In sum. the meaning of 'constitution' is ambiguous. There's a lot of arguing over what it actually is, and IF it actually is. It's not me, BTW, saying the British don't possess a constitution. I'm merely pointing out that a number of people have done so. We have a set of conventions and institutions regulating the process of government: by that definition, we have a constitution. To say that, at least, it's nebulous, subject to a great deal of debate, and difficult for most people to pin down, is a reasonable suggestion.

It doesn't appear to me you've given much thought to what kind of written constitution you wish to see either or much of an idea how to get there in terms of obstacles in the road.....

With respect, I'm neither a politician nor Mystic Meg. I could link you to any decipherable constitution with a clear meaning, such as that of the Republic of Ireland, but it's not for me to write a new UK constitution. I'm suggesting that these are huge questions and that now is a good time for discussion of these issues. It's a long process, and when/if it happens will likely span many years.

The British way is evolution, not revolution.