I’m not so sure about that
- the British public takes a suspicious view of politicians
The Royal Family are quite useful, they perform ceremonial duties and reduce the need for yet another sleazebag.
They also provide copy for the tabloids …
sure, at the moment… but imagine the tabloid reaction to a german national being on the throne.
The doomsday scenario is not difficult to envisage: a nuclear weapon is used on London during a coronation. With all the potential foreign guests, it wouldn’t just be England looking for a new monarch.
Wouldn’t even need to be nuclear - if you have any gathering with a large number of important people (even, say, some sort of state dinner), a significant amount of sarin gas released into the air lead to significant political restructuring.
So right now I’m picturing this as a plausible scenario: Something catastrophic happens, and the monarch, one or two heirs, the Prime Minister, and a boatload of MPs are killed off. Without any real formality, whoever’s next in line automatically becomes king/queen. They technically are the only one who has the authority to appoint a new PM, but in reality, the majority party gets together, decides who’s going to be the new PM, and then the new monarch approves that (as a formality). Sound right?
(Now I’m going to just sit here and wait for the FBI or MI5 to come and have a nice little chat with me about why I’m plotting how to best kill off the leaders of the British government…)
Sure, gas or a MOAB might kill off everyone at the Buckingham Palace reception, but to wipe out most British contenders for the throne, plus most of Parliament and the Civil Service, wouldn’t you’d have to take out the entire city?
You know, this sort of scenario is a bit scary, in circumstances where the Nunn-Lugar Act doesn’t work so well for tactical nuclear weapons.
I think that we mistake some very behind-the-scenes elements of the British system for pure pageantry when what they are is smooth non-confrontational government-at-work doing its job.
When the monarch dies, the heir apparent or presumptive immediately inherits the throne. Elizabeth II was the first British monarch to become monarch while in a tree; she was staying in a treehouse accommodation at a resort in Kenya as part of a royal tour when George VI died. Part of the reason for that enormous list is to ensure everyone is clear who becomes king (or queen) in the event of the sort of catastrophic event hypothecated here.
As for the Prime Ministership, it’s very easy to overstate or understate the monarch’s role. Under normal circumstances, the monarch has Hobson’s choice: to appoint the elected leader of the party with a majority in the House of Commons, or the leader of the largest party in a coalition commanding a majority if there is no majority party, or, finally, the head of the plurality party as head of a minority government if nobody can command a majority either from their own party or by coalition.
However, it needs to be emphasized that the Queen’s job is to choose a prime minister that can command a majority (or as noted above), not necessarily to rubberstamp the choice of the Commons. This distinction may seem one without a difference, but there have been instances where it did matter, within living memory. Prior to about 1965, the Conservatives never elected a leader, just presuming that a leader and the deputy who would succeed him if necessary would be worked out by consensus. They ran into enormous problems with this three times between 1953 and 1964. On the first occasion, Churchill had a stroke while his designated successor, Eden, was undergoing major surgery. Both recovered, but had they not, the Queen would have needed to identify who would replace them (likely RAB Butler at that time). Then in 1957 Eden was forced out of office by illness and his mishandling of the Suez incident, and the Queen was forced to pick Macmillan to succeed him. Likewise when Macmillan was forced out by similar circumstances in 1963, she chose Lord Home. In both cases, it was done after consultation with party leaders, but the obligation was on her to pick someone, making sure she made a choice who would then command a Tory majority in Commons.
What I’m saying here is not that the Queen is free to pick at random, but rather that she is not merely rubberstamping a leader – it is her job to choose the P.M., and to ensure the man she chooses will be able to command a majority once she chooses him. Of course with a party majority in Commons, and an elected leader of that party who has just led his party to an electoral victory, that choice is obvious. But say assassins knock off the top five cabinet members: P.M., his deputy, and the three likely replacements if anything happened to them. At that point it becomes her duty to assess who’s left that would be accepted as leader by the majority, and name him. Not to wait on their electing one; the U.K. needs a head of government. She makes the choice, founded on fifty-odd years of experience with-but-not-in party politics. To a certain extent, the person she picks, if she chooses well (as she’s shown the ability to do in the mid-century incidents), will command that majority by virtue of having been the right choice.
As for Charles and William, both have been in training to become King since each was five years old. William would not seek a Regency, though no doubt if QE2 and Charles bit the dust effectively simultaneously, he’d surround himself with experienced Household people to help him through the first months of his reign.
