So, how hard to add a few bathrooms? there is plenty of room in Versailles.
I thought the “upside” of monarchy is that in times of crisis, there is a recognized, legitimate authority to seize the government. I thought Juan Carlos did this in Spain in the early 80’s (my Spanish teacher said so in the 90’s,I have no idea.)
And, presumably, Elizabeth II would withhold the Royal Assent to any totalitarian laws, such as electing MPs for life or instituting one-party rule, e.g.
Oliver Cromwell disagrees. So does Benito Mussolini, if you insist on sticking to the XXth century.
I’m not even sure she actually holds that kind of power over the legislative, but assuming she does for the sake of argument : presumably, yes. She seems like a nice old gal. Can you absolutely, positively assert her successors will be ? Forever ? Why risk it ?
(Also, absence of apparent downside is still no upside ;))
Why risk what? If GB were a republic, they could elect a Nazi majority to Parliament. Under the current monarchy, they could as well. However, under a republic that Nazi govt could abolish other parties and elections, under the monarchy, QEII could prevent such laws from taking effect.
Moreover, what harms has the current British monarch inflicted on the 16 realms she currently reigns over? I can’t think of one.
Spain is a good example of a country which restored constitutional monarchy quite recently. It’s true that on paper Spain was styled a kingdom even under Franco, but in practice the system of government of Franquist Spain was that of a ('republican) dictatorship, not of a monarchy (constitutional or otherwise): The throne, even though it existed theoretically, was vacant; the function of symbolising the unity of the state, which you’d associate with a monarch, was vested in Franco himself, who did not bear a royal title and never claimed to belong to royalty himself. In his later years, he decided to nominate Juan Carlos as his successor and equipped him with the newly created title “Prince of Spain”, but after Franco’s death Juan Carlos decided to confine himself to the role of a figurehead monarch in a parliamanetary democracy, rather than attempt to cling to the dictatorial power which Franco had left him with. He survived an attempted coup d’etat staged by forces opposed to the transition and was a highly respected head of state, both domestically and internationally, until his abdication a few years ago.
That’s a delusion. A totalitarian take over can’t happen in a vaccum. It’s not like some random prime minister could wake one morning and decide to make himself dictator. If such a thing happened, you wouldn’t need the queen. The parliament wouldn’t follow, the army wouldn’t follow, the civil servants wouldn’t follow, the population in general wouldn’t follow.
If it can succeed, it means that the would-be dictator benefits from a widespread support : the people love him and have elected many MP from his own party, civilian and military authorities are agreeable to this change, etc… So, why do you think that the queen statement would have any effect whatsoever? You think that people would realize that dictatorship is bad only when Elizabeth would say so? Or that people supporting a dictatorship would suddenly change their mind because the queen doesn’t agree with them?
If such circumstances arose, the queen would be ignored or deposed.
And if we start with far-fetched scenarios, what if the queen decides to take over and implement an absolute monarchy? Why do you think that the sovereign is necessarily going to be an asset defending democracy rather than a potential liability who might try to put an end to democracy?
Keyword being “the current monarch”.
And risk handing over unilateral, non-vetoable power (of any sort) to an unelected, unremovable person and their progeny. Playing the “lottery of birth”, as a previous poster put it, with the entire country. Such power naturally could be used for good (i.e. preventing Lord Hitler-Thorpewarble-Borroughs* from seizing absoluuute poweeeer), but it could also be used for the opposite - without a legal recourse, or any attention given to the opinion of the people.
The Crown formally holds the power to appoint and dismiss ministers no questions asked (they don’t have to be elected or nothing), declare wars and peaces, summon or dismiss Parliament. Queen Liz is a good Queen because her approach to all of these powers is “pretend you don’t have any, don’t comment on anything, get a new hat”. But you can’t guarantee her successors would, or will, have the same understanding of their role. And the United Kingdom doesn’t actually have a constitution that would prevent a megalomaniac King or Queen from fucking shit up, nor are there any written rules or laws that would prevent Elizabeth from abolishing parties and elections tomorrow if she so wished.
She just won’t because it wouldn’t be polite and might cause a ruckus liable to disturb the Royal Corgis :).
- it’s actually pronounced Sally
France is the role model when I look to stable government after getting rid of a monarchy. You guys are up to, what, the Fifth Republic now? 
This is not true. It is true that British constitutional law is still based on the fiction that many acts are, formally, acts of the monarch. But it is a fiction even in law. It is perfectly clear under the British constitution of today that acts such as appointing or dismissing ministers, even though they are formally performed by the monarch, are subject to the advice of the Prime Minister, and that this advice is binding on the monarch. If Elizabeth II. (or any of her successors) decided to ignore this advice, she wouldn’t merely be acting against a nice rule of courtesy; she’d be understood as acting against constitutional law, because law requires her to follow the advice of the Prime Minister in such matters. This rule is unwritten, since much of the British constitution is unwritten, but it is law nonetheless, and failure to comply would be regarded as unconstitutional by the Bristih public.
