I find the idea that (at least part of) the government identity is tied the "personal authority" of the ruler a bit bizarre ― even though I grew up under an absolute dictatorial regime.
Even during said dictatorship, the absolute ruler avoided to tie anything to his personal identity, or even that of the ruling party; even though the lines between party and state were blurred elsewhere.
So to see that this is happening in one of the world oldest democracies never ceased to astonish me.
"world oldest democracies" - Demos kratos (people's doings/things - old Greek) By definition, our democracy is not that old. When the old Greeks were toying with funky governmental regimes, Britons lived in tribal/family units, with some nascent petty kingdoms.
The UK is a bit odd, even compared to the rest of the world! There are several European monarchies still running but ours is a bit madder than the others. For starters, our monarch is many monarchs. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and around 10 other monarchies have the same King Charles. He is also the senior person for several other territories such as the Isle of Man, Channel Isles and others. Each of those have some pretty impressive titles for him to hold.
The role of "constitutional monarch" here isn't precisely defined but it is based on precedent which basically means if it worked before and no one complained too much then that's the way forward. Our legal system largely works like that too but with a bit more introspection.
The King does have a form of absolute power but only on the understanding that it is never used. Its not quite that simple but it is!
Our King isn't an old school tyrant (Greek thing again) nor a dictator. He really acts as another governor - he has influence with the elected government. That influence is documented/reported on.
It's not weird. It's a tax haven for the elites. And cheap duty-free ski resort for the wealthy. Do you think Andorra, Monaco, Leichtenstein, ... (even Luxembourg) ... would continue to exist in W. Europe if that were not the case?
All Europe was previously 'weird' by today's standards, until big empires invaded everywhere, and drew previously 'weird' places into their states. The strange rules that you claim are 'weird' were the norm until very recently, and the only reason certain exceptions still exist, is because, and only because, they benefit the current elites.
The monarchies married off their children to make claim over other countries. Philip II of Spain thought he ruled Britain because he married Bloody Mary, who was the daughter of a Spanish princess.
The Habsburgs were an inbred dynasty that ruled various non-contiguous parts of Europe, in a totally 'weird' way, for random reasons (Swiss nationhood is based on rejecting them). Naples and Barcelona were once part of the same 'country'. Spain ruled the Netherlands!
The Norman (Scandi Viking) dynasties in Normandy France, and yes in Kiev, and can-you-believe-it Sicily ( Roger of Sicily is so Monty Python )? Andalusia in S. Spain is named after the Vandals from beyond E. Europe, who sacked Rome and also invaded Sicily (who hasn't).
The British royal family is mostly German. Even 'Prince Philip of Greece', husband of QE II, was a Prince of Greece, born in recently-British Corfu (who hasn't invaded Corfu?), without a single drop of Greek blood. He was mostly German, with an admixture of Danish and Russian.
What about Monaco, and San Marino, and Leichtenstein, the Vatican (ex Papal States), and Konigsburg (all that Knights Templar stuff, Memelland, Kaliningrad and now still preposterously Russian).
Belgium literally invented in 1839 Treaty of London, half Flemish, half French, with the bitter pip of Brussels in the middle. [Interestingly, the Treaty of London [1] is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article on Belgium [2]! Some trolls from the EU have been busy whitewashing history :]
Italy only unified in 1861, always 'weird' before that (but still contains San Marino and The Vatican).
Germany only unified in 1871, always 'weird' before that, with hundreds of petty states, many non-contiguous. The British royal family is from Hanover, Saxe-Coburg & Gotha. It alienated the US colony and is still in (constitutional) power in the UK.
The EU formulated in 1993 (Maastricht) but in its present form only from 2009 (Lisbon) minus UK (2016). A weird mixture of monarchies, democracies and rule by un-elected elites. Let's see how long it lasts... (TBC)
The little remaining statelets are only allowed to continue their independence because they benefit the current elites (like Switzerland benefitted the Nazis).
If you think Andorra is weird and interesting, it's only because you have not studied enough history.
P.S. That's just Europe, don't get me started on the Middle East.
Who hasn't invaded Syria!?
Obviously the Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Macedonians (Greeks), Romans, Arabs, Crusaders (English, French, Germans), Turks and a few flavors of Mongols, have been-there-done-that-got-the-tshirt, but even Australia has invaded Damascus (1918). Then the French shelled them to get it back - you could not make it up! Israel almost got there in 1973 and is still bombing it today.