Further, while Elizabeth is never going to win a MacArthur Genius Scholarship, she’s been intimately involved with the British political scene since before almost all members here were born. Her native cunning and experience and her carefully maintained non-partisan role make her an asset to any Government. Charles, for all his loopy enthusiasms, has been investing himself in preparing to replace her since the Sixties, and would carry off the same behind-the-scenes-advisor role with nearly equal skill. My impression is that while most Brits are not terribly enamored of the monarchy, they generally feel that there’s no real advantage to replacing the Head-of-State role with an elected elder statesman over someone with a commitment to duty and lifelong training to do the job.
The other realms (FKA “the dominions”), it’s a different story. The Governor-General carries out that role already, and in some, Australia in particular, the monarch is not an intimate part of the governmental structure. Switching to a republic is not out of the question for them, or some of them.
Except for 1649-1660. :dubious:
Correct. IIRC, George VI was crowned at the same time that his brother Edward VIII was to have been, but Edward had already abdicated by then, having reigned - uncrowned - less than a year.
Why would the British public elect a president? Couldn’t the monarchy be eliminated but the prime minister and parliament retained?
The first German is a long way down, at about 111. It more likely that there would be a dual monarchy, with the same person king or queen of both Norway and the United Kingdom. As has been pointed out, this would happen if the right 59 people died.
(The last time there was a dual monarchy like that involving the monarch of the UK was before 1837, when William IV was King of the UK and of Hanover.)
Upon Charles II’s restoration, Parlaiment affirmed that he had been the legal monarch since the execution of Charles I in 1649. Of course he didn’t exercise any executive authority during the Protectorate, but by law and convention he is considered to have held the throne throughout the English Civil War.
In a Presidential system like the U.S. has, the Head of State and the Head of Government are united in one person. But in a Parliamentary system, they are two separate jobs, one with carefully circumscribed limited powers and enormous authority rarely used, and the other with the duty of running the government so long as he can keep the confidence of the legislature, hence in charge of most things under normal circumstances, but subject to being put out with the trash if he loses a vote of confidence.
Unless the U.K. completely revised their system, switching from a Parliamentary monarchy to a Parliamentary republic would mean replacing the monarch with a President, who would be distinct from the “Government” – meaning the Prime Minister and his cabinet in British use.
It’s a variant on checks and balances – the head of the Government is kept from ultimate authority by having that vested in someone who can use it only rarely and in emergencies.
As flurb said, that was later not considered to be a vacancy in the throne. However there was an interregnum:
Wikipedia on “Interregnum”
This was because Parliament had deposed one monarch (because he was a Catholic), and not yet chosen the next.
On the other hand, under the right conditions, we could have a scenario such as NinjaChick’s Suppose that an attack wipes out not only the major politicians, but also the first people on the line of succession to the throne. So we end up with no obvious choice about who should lead the government (say there’s a disagreement between the MPs of the majority party about the best way to respond to the current crisis, some favouring a more hardline approach and others a more cautious one, with furthermore some members of the opposition parties requesting the formation of a large coalition government), and a new inexperienced monarch who never expected to find himself or herself in this situation, who has never been groomed for the role, and who is likely to accept the “help” of important characters who happen to be there at the time. Of course, if the new government that is in time nominated starts taking decisions that the public disagrees with, for example, suspending parliament while invoking the current state of emergency, there are always ways to deal with this that don’t involve the usual political process, but then again, the British public is likely to be just as divided about the issue as its politicians are. So I would see this potentially leading to some kind of civil war.
Didn’t the 1953 *Regency Act * appoint the Duke of Edinburgh as Regent for the Prince of Wales in the event of the Queen’s death before the Prince of Wales’ 18th birthday? And the Duke of Edinburgh is way down the line of succession.
Okay you got me. The act does permit the royal consort to serve as regent. In '53 Elizabeth’s children were 5 and 3; it their father was thought better to rule if the Queen died as opposed to their young (23) aunt.
The monarch, whoever he or she may end up being, can in theory invite whoever she likes to form a government. In the event that enough members of the majority were killed, whatever is left of the Cabinet would hold a by-election to refill things.
Except that, once again, the technical way that is done is for the monarch to call a general election, on the “advice” (=direct, explicit instructions) of his/her advisors, the P.M. and/or Cabinet.
Probably this would be the scenario:
Queen Zara (or whoever) takes the throne, as the survivor of the catastrophe highest in the line of succession. She summons the Home Secretary, or the Minister of Scilly Woks, or whoever seems appropriate to her, to form a “caretaker” government to attempt to carry on for a short period. Based on their advice, she sets a general election for as near in the future as feasible.