Actual Political Powers of Queen of England.

Factual Questions
1

I just know from snippets of information I hear here and there. Apparently the queen of England can theoretically veto a piece of legislation in Britain, although the last monarch to do that was Queen Anne, who according to my dictionary, reigned 1702-1714. I know the queen appoints people to the House of Lords, which is a big power unto itself, since the House of Lords still has some powers, like to delay legislation and as a final court of appeals, from what I’ve heard. And interestingly the queen is the head of state, not the head of government, although I don’t know for sure all that involves.

Well, that is all I know for sure. So what other actual (political) powers does the queen have?

Thank you in advance to all who reply :slight_smile:

2

Somewhere between “effectively none” and “absolutely none”, modified by the fact the UK doesn’t have a single written Constitution you can point to but instead operates on a system of history, tradition, various written documents, and shouted insults in the House of Commons. There’s an old saying to the effect that if Parliament handed HRH his/her own death warrant, HRH would have to sign it.

3

The Monarch can veto legislation in theory, but absolutely cannot do so in practice. He or she has the technical right to refuse “Royal Assent”, without which an act of Parliament cannot become law. However, Parliament is sovereign, and could pass another act overruling this veto, and probably abolishing the Monarchy in the process. So no matter how much Brenda despises any law, she has to hold her nose and sign it.

The Monarch is the head of state. Not all countries combine the functions of head of state and head of government - the USA does, but even other republics (like Ireland) do not. The Monarch represents the UK as a kind of embodiment of the state. This is ceremonial. Of course. The UK armed forces technically answer to her, not to Parliament. She is the Big Army Boss, or whatever her rank is.

The Monarch appoints people to the House of Lords*. She does so on the advice of the Prime Minister. There is no law that I know of that says she can’t add her own people to the list but if she made a habit of it, there soon would be.

The Monarch calls elections to the House of Commons. She does so on the request of the Prime Minister - see a pattern here? She “dissolves Parliament” by Royal proclamation, at which time all members must seek re-election on a date declared by her but, of course, determined by the Prime Minister.

When those elections are complete, she invites the leader of the winning party to form a government, henceforth to be known as “Her Majesty’s Government”.

Her Prime Minister must discuss national affairs with her regularly - once a week in normal circumstances. When the Parliamentary session begins each year in the autumn, she makes a speech (written by the Prime Minister’s staff) detailing what her government will do in this session. This speech is made in the chamber of the Lords; she is not allowed to enter the Commons, at all, ever.

All this said, her political informal political influence is hard to quantify.

*House of Lords is a weird one. You are correct in assuming that it is not trivial - since it does indeed have the power to delay legislation. The Government Act of, um, 1928? allows the Commons to ultimately overrule the Lords but still, it’s not a power invoked lightly. When it is invoked, the bill is presented back to the Lords, who don’t get to vote. They are simply told that the bill is passed “because the Queen wishes it”.

Edit for accidentally omitted negatation.

4

The 1911 Parliament Act stripped the Lords of their power to block legislation.

5

[QUOTE=PaulParkhead]
The Monarch can veto legislation in theory, but absolutely cannot do so in practice. He or she has the technical right to refuse “Royal Assent”, without which an act of Parliament cannot become law. However, Parliament is sovereign, and could pass another act overruling this veto, and probably abolishing the Monarchy in the process.

In which case Liz would be required to give assent to the overruling act, somehow I doubt she would go along with this

6

She can sit on a lollipop and tell you what flavor it is. I’m not sure that’s really a political power, but it’s still pretty cool.

7

Here are three good summaries of Her Majesty’s (not “Her Royal Highness,” Derleth) remaining powers and responsibilities.

From the official British monarchy website: http://www.royalinsight.gov.uk/output/Page4682.asp

and http://www.royalinsight.gov.uk/output/Page4683.asp

And from Wiki: Reserve power - Wikipedia

8

She’s not officially “The Queen of England”, either, though that’s a subset of her position. She’s the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

9

That wasn’t very nice.