>The King does have a form of absolute power but only on the understanding that it is never used. Its not quite that simple but it is!
Didn't it come out recently that Queen Elizabeth was actually putting her thumb on the scales for decades to get royal opt-outs for all sorts of random laws? (including, most egregiously, anti-discrimination law)
Regardless, your King was also having protesters jailed for holding blank signs under the suspicion that they might write something republican[0] on it. And there's that video of Irish soccer hooligans chanting "Lizzie's in a box" during a minute of silence they did for Queen Elizabeth. Not exactly something that happens in a country with "another governor".
Protestors were arrested for holding “Not my king” signs, so they later adopted blank signs as a symbol of free speech.
I think the football fans you’re referring to were supporters of Shamrock Rovers, a team from South Dublin.
The Republic of Ireland is a separate country, with no monarchy and no ties to the British monarchy since the formation of the Irish Free State in the early 1920’s.
There were however reports of Dundee United fans singing the same chant. Dundee is in Scotland which does share the Monarch, so that would support your point better.
> your King was also having protesters jailed for holding blank signs
He was not personally doing this. The decision to arrest protesters comes down to the police present at the time, and I believe there was no arrest in the case to which you are referring. Specifically a single person holding a blank sign outside of parliament who was approached and questioned by a police officer but not arrested. I believe there where also subsequent protests involving blank signs, but no arrests for those either.
It always shocks me how readily people from other countries take a republican position in matters which really do not concern them. The right to protest in the UK has been degraded as a direct result of our elected government, rather than because of some nebulous power held by the king.
Ultimately our elected representatives can always overrule the monarchy though, since parliamentary sovereignty trumps all. It might involve dissolving the government, but ultimately parliament would win.
You could obviously make the case that the monarch has unfair influence, but at the end of the day they still don’t have absolute power in any real sense.
> If that's true, parliament seemingly doesn't want to win.
Aside from the Tories largely being aligned with the idea that you shouldn't be bound by environmental law (see sewage dumping), have to pay inheritance tax (they're considering scrapping it as an election boost), or not discriminate racially (pick whatever policy you want here), the kind of people who support the monarchy also tend to be rabid Tories - exactly the kind of people you don't want to antagonise if you want to stay in power.
A Corbyn government might well have gone against the monarchy. I can't see Starmer doing it, though.
The Home Secretary via the police used their anti protest laws to remove the Republican protests, in like with what the majority of the country (or at least the majority of the supporters of the current government) wanted.
Brenda may have had some influence over laws, but nothing compared to the influence normal political lobbyists and donors of the governments party have.
If you would go by "what the majority wants", you could completely forget free speech, and the rights of most minorities too (and I'm not only referring to the UK, but to most of the world).
Like most contemporary free speech advocates, the current conservative government only advocates for free speech for those whose views align with their own.
They’ve been enacting laws to restrict protest and strikes, stripping funding from media organisations that dare to criticise it and making it harder for young people to vote.
Not everyone shares the views on freedom of speech that the US has. For example holocaust denial in Germany, or corporate donations, attack adverts, libel laws, Nor do many countries share the view on the same limits that the US does.
Theres a somewhat arrogant view amongst Americans that their view on what does and dies not count as freedom of speech is the only view.
Picketing funerals with hate speech is not wanted in many counties for example. Waving the flags of terrorist groups and calling for the extermination of a people isn’t wanted in many countries.
American here, I think you might be slightly off. The views of Americans as to what constitutes free speech are different than what the 1st Amendment actually says and what SCOTUS is willing to extend it to. There are very few people who look at the reasoning in, say, McCutcheon v. FEC, and say "yes, this totally improves free speech". They look at it and say "this is legalizing bribery and calling it free speech".
Donald Trump literally campaigned on "opening up our libel laws" so he could sue the shit out of anyone who accurately reported his net wealth. The crowd ate it up.
People like the Westboro Baptist Church aren't exactly loved either. In fact, they're a meme. We make fun of them. I'm sure there's a lot of Americans who would love the idea of banning them, and there's groups of bikers who go around running their bikes to shout over them and thus censor them.
America's reputation for free speech extremism comes from the ACLU, which up until recently was the sort of legal nonprofit that would literally sue for the free speech rights of Nazis, a group of people who explicitly reject freedom of speech. They've backed off on this only because it blew up in their faces with the Unite the Right rally.
