What if Prince William, or Prince Charles, or the two of them together, were to declare that the monarchy would not continue after the death of Queen Elizabeth? Would Parliment step in and say, ‘Fine. The two of you can abdicate, but the throne will then go to Prince Harry.’? And if Harry joins the mutiny, then would it go to whoever is next in line (Prince Andrew?) and so on? Is the fate of the monarchy in the hands of the royal family itself or does the British Parliment ultimately have that authority?
I don’t think that Parliament would want to maintain the monarchy if there were no monarchs who wanted the job. It would probably be a relief to whomever was PM at the time.
Which nicely avoids the question, Bob. 
In answer to the OP, legally the monarch cannot change the constitution (which, while unwritten, is indeed in existence, comprising of both tradition and the effect of various legislative acts over the years) without the consent of Parliament. I leave it to the British members of the message board to cite the relevant acts of Parliament involved, though the concept that the Parliament gets to choose the monarch certainly is enshrined in the Bill of Rights (1689). One might also want to look at the Act of Settlement (1701).
But avoiding the question is probably what the majority of the people in the UK want!
I note that, technically, the monarch cannot even abdicate, as the monarchy exists by law and there is no provision in that law for the monarch to quit (Edward VIII required an Act of Parliament in 1936 to declare that he was no longer king).
If, OTOH, the Mountbatten-Windsors and their near relatives were to say, “Look, guys, leave us out of this head of state thing from now on, OK?”, I greatly doubt that the current government, at least, would spend very much time in trying to change their minds, but rather would shove the Republic Establishment Act of 2000 through Parliament so fast as to make Isaac Newton feel that he was vindicated at last.
His Future Majesty would first have to get permission from us in the Dominion of Canada. Really.
It depends on the world climate.
When other royal houses are falling, it’s a good chance he could kill the throne.
But if there’s a war on, even one in the Falklands, or an action in Kosovo, the public rallies to the Crown in GB like the US public does to the flag. (The anthem is God Save the King/Queen, not I pledge allegiance to the flag, after all.)
So the equivalent of U.S. flag-burning would be…
Bill
…Burning the Union flag… or maybe the Royal Standard (not my local pub in Brighton of course…) which stands for the Monarch…
But why would they want to abolish the monarchy? (Apart the publicity and pressures of state…)
OK, I answered my own question…
Burning the home strip of, say, Aresenal? 
Three points:
First, if the monarch refuses to perform his duties, that is grounds for Parliament to change the line of succession, as happened in 1688-89, with James II and William & Mary.
The Convention Parliament in that case declared the throne vacant and invited William and Mary to become joint monarchs.
Second point:
That’s only to change the succession to the Crown of Canada. Each Commonwealth country can decide for themselves if they want to be a monarchy, with the British monarch as their head of state. If Britain decides to become a republic, that wouldn’t change the constitutions of the Commonwealth countries that are monarchies. The monarch could follow the example of so many other Brits and emigrate to Canada, or Oz, or New Zealand, and take up the family business in the new country.
Third point: Charles won’t be King of England, since that position hasn’t existed for three centuries. William III was the last King of England, and Anne was the last Queen of England. In 1707, upon the union of England and Scotland, Anne’s title changed to Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and all of the subsequent monarchs have held variations on that title.
For example, Queen Elizabeth’s formal title for UK purposes is “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the Untied Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.” (Announced by proclamation, May 28, 1953: Halsbury’s Laws of England, Vol 8 (4th ed., 1974), para. 870.)
Her royal style for Canada is: “Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.” (Royal Style and Titles Act, Revised Statutes of Canada 1985, c. R-12.)
There would be similar slight variations in royal style in the different Commonwealth countries that are monarchies.
Nope, it’s UK Law:
Statute of Westminster, 1931 (Part of the preamble):
…
And whereas it is meet and proper to set out by way of preamble to this Act that, inasmuch as the Crown is the symbol of the free association of the members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and as they are united by a common allegiance to the Crown, it would be in accord with the established constitutional position of all the members of the Commonwealth in relation to one another that any alteration in the law touching the Succession to the Throne or the Royal Style and Titles shall hereafter require the assent as well of the Parliaments of all the Dominions as of the Parliament of the United Kingdom:
…
aarrgh!
