Are monarchs part of a democratic system?

[SanVito]

@DPRK

It seems pretty clear that Parliament is the body determining who “automatically” becomes the monarch with all those succession Acts and Bills they keep passing.

And that’s the crux of it. Parliament has already established the line of succession, and would take active steps to alter it if the next heir was looking iffy (looking at you, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor).

[Mangetout]

@glee

All of the above stuff is best done by a figurehead who is popular with the people.

Or if not popular, at least not continually changing. Governments and political parties and prime ministers come and go and are hated and loved and that whole thing switches around periodically and the landscape of hate and love inverts and so on. Necessary, but horrible.

Not so much with a monarch - they are still loved by some and hated by others, but the pot is not continually being stirred and that, I think, provides a sort of background sense of stability. Not exactly necessary, but unhorrible.

[SanVito]

@Little_Nemo

I agree that Parliament could remove a monarch from power. And could abolish the monarchy entirely. But Parliament would have to take some positive action to do this. It can’t happen by Parliament not acting.

One for this old thread

Government considers removing Andrew from royal line of succession

[hajario]

@Shakester

I’ve said this here before: A lot of Americans just can’t grasp that the whole “divine right of kings” thing ended in Europe long before the USA was a thing. Long before most of Europe were even aware that the Americas existed.

This is an old comment but this is simply not true for all of Europe. My family left Czarist Russia and the Austrian Hungarian Empire the early 20th Century and it was a different situation than Britain.