My personal belief, probably not shared by all Americans and definitely not shared by HN, is that Germany's laws banning Holocaust denial actually improve freedom of speech. More generally, political speech that calls for censorship needs to be treated the same as actual laws that ban speech - i.e. we need to censor them. I mention HN because a lot of tech enthusiast viewpoints are influenced by the EFF, which is run by people who think censorship is just spicy packet loss. Those viewpoints here are actually rather extreme even by American standards.
>There are several European monarchies still running but ours is a bit madder than the others. For starters, our monarch is many monarchs.
Holding many titles in itself isn't strange, it's actually normal. Yes, that includes holding multiple King titles. If a noble holds multiple titles of the same rank, the most prestigious of them (in this case King of the United Kingdom) is the one preferred for general use.
>Our King isn't an old school tyrant (Greek thing again) nor a dictator. He really acts as another governor - he has influence with the elected government.
The idea is that the King is granted the authority to govern from God, and the King's government aids him in putting that authority into practice.
Remember that the King of the United Kingdom is also the leader ("Supreme Governor") of the Church of England, and elsewhere kings are usually coronated by the Pope of the Catholic Church. That is all to signify the King is a representative of God, acting in God's stead because God is busy with godly matters I suppose.
> [...] and elsewhere kings are usually coronated by the Pope of the Catholic Church.
Only in catholic countries. I haven't looked up the numbers, but I assume less than half of remaining monarchies are catholic. Mostly because we have a number of protestant monarchies (like the Netherlands and Denmark), and we have plenty of monarchies that aren't Christian at all (like Thailand or Malaysia or Saudi Arabia).
That's why I specified "usually", not all kingdoms are Catholic or even Christian but I would presume most would have similar concepts of deriving authority from somewhere to claim their blood is blue.
I'm not sure, but what you claim seems plausible enough.
Republics typically also make these kinds of claims to legitimize their leaders' claims to power. They usually invoke the wishes of the people or even a 'general will' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_will).
Authority to govern "on loan" from God, so to speak, is not a right, so this reminds the monarch he is only a sort of regent or deputy, if you will. (Recall John 19:11.)
I think there's a bit in Yes, Minister about how the more you're doing something in government the less you say about it, and the less you're doing the more you say.
What does that mean? Are you suggesting that active government work is often done quietly, while inactivity can lead to more public discussion to give the appearance of action?
> I find the idea that (at least part of) the government identity is tied the "personal authority" of the ruler a bit bizarre
Our semi-informal UK constitution distinguishes between 'the Crown' (the post) and 'the Monarch' (the individual who currently occupies that post). The parliamentary role is defined in terms of the Crown, not the specific Monarch. This is why we can have an immediate transition of power when the Monarch dies, following our rules of succession.
Well, over the last hundred years we've gone from "the divine right of the King to rule his subjects" to "the Monarchy brings in money by attracting tourists to the UK". Who knows where we'll be in another hundred years.
There is more to the British monarchy than tourism, but even so, it is worth noting (emphasis mine):
'This is the doctrine of "the divine right of kings". According to it, in its rigour, in a State once monarchical, monarchy is forever the only lawful government, and all authority is vested in the monarch, to be communicated by him, to such as he may select for the time being to share his power. This "divine right of kings" (very different from the doctrine that all authority, whether of king or of republic, is from God), has never been sanctioned by the Catholic Church. At the Reformation it assumed a form exceedingly hostile to Catholicism, monarchs like Henry VIII, and James I, of England, claiming the fullness of spiritual as well as of civil authority, and this in such inalienable possession that no jot or tittle of prerogative could ever pass away from the Crown. [...] Suárez argued against James I that spiritual authority is not vested in the Crown, and that even civil authority is not the immediate gift of God to the king, but is given by God to the people collectively, and by them bestowed on the monarch, according to the theory of the Roman lawyers above mentioned, and according to Aristotle and St. Thomas.' [0]
Magna Carta was issued in June 1215 and was the first document to put into writing the principle that the king and his government was not above the law.
Looks like you're a tad out of date there.
A hundred years ago King George V inherited the throne at a politically turbulent time, with the House of Lords exerting pressure to bend the King to their ends and grant a dissolution .. very much the political tail wagging the King dog rather than vice versa.
Quite apart from Magna Carta, the outcome of the Civil War determined very effectively whether the British Monarch had divine right to rule. In the negative.
