Is Charles sitting on a time bomb?

[padronpepper]

https://www.newsweek.com/king-charles-gen-alpha-polling-popularity-10473882

I think apathy will be the royal family’s best friend.

If there was a referendum, I’d vote to get rid. But it’s so so so far down my list of priorities that any party saying they’d offer one wouldn’t influence my vote at all. I’d also probably only vote to get rid if we were voting for a specific alternative, rather than “vote to get rid and figure out the details later”. Sell me a better alternative - that is absolutely possible, but I want to know what it would be.

A referendum would also be a bit of a nightmare globally surely? If we voted to get rid of the monarchy, presumably we wouldn’t be doing that on behalf of other countries. I mean, I’m sure they’d probably follow suit due to the practicalities (can you have a king of Canada, Australia etc living in the UK but not funded by the UK and not king of the Uk - how would it work) but some, not all, might be a bit annoyed, with a sense from the various prime ministers of “actually now is not a great time for us to be rewriting our constitution, we’re a bit busy, so thanks for chucking this at me. A huge row over what sort of power structure we have at the top of government is just what I wanted”.
So I think first, other countries will have to become republics, and then us at the end or at the same time as the last few.

Is there a similar lack of support for other monarchies in Europe?

Imagine the pressure on George in a few years.

Isn’t Charles is the head of state rather than the king of some of the ye olde colonies? UK court functions as court of last appeal too.

The Netherlands always seems relatively fond of their Royal family, possibly just as I remember lots of fun queen’s days in my youth.

He’s king of the UK and 14 other countries, and he’s head of state of the UK and 14 other countries. I don’t think there’s a difference.
Happy to be wrong though, not an expert!

I'm a bit disappointed that only 17% of my peers (am old) have apparently seen through the sham.

Step up guys!

Imagine knowing that your child is being forced into a role that he doesn’t want and may not be fitted for.

Not born here. If there is a possible eventual Referendum, how they will share the money? Keep the palaces, jewels, arts, all this or hand back to the Treasury?

@Letmeoutodhere
Exactly.
And I saw a magazine last week with Charlotte on the cover - mad about fashion and rules her brothers. She is 10 years old.

A lot is not theirs, it belongs to the state. And then a lot is privately owned. Eg Buckingham palace and the corner jewels they do not own, sandringham and balmoral I believe they do. So I think that part would be a fairly simple split.

I honestly think that once Charles is dead, William will somehow shut the whole "firm" down. It isn't what he wants for himself or his kids.

Hard though, legally. Parliament would need to get involved. If William abdicates, George can’t until he’s 18, so he’d be king with a regent. And then if George abdicated at 18, Charlotte would be in the same position, then Louis. And then it would pass to Harry. William can’t just shut it down.

I think thr opposite, William is as wedded to the idea of a monarchy, being king as is humanly possible. He lives and breathes it. The fact he wants to spend time with his kids raising them first doesn’t change it. And he’s raising George to be the same.

I think apathy will be what gets rid of the royal family. If they have no relevance to you paying them many millions of pounds a year becomes even more offensive.

I don’t think he’s got any choice.

I don't believe the decline in popularity started with Harry and Meghan leaving, but I'd expect Jack Royston to write that.

The problem with articles like this is that they seem to believe removing the monarchy is as simple as Charles being told he isn't King anymore. But it isn't. It's a constitutional monarchy and, as the name suggests, it is tightly woven into many many part of our constitution, both those bits that are written and those that are precedent. To remove the monarchy requires a lot of planning and legal work.

Since Brexit we have seen the dangers of jumping into an enormous constitutional change without sufficient planning and forethought. I don't believe that many people are keen to repeat that experience.

Monarchy, by its very nature, plays a long game. Without overwhelming political will nothing is going to change and they can afford to wait for attitudes to change, as they historically have, both for and against. In the grand scheme of things whether we have a monarchy is small potatoes compared to the very present problems facing this country. But I do believe that part of the drop in popularity is related to those problems. For some reason there seems to be a narrative that if you remove the King fairness and justice and equality for all will reign and there will no longer be rich and powerful people with influence in the country. Which would be lovely but isn't true.

But the issue is, the monarchy don’t take part in their constitutional duties.

Remember when the queen refused to step in when boris shut down parliament, illegally?

How would it have gone for the Queen if she has stepped in? There wasn't an over whelming majority of the country against what Boris was doing, the country was divided. I'm sure the Queen took a great deal of legal advice and I'm equally sure that the advice would have been that she cannot exercise her constitutional right to oppose the government unless the vast majority of the country wanted her to. The power isn't there so she can be a tie breaker, it's there to protect us from tyranny. Much as i disagree with Boris he wasn't a tyrant. What he did was illegal but at the time that wasn't clear and the country didn't agree on it.

Her role was to uphold the constitution. She didn’t. It’s that simple. If they don’t do that, what’s the point?

The constitution was upheld by the courts. The Queen is the last resort not the first.

But, it wasn’t. Parliament was illegally prorogued. The courts ruled it was illegal after. The queen should have stepped in - she was the only resort. Yet she didn’t. Because their popularity is more important to them than their actual constitutional function.

I think there are many people who liked the idea of the royal family while Queen Elizabeth II was alive. There was a real fondness for her, and because she was Queen for so long it was all many people had known. I think a lot of those people are now somewhat apathetic.

The fact that we disagree on this is I believe evidence that this wasn't a clear enough situation for the Queen to intervene. I don't believe it was about popularity but about confusion as to whether the prorogation was illegal. It's easy to think that they made the wrong decision in retrospect but my memory of the time was that opinions were very much divided along Brexit lines which muddied the waters.

If the situation arises again it will be interesting to see what lessons are learnt and by whom.

I’m not sure I agree that it would take as long as you say MrsLeonFarrell.

When Brexit happened, which I think you will agree involved enormous constitutional change, vast tracts of EU law (retained EU law) were carried over in to UK law to maintain continuity and stability which provided a new constitutional framework and in addition, amendments to these laws entered in to force at the same time, so the UK statute book was operational and independent from the EU fairly quickly. These retained laws then became known as “assimilated” laws. This all happened within a five-year time frame between 2018 and 2023.

Edited to make clear that I am very sorry Brexit happened, but it proves that change can be effected pretty quickly when there is the political will to do so.

The problem with articles like this is that they seem to believe removing the monarchy is as simple as Charles being told he isn't King anymore. But it isn't. It's a constitutional monarchy and, as the name suggests, it is tightly woven into many many part of our constitution, both those bits that are written and those that are precedent. To remove the monarchy requires a lot of planning and legal work.
Since Brexit we have seen the dangers of jumping into an enormous constitutional change without sufficient planning and forethought. I don't believe that many people are keen to repeat that experience.

All this.

I don't think anyone particularly in favour of a RF in this day and age but the work and cost to get rid for what - President Stamer/Boris - better the devil you know till you get such a bad incumbent everyone wants to get rid of them.

Newsweek an amercian maganize - they have IME a very odd view of monarchy and very limited understanding of constitutional monarchy - often unaware how many there are still around and that our are head is head of quite a few other countries - and weird belief their poltical system is better.

Yes they assimilated laws wholesale over 5 years and they promised to review each law and that process hasn't finished. Switching from a constitutional monarchy to a new system is far more complex than simply deciding to adopt laws you are already familiar with.

For a start what system are we going to switch to? Who will be the Head of State and what will their powers be? I haven't seen agreement on that pretty fundamental issue yet.