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The last 'troublesome one' they actually got rid of was Charles I (not suggesting such drastic measures even for Andrew).

Edward VIII still had to abdicate, whatever might have happened behind the scenes to bring that about.

The point is that the hereditary system is inherently flawed. I very much doubt even the most ardent royalist would consider Andrew to be a fit person to be king, yet, the system that would put Andrew on the throne (or require an abdication) is the system that has put Charles there and will put William and George there.

Once you start arguing that this potential king or that potential king can and should be removed from the line of succession, the whole thing crumbles - it's either a meritocracy or it's not.

If Andrew can and should be removed - consider Charles. Not a terrible person but certainly a man who has made many mistakes - there are people, mainly fans of the late Diana, who believe the throne should have passed straight to William as a result of Charles's conduct - so where does it end?

Being a royalist means you accept whoever is next in line and I'm afraid you can't weasel out of it with hypotheses about Andrew being forced to abdicate should he have succeeded the late Queen.

No, it's a constitutional monarchy
Edward was forced to abdicate.

It's really very interesting, but obviously people don't understand the way it works and just get personal.
Always the way.

The last 'troublesome one' they actually got rid of was Charles I (not suggesting such drastic measures even for Andrew).

James II was deemed by parliament in 1689 to have renounced the throne 40 years after Charles's execution. Edward VIII was the last one who was removed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_monarchy
Even though this is from Wikipedia, it does explain it quite well.

Yes, they got rid of James, didn't they?
The Glorious Revolution.

Well it would be a bit different way of doing it - like a kind of Britain’s Got Talent public vote for the next heir.

Here’s the top ten in the line of succession vote for the one you’d like up next.

I love it , @wordler !
That's such a good idea, I may start a campaign!
It would be the best reality show (after Strictly).

It wouldn't cut out DC born before he relinquished his position - they are in there in their own right from the moment of birth. No one can relinquish it for them, and they cannot do so for themselves until they are adult.

Any hypothetical future DC born after Harry hypothetically leaves the succession would be excluded from it though (the Edward VIII model - he had no children at the time of the abdication and was acknowledging that any he had in the future would not be in line for the throne)

You can be resident anywhere and still be in the succession. You don't even have to be British - Harald V of Norway was 16th in line when he was born

They did indeed. That (actually probably 1660) was when sovereignty passed to parliament - certainly definitively so in 1714.

I choose Princess Anne. That woman is fierce.
No-one is going to attack the King on the Mall with her around.

With Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and David Walliams on the buzzers 😂

It's amazing to me that we got as many halfway decent Kings/Queens as we did, but we did. Since being "good at fighting in battle" stopped being an essential requirement for the role, they do and will rely more on soft skills.

I think they've had to adapt to survive. Listen to advice. Realise what a Constitutional Monarchy means..

The monarchy realised it needed the soft skills after 1918, and especially after 1936. It was no longer enough just to be born into the role and think they could behave as they liked.

I didn't suggest parliament would no longer have sovereignty - I meant the HOS wouldn't be the one inviting the PM to form a government, meeting weekly with him and so on.

As I said, posts on Mumsnet are never going to cover a situation that would probably require at least 10,000 pages of legislation to bring about.

But 'bringing the country into disrepute' would be a good starting point, so this could cover any criminal offence, for example. The vote of no confidence, in keeping with the election, would be by referendum - legislation would determine the triggers, it would be for the public to decide whether it warranted voting them out.

Who'd want to do it? I doubt there'd be a shortage of candidates - the more challenging process would be bringing them down to a manageable number.

Sounds like a recipe for absolute political mayhem and disruption.

I would accept some disruption for the sake of abolishing a system where a family are afforded privilege beyond reason on the basis of no personal merit whatsoever.

We would get used to it. It would certainly generate enormous media interest on the world stage, which is something the royalists have been crediting the royals with as a great thing.

After the Brexit shitshow id want to make sure that any discussion about the replacement of our head of state was properly thought out. No idea how this could be achieved though. If anything Brexit has made me want to keep the status quo.

It took France the better part of a century to sort out their political system after they threw out the monarchy. Perhaps not everyone wants to 'accept some disruption' on that scale.

So you do recognize your royal family has worldwide support!

Define merit though. The heirs get a lot of training and grounding if they're lucky (thinking of George VI not getting it though and still being a huge success) and learn how to behave on an international stage, the same way the likes of eg the early Edwards, Henry V were grounded in what they were meant to do, ie leading in battle.

The person we elected would not have that. I am vehemently against it being the PM, of whatever sex or party (as are many others) so there then could be a number of fairly bland, untrained candidates, none of whom will appeal to all. Countries that are starting from scratch have to work with that but we at least do have a viable alternative, which suits at least a large proportion of the population.

I don't doubt that, as well as confirmed royalists, there are those for whom fear of disruption or even sheer apathy would make republicanism an unattractive prospect.

But I don't think the royal family can go on forever. Support for them amongst the younger generations is falling. It's a bullet that will be bitten sooner or later - probably later, probably long after my death.

My main aim in setting out some general thoughts about how it could work was to dispel the 'President Blair' argument that is always trotted out. The great thing would be (unlike Brexit) our choice of HOS would never be irrevocable, and, as I said, if enough people believe the present royals deserve being at the head of the country, let one of them stand and be elected on merit.

Support for them amongst the younger generations is falling.

They won’t stay young forever and for the most part, people tend to mature as they age.

Well, it appears from this thread over the last hour that someone's made heroic efforts to control their nausea at any mention of the RF.

It's falling relative to levels amongst younger people in previous generations, so even if you accept the argument that people tend to become more pro-royal as they age (it was the opposite for me, I was quite pro-royal as a teenager but have become disillusioned over the following 40 years) if the trend continues, it will reach a point where levels of support will make it untenable and a strong republican political movement will evolve.