10

The head of state is generally a ceremonial position; the job involving representing the government at celebratory functions or things like state funerals. Many countries do have a head of state separate from the head of government, since it frees up the head of government to concentrate on governing.

11

Brenda?

12

Are you claiming she doesn’t have hereditary ass-taste-buds?

13

Yes, obviously PaulParkhead is being scolded by his wife and typed her name in a moment of panic

14

It’s what satirical magazine Private Eye calls her.

15

Um, not necessarily. Since the British constitution is easily mutable, all that would need to happen is for everyone to ignore the fact that the monarch failed to give assent, and stop treating the monarch as a monarch. The constitution would thus have changed.

At least they don’t need majority 5-4 opinions redefining ambiguous English phrases in a centuries old document to accomplish it. :smiley:

16

Informally, the queen has decades of continuous involvement in the governmental and diplomatic arenas and interpersonal relationships with most heads of state/government in the world and can give her government very effective advice when the PM consults with her.

17

Private Eye has for many years had not-very-complimentary nicknames for the various Royals, ‘Brenda’ is the Queen, Prince Charles was ‘Brian’, Princess Di was ‘Cheryl’, no doubt others can supply the rest (none of the others seem much used now)

18

Technically the Crown (note I’m not saying “the Queen”) has a wide assortment of powers still remaining in the Royal Prerogative – things the Crown does as opposed to things Parliament or the Courts do. Declaring war, dissolving Parliament, granting honors, IIRC awarding municipal charters are all things formally done by the Queen without Parliament. The catch is that QE2 can only do the overwhelming majority of them on “advice” (courteous language for “explicit instructions”) of her Ministers.

A very few of them remain her personal prerogative. Naming people to a specific subset of honors (knighthoods, nobility, medals) is one – and I’m not positive which are her private prerogative and which are at the disposal of her ministers. One with a 1975 Australian precedent is that if there is ever a dispute between P.M. and Parliament, she is empowered to refuse him a dissolution of Parliament (with the intent of getting a Parliament that would support him). There seems to be unanimity that if a P.M. attempted to govern dictatorially, she would be entitled to fire him, though there’s never been precedent for doing so since ministers became answerable to Parliament.

One power regularly used that is nearly always laughably minute but is potentially quite important is that it is the Queen, herself, with only such advice (in the normal sense) as she chooses to ask for, who names the Prime Minister. The catch is that she is obliged to name someone as Prime Minister who can command a majority in the House of Commons – and nearly always that makes the choice offered her equivalent to that offered by Mr. Hobson. But in the event of a Commons where nobody has a majority with no coalition in sight, and/or the leader of a coalition dying, or in a crisis where a National Government seems indicated, the Queen is free to choose from a select list of people who might be able to form a Ministry that the Commons would support. The present Queen did this twice for other reasons, no longer valid, in 1957 and 1963, where nobody was the acknowledged leader of the Tories on the resignation of the incumbent P.M. They have since adopted by-laws defining how to resolve this.

So much more is done by behind-the-scenes compromise and cooperation in the British system that the answer is almost undefinable in American terms. And example might be: Can the President sign a matter into law? Well, yes, in two ways: in the areas where he is empowered to issue Executive Orders, his prerogative is unlimited; but the things he signs into statute are bills which have passed both houses of Congress. So he has the right to refuse to make a law (veto) but the right to make one (by signing it into law) only when Congress has first passed it. Likewise, QE2 has very few things she can do by her self, and a great many things she does as the spokesperson for her Government.

19

In the BBC miniseries To Play the King, the liberal king locks horns with his ultraconservative PM, Francis Urquhart (“F.U.”) – not by trying to revive the monarchy’s old constitutional powers, but by using it as a bully pulpit to sway public opinion. I wonder how that would work out IRL.

20

Wow, those nicknames are hilarious.

By “hilarious,” I mean “not hilarious at all.”

That must be the least funny magazine ever.