There’s also 2 empires, a restoration of the monarchy, and a military dictatorship in between those republics.
The situation is even clearer as far as dissolution of Parliament is concerned. Until a few years ago, dissolving Parliament was within the royal prerogative, but this prerogative was subject to the advice of the Prime Minister. The PM could ask the monarch for a dissolution at any time, and the monarch was bound to follow that advice, so that dissolving Parliament was in substance, even though not in form, the PM’s prerogative. Nowadays, under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, it is very clear that Parliament can only be dissolved under the provisions of that Act, and not otherwise, so in this area the monarch cannot dissolve Parliament even upon the PM’s advice, if that advice is not given under the Act.
It seems that many people are under the assumption that Britain is, on paper, an absolute monarchy, and that it is merely the nicety of the present Queen which prevents her from abusing powers which she could, theoretically and “technically” (a word that invariably pops up in such discussions, without it being clear what it is supposed to mean), do. This is not true. The Queen’s powers are subject to very tight constitutional limits. Britian has a constitution that is uncodified and largely unwritten, but that does not mean it does not have a constitution at all. It is generally understood what that constitution says (grey areas exist, but that’s true for any codified constitution), and it is equally understood that if the monarch were to act against it, he or she would not merely be acting “not nicely”, but in fact illegally. In such a situation, the civil service, the armed forces and the general public would simply refuse to act in line with an unconstitutional act of the monarch.
I’m well aware of that. But absent a written law there’s not much the British public could do, legally and officially speaking, in the event that the British Crown took a more active role in the proceedings (or any other unwritten albeit traditional conventions regulating the workings of the British government), is there ? Besides going “Yer wot ? That’s not cricket !” I mean 
?
Look, all jokes and ribbing aside, I’m not slamming the British system. It evidently works for y’all. But, much like clairobscur, I doubt there being a monarch on top or not has anything to do with the inner workings of British constitutional conventions, or the stability of British government.
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France is the role model when I look to stable government after getting rid of a monarchy. You guys are up to, what, the Fifth Republic now? 
[/QUOTE]
Well one has to shake up fashion, doesn’t one ? Else it all becomes so very stale and full of ennui :D.
[QUOTE=Kobal2]
. And the United Kingdom doesn’t actually have a constitution that would prevent a megalomaniac King or Queen from fucking shit up
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OTOH since the 17th Century Parliament has set a precedent of disposing of a King who’s fucking shit up *too *badly. And the Army and Civil Service know where their paycheques come from.
But yes, as mentioned, a figurehead monarch or president is no guarantee against a dictatorial or lunatic-fringe takeover if the would-be dictator has the masses and/or the forces with him. So their Majesties deny the royal assent to the oppressive or lunatic measures? No prob, the Grand Leader just commands it’s not needed, and maybe that the post of separate Head of State is redundant.
Yeah, the history since the 17th century has established that Parliament can pretty much manage the monarchy any way they wish. If they really wanted to, they could probably even abolish it, but it would create so much upheaval that it’s far better just to keep a tight reign on potential idiocy by the monarch (See Edward VIII). After all, proving they could engineer the deposing of a king the 17th century gave them 60 years of Jacobite unrest to contend with.
But James II’s main fuckup was being Catholic, promoting religious tolerance and producing an heir. As long as the crown was going to pass to a Protestant sibling, they put up with his choice of religion. The prospect of a Catholic dynasty on the throne was something they could not tolerate.
Well, a popular PM, like Hitler, getting his party in to Parliament is certainly a possibility. But having enough popular support to abolish the monarchy is quite debatable. I would equate it with FDR’s court-packing scheme: an attack on constitutional principles that would not have popular support, regardless of the popularity of the politician.
But I think debating what-ifs in the UK is beyond the scope of this thread, and has been done ad nauseam on these boards in the last couple of months.
I am curious, however, if there have been any bills brought forth in France in recent decades to restore the monarchy. I realize they must’ve gone nowhere, but has anyone even tried?
No. Just no. Maybe in some private alternate reality like that Nogero place, but not here.
That’d be political suicide, so no.
Monarchists don’t even have a political party to speak of (as indicated upthread there are a number of tiny ones, but none have reached more than 0.5% of votes in any legislative election) and none have even the one token representative in the Assemblée Nationale.
Roughly speaking and based on a quick googling there seems to be maybe 5-10,000 avowed monarchists in France, total, and that total might include any number of joke/protest votes. They could someday band up and establish a monarchist village somewhere, I suppose :).
Is there anything the American public could do if a President acted unconstitutionally? Besides complaining about the unconstitutionality of his actions, of course, and refusing to comply. The British constitution is not a lesser constitution simply because it is unwritten.
Impeachment.
No, the public cannot impeach, only Congress can (the House brings forward the impeachment and the Senate acts as the trial jury). But for the sake of argument, suppose the President is impeached. He ignores the result of the process and simply keeps going. Now what?