What do you want as head of state for the UK

[wordler]

We are a mixed bag of pro and anti-monarchy on here so I've created a little poll to see at a glance were we stand:

https://poll-maker.com/Q72KOF2ZL

I've added a Something Else option as I ran out of what I thought were all the possibilities.

It's anonymous but feel free to expand in the comments.

I'm happy to stick with what we have now.

If we have to go to a republican system I'd opt for President - non executive. A figurehead to represent the country but no government power, which I'd hope would open the field to more than former politicians and old prime ministers.

Nice one I've gone for semi Presidential languishing at 7% !

Better the devil you know. Watching the results of democracy unravel since 2016 has made me believe the British public can’t be trusted. I certainly don’t want to see the extent of its power increase.

Surely the question should be binary do you want the monarchy to continue or not ? Then if the decision is taken to abandon them then consultation can begin on democratic alternatives. You seem to be diluting the opposition with confusing options.

I dont really understand why there has to be a head of state. I dont really get it to be honest

But although I wouldnt say Im a royalist, I dont feel strongly enough to say it should change either. Im indifferent to it. It doesnt affect my life if there are here or not here.

Unless theres a party/coronation/funeral coming up, and then I love all the pomp and bling.

The prime minister is the Head of state

I thought the queen was head of state?

Or the King

IF The current royals went and lived comfortable private lives, enjoying themselves like a non royal Duke (like the Duke of Westminster or Duke of Wellington) then I’ll have JK Rowling as our Head of State please.

I think there may be some dissenting voices though. There’s an outside chance there may not be someone we can all agree on.

I'm no big royalist, but I'd stick with what we've got.

I did think of doing a binary option first with a follow up poll - but after thinking about it I really wanted to know more about the nuance behind republic vs monarchy binary option.

For monarchists keep things exactly the same or keep royals but remove the special legal powers they have that people have mentioned like secret wills and law vetoing.

And for republicans - what head of state do you want to see - what kind of figurehead vs extra executive power role etc.

It's not a gotcha poll where I'd go look everyone wants a monarchy because the republican vote is split between several options - we can all add up.

It wasn't intended as a goady poll/post - I was inspired by the press thread hoping for a nuanced conversation on what our best options would be.

So if we went for a non-executive figurehead to be the person who represents the UK in other countries - like other head of state funerals, hosts the state dinners in the UK - does all the soft diplomacy stuff, do you think it would be possible to vote non-politician types in like 'best of British' people who have achieved things in different areas? That would appeal to me but I wonder how it would be seen on a world stage.

Yes in our current system the King is our Head of State.

In a parliamentary system, such as the United Kingdom or India, the head of state usually has mostly ceremonial powers, with a separate head of government.

However, in some parliamentary systems, like South Africa, there is an executive president that is both head of state and head of government.

Likewise, in some parliamentary systems the head of state is not the head of government, but still has significant powers, for example Morocco. In contrast, a semi-presidential system, such as France, has both heads of state and government as the de facto leaders of the nation (in practice they divide the leadership of the nation between themselves). Meanwhile, in presidential systems, the head of state is also the head of government - such as the USA.

In one-party ruling communist states, the position of president has no tangible powers by itself, however, since such a head of state, as a matter of custom, simultaneously holds the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party, they are the executive leader with their powers deriving from their status of being the party leader, rather than the office of president.

Former French president Charles de Gaulle, while developing the current Constitution of France (1958), said that the head of state should embody l'esprit de la nation ("the spirit of the nation").

A YouGov poll in 2021 had people choosing Prince William followed by David Attenborough. Lots of people chose themselves 'Me'

someone is going to be furious with whatever choice it is. And they might be right. If you wanted to pick someone for example who had raised a huge amount of money for charity, then you can go for various people but someone who raised £40m for charity in his lifetime was Jimmy Savile, knighted, if you please and only revealed as the evil he was after death.

I can’t really see the point of replacing them with someone voted in. But then the Irish president seems great and that system seems to work but somehow some of the royals do have some sort of ability to do well at soft diplomacy and the King and Queen seemed to do really well during their time in Germany and I don’t know that Keir Starmer or JKR would be able to have the same effect.

as ever, it’s all down to what the media decide they want us to think about people in power or people in palaces. But in principle I’m all for letting that family retire in their 60s.

It's a difficult position to recruit for - you need someone who can host someone like Putin without creating an international incident, have the solemn gravitas for military parades and memorials, represent the country at events abroad, be self controlled enough to remain as non-partisan as possible.

I fear if we do go this route that we just end up with a parade of Boris Js and Tony Blairs.

Alright - republicans don't despair - my fault I realised I hadn't set up voting security on the poll. Which means you could vote more than once for your choice.

We had over 300+ votes and it was surprisingly very pro constitutional monarcy 91+ %

Which surprised me as we have quite a few people with strong republican sentiments on this board.

But fellow monarchists you make me very sad.

One of you crazy loons had voted for the constitutional monarchy option 245 times!

I have adjusted the security and we are back down to more reasonable numbers where everyone should just have one vote:

Currently 50 responses and a slightly more understandable results table.

I don't want a Head of State. It will cost too much and would come with political allegiances.

I'd like to see a much reduced monarchy, consisting only of direct descendants.

So only Charles , Camilla, William, Katherine and their children.

No one else should receive any support from the state .

Kensington Palace, St James' Palace and Clarence House should all go too.
They can be museums for us all to gawp at. Even better, turned into affordable homes for London based workers on low incomes.

AIBU voting would be more representative. I can't be bothered going to your poll sorry

More representative because it's away from the Royal Board and more people would see it? Or because you think more pro-monarchy people hang out here? I'd thought based on comments that this part of MN was more pro republic than the general population

I wanted more than a binary option because I also wanted to see where people landed on a scale of what we should do for head of state.

You get a lot of 'get rid of the royals' but no solutions offered - I was interested in whether people were for executive vs non-executive elected head of state and why.

So fair enough - don't do the poll but will you share your preference in the comments?

OP
Is this serious ?

"One of you crazy loons had voted for the constitutional monarchy option 245 times!'

How crazy do you have to be to hit an option 245 times?? ( I haven't looked at your poll so I don't know how the vote is done )
1 person ? 245 times ? Have I got that wrong ?

I’m serious! I was really surprised at how many people had voted so quickly and how pro monarchy it was!

So I logged into the poll backend and it tells you demographical data including IP addresses - there was an option I didn’t realize existed where you could make it discount multiple votes from the same IP address - and there was one IP address from London which had voted 249 times.

So there’s either 249 people all sharing the same IP address who all voted within ten minutes of each other or…

Anyway l’ve got it set now so that it’s one vote each and it’s adjusted the totals.

Of course someone who is really bothered could still mask their IP.

Why do we need a head of state? That's what the prime minister is for.

Thing is, many European states have " heads is state", called either Presidents or Prime Minister's confusingly. But how many could you name? At least everyone knows ours, for better, or worse!

The survey is still in favour of the status quo - a strong 80%