With a regular reminder to the reigning monarch just outside the House of Commons in Westminster, a statue of Oliver Cromwell. Apart from the awful, awful acts that he commissioned against the people of Ireland, he also ensured that the concept of parliamentary supremacy against a sitting king that ignored or agitated against it, was demonstrated in a fairly direct way, the execution of King Charles I (there’s a statue of Charles I across the way, just to make sure you don’t miss the message)
The UK is a "(democratic) parliamentary constitutional monarchy", which makes it a democracy, but importantly it's still a monarchy as well. Being one thing doesn't necessarily exclude the other, even if one must limit the other.
Most of the time, the laws and bureaucracy in the UK refers to 'The Crown' instead of to the king or queen personally. And ahmedfromtunis expressed surprise that this is not universal (but only 'most of the time').
My dream is that this century we will see the end to the British monarchy. These old symbols of rule must see an end if we hope to continue humanity’s rule towards more democratic rule. (I say this knowing full well that “democracy” is hardly what we make of it even in the most famous democracies like the USA, and we still have so much work to do.)
I hope the British monarchy (and others like the Japanese monarchy) continue for time immemorial.
Monarchs these days are (fortunately) more benevolent than ye olde days, and are looking to become bastions of calm and sanity in an era when democracy (FSVO democracy) keeps roiling shit up.
I say that as an American too, long live the King.
In what way does this old man with too much land bring calm and sanity to Britain? His resources should be given to the people as museums, there is no need for the monarchy to continue to profit off of land and wealth that should belong to the people.
Having a monarch makes it harder for the elected leader to run amok. Compare the UK with other near powers that got rid of their monarchs - Russia ended up with Stalin and Putin, France got Napoleon, Germany got Hitler.
It's a bit like Chesterton's fence - don't remove it until you understand why it's there.
Another issue with the idea we should scrap the monarchy in the name of democracy is the actual democratic voters are strongly in favour of keeping it.
Weird hostility aside, monarchy is highly unlikely in the US at this time, because the American tradition has been steeped in myths hostile to the very idea (curious, perhaps, given that the US has what is in effect an imperial presidency). We would need to witness a deep shift in American sensibilities before monarchy could be embraced.
Perhaps as a compromise or a transition we could reform the presidency such that it becomes a position held for life (with preferential voting to make it more nimble to make up for the lack of term churn). The prospect of such a long reign would rule out short-sighted careerists who would tire of the burden of office (despite being the highest office in the State, at some point, the prestige-to-burden ratio becomes unappetizing for such people). And given the length of such a term in office, the choice of candidate is likely to become more bland, as no party wants to live under a diehard member of the other party. This has its drawbacks, but it could add stability that would provide an environment in which normality could be fostered.
The power of monarchy has been steadily whittled away in the UK since 1066.
The last bill that was refused assent was the Scottish Militia Bill during Queen Anne's reign in 1708.
In Australia, my country, presenting law for Royal Assent is a rubber stamp, a symbolic act that transcends the current elected government houses.
Should "Royal Assent" be refused by the Crowns agent in Australia you'd see the country exit, the Crown is there for show, not to get involved or to meddle with the work of the elected Government.
I suspect Canada, New Zealand, et al are similar.
You could always point to an instance in which the Crown refused Royal Assent if you'd care to.
As I said, the symbol itself is evil. But it seems you agree Royal Assent is legally required. It's a monarchy. Don't gaslight people into thinking it isn't.
The power it once had has been whittled away to F-all.
Magna Carta was issued in June 1215 and was the first document to put into writing the principle that the king and his government was not above the law.
You are intentionally ignoring my point about how the symbolic nature itself is evil. It is unconscionable to have a monarchy as a symbol of a country! A monarchy is an affront to human decency; it's absurd.
And I do not agree with your assessment that the king has no real power. A gentleman's agreement not to be a tyrant is not even close to good enough. I don't dispute it would cause lots of drama if the king tried to defy government, but he can do it. The guy is allowed to murder anyone he wants, he has full immunity from criminal prosecution! Is that a symbol worth protecting? No. It should be torn down and cast out.
Any respectable modern system of governance would not want even a whiff of an impression that it was led by a bloodline of kings. Yet, the UK and Commonwealth countries lean into it. A crown is a symbol of oppression. It's disgusting.
This is just sentimental fluff. Whatever its weaknesses or aberrations in practice, monarchy is not evil, and you have not even attempted to offer a real reason to think it is. The term "modern society" drips with fallacy.
Even during said dictatorship, the absolute ruler avoided to tie anything to his personal identity, or even that of the ruling party; even though the lines between party and state were blurred elsewhere.
So to see that this is happening in one of the world oldest democracies never ceased to astonish me.