For “Untied Kingdom” read “United Kingdom.” (Notwithstanding the best efforts of various Irish, Scots, and Welsh nationalists.)
Ah, I thought you were talking about section 41(a) of the Constitution Act, 1982, since you only mentioned Canada.
I think we have to distinguish between a change to the succession, and Britain becoming a republic. The Statute of Westminster wouldn’t prevent Britain from becoming a republic, which is what I took the original post to mean. Britain could become a republic and still recognize the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth, just like the other republics in the Commonwealth. They wouldn’t need the consent of the other Commonwealth countries to do that, since it would not change the succssion.
I would agree that under the Statute of Westminster Britain could not change the succssion uniltaterally. That would require the consent, not just of Canada, but of the other Commonwealth countries as well. However, what’s stopping the U.K. Parliament from repealing the Statute of Westminster, to the extent it applies to Britain, and then changing the succession?
Bearing in mind as well that the passage of the Statute of Westminster that deals with this point is the preamble, which states the constitutional convention of joint Commonwealth action, but is not itself the operative part of the law. It’s arguable that the preamble has no binding effect, certainly not against the supremacy of the U.K. Parliament.
I find that jti’s argument that becoming a republic does not change succession to have some merit, but I’d rather be on the other side of the issue. After all, as a generality, if the abolishment of an institution does cannot be considered to affect that institution, what can?
The use of the word “touching” in the SoW, “…alteration in the law touching the Succession…” suggests a very low threshold for requiring Commonwealth consent.
I think that in the above discussion, we are not really talking about the Commonwealth, as Commonwealth just doesn’t have the propersites of a state.
jti’s argument that the SoW could simply be repealed (at least within the UK) to be more interesting. Can any legal types out there explain why this couldn’t be done?
wrt the last post, there is simply no reason that a preamble cannot have binding force. There is plenty of precedent supporting this point. Besides, in “…shall hereafter require the assent…”, “shall” suggests that the preamble has prescriptive force, and “hereafter” suggests that the preamble will cause some legal consequence.
WARNING - Long Post Ahead!
Lord Denning, you raise several points. I’ll try to deal with them as best I can. As a starting point, I agree with you that the Commonwealth is not itself a state. Rather it is made up of a variety of states, each with their own constitution.
I guess the next thing I would say is that the monarchy is part of the constitutions of several different countries: the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and various Caribbean countries. Each of those countries, including the U.K. itself, decides for itself if it wishes to be a constitutional monarchy or a republic.
If one of them changes from monarchy to republic, that does not change the status of the monarchy, including the succession, in the other countries that are monarchies - the monarch continues to be the head of state of those countries. For example, if Australia had decided last year to become a republic, that would only have changed the Queen’s status in Australia - it would not have affected her status in the other constitutional monarchies of the Commonwealth. Australia’s decision to go republican would not abolish the institution of the monarchy for the other countries - the monarchy would continue to exist for them. (and also for Australia, in the more limited sense of the Queen as head of the Commonwealth, if Australia wished to remain in the Commonwealth.)
The next thing is that one of the basic principles of the modern Commonwealth is that all the member countries are equals. The U.K. has no more power in the Commonwealth than any of the other countries. So, just like other members of the Commonwealth, if the U.K. changed its constitution and became a republic, that would be a change to Britain’s domestic law. It would not affect Elizabeth’s constitutional status in the other Commonwealth countries that are monarchies. All that would happen is that that Elizabeth would cease to be the head of state of Britain. She would continue as head of state of Canada, Australia, and so on, unless those countries in turn amended their constitutions to be republics as well. (I admit that the idea of Canada keeping the monarchy while Britain goes republican is odd, but bear in mind that we need unanimous consent of the Canadian Parliament and all the provincial Legsