Abolishing the Monarchy

[tigger2022]

A few people on different sides of the debate have expressed an interest in discussing/debating this, so I thought we could give it a go…

Abolishing the monarchy?

My personal view: I used to be a staunch republican but have since completely changed my view. I think the constitutional monarchy is a slightly odd system, but seems to do the job, and I can’t think of another country’s system which is actually preferable. I also find myself less & less convinced by republican arguments…

Thoughts?

I agree! 👍

It is undemocratic and elitist to position a family above everyone else and for the head of it to be head of state. I would prefer a republic and always have.

I get more staunchly Republican by the say. We’ve had HMQ funeral, the Coronation, Trooping the Colour, Garter Ceremony and Royal Ascot this week and C3 first State Opening on the horizon. Enough!

I want a republic.

Republics are politically unstable. I prefer a monarchy.

Well done Tigger for starting a thread if you could get it in its own Republic area, that would be even better hehe

I used to be quite the Royalist but slowly and surely my views have changed for very many different reasons. It started with the spider letters, then moved through to the Paradise papers with a stop off at Andrew.

I would urge anyone to read this excellent series about the Monarchy and it's wealth
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/07/british-royal-family-wealth-finances-cost-of-the-crown-summary

And then for some bedtime reading this
https://www.wob.com/en-gb/books/norman-baker/and-what-do-you-do/9781785906213#GOR010743160

I honestly think unless you know more about the opacity of the Monarchy, there isn't a lot of point debating a Republic
Because it just ends up with "we could end up with Truss or Johnson as President" repeatedly.

For starters I would like to see reform of the HoL. No hereditary peers. No disgraced PMs handing out peerages to donors, mates, their hairdresser and someone who has kompromat on them!

I am realistic, nothing will change in my or my childrens' lifetimes as far as having a Monarchy, but some reforms of HoL and financing of the Monarchy is needed

I’d rather have a monarchy than a president! Look at the cock up the prime minster and his band of merry men have done, can you imagine what it would be like with one of those as President! I’d rather shit in my hands and clap that vote in a president…

I think a simple cost benefit analysis would reveal the Royals have been taking us for a ride for quite some time.

in what way do you think it would be different for you if they were a President instead of a PM? The royal family aren;t without faults to put it mildly.

It's horrific that so many people can't see how detrimental to freedom and democracy it is to have a single bloodline categorised as "better" than the rest of us.

However, I do see the benefit of having the head of state being someone who is designated the role by a means that is entirely impossible to manipulate or influence. I hate the idea of a President Blair or President Johnson.

I could tolerate a monarchy despite its flaws if (a) the crown did at least occasionally take proper action to protect the people from an awful government from time to time (even if just dissolving parliament and calling a new general election when it becomes clear that the shitshow is out of control) and (b) they were statutorially constrained to living only a lifestyle no better than say the 80th-ish centile of the people they serve - wealthy enough to be comfortable, but not so wealthy that they are totally divorced from the reality of ordinary people.

And that's only the faults we know about. Most are well hidden

@JaukiVexnoydi

Yes, so agree

The King is not 'in charge ' f anything though. More of a figurehead

I have no strong opinion one way or the other, but the amount of discrimination and similar laws that don't apply to the royal family is ridiculous. I found it ridiculous when it was reported how basic tenancy laws don't apply to them and the issues Charles's tenants have had to face. That needs to be equalized.

I don't support having a monarchy like we did in the old days. Britain would be so boring without the heritage and history. The British monarchy is good for the country in many ways, including charities, culture, etc. Beautiful protected places like Hampton court, Windsor castle and many other wonderful buildings for general public to explore at leisure. Sadly, UK media are in love with Celebrity brain-dead culture. We now live under a dreadful "celebrity culture" which brings nothing for the country except inflated ego, overpaid, wanabees who are desperate for fame and to boost their ego for even more plastic surgery and fake lashes and the rest! Worst thing ever is the toxic Celebritiy culture we are bombarded with!

France is on its 5th republic since chopping off their Kings head plus Vichy France too ( not sure if that was considered one of the 5 republics)
bo thanks to a Republic for me. For a start we’d never all agree and I don’t fancy people agitating for a new one every 25 years!

So agree about the dire celebrity culture, but why would we lose our history? We wouldn't.
Unless we'd miss the likes of Andrew and his shenanigans and H&M leaving the RF which will forever be in our history books

You need people to create actual interesting history though. Hampton Court is lovely but needs the tales of Henry 8th to bring it all alive. Yes we’d obvstill have Henry 8th but that’s a very short term view. The world hasn’t ended and history goes on. What will royal historians discuss in 200 years if royal history stopped in 2023!

I'd like to know what would happen if we didn't have them.
Since the Queen has died, I question their purpose and I used to be a firm royalist.

Henry VIIIs antics were only historically interesting because he instigated the 16th Century equivalent of Brexit - breaking from Rome to be allowed to govern England according to his own desires rather than having to acknowledge the pope's authority over him. Now that the post is mainly only ceremonial it really does not matter one little bit what they get up to, except for the offensiveness that they are doing it on the public dime while people are literally starving or freezing to death and being driven to suicide due to draconian cuts.

You don;t need a royal family to ah... have a history. Theres plenty of other events and people doing actual important things.

We would be like Celibrity culture US style. In the US, beauty before brains rules. Bland, plastic, characterless and domineering the media. The media is full of plastic looking young women with older looking plastic men in the news, film, tv, cable, etc. 😝They advertising themselves just by their looks, get given a script and that's it. Just look at the evidence.

For starters I would like to see reform of the HoL. No hereditary peers. No disgraced PMs handing out peerages to donors, mates, their hairdresser and someone who has kompromat on them!

I think our HoL is actually a very interesting place. It's full of very knowledgeable people in specific subjects so if you listen to their debates, they're talk with facts rather than rhetoric. And because they're not elected, they don't have to adjust their views to please the electorate.
If we go to an all elected membership, it will just be more politicians of the same parties. At present there are nearly 200 crossbench members, which just wouldn't happen in a political house.
Labour have said they're going to reform the HoL when they get elected but it runs the risk of just being just more braying politicians, mirroring the the HoC. I think it will be sad to lose the specialist knowledge it has.

I'm interested to know, if we got rid of the RF, and people don't want more politicians, ie, Blair, Johnson, Truss, etc, who would people see in their place?

The president of any future Republic would not be like a PM or the President of the US or France. They all have power to legislate etc.

An elected President as HOS would be just that, a figurehead like KC3. The big incentive for me in that scenario would be the ability of the electorate to VOTE for the HOS.

The lack of democracy is not very comforting at the moment, given that we pay for the RF to do naff all really. Yes, we would pay for a President, but nothing like the expense of the RF. And we can vote the President out if we want to.

The RF these days (and maybe forever) have been reduced to gossip, scandal, frocks and rocks. But on the face of it they are not allowed to do anything else politically. But they do interfere in politics. They have the power to do so with the ear of the PM once a week, when he is interviewed by the monarch. No one knows what goes on behind THOSE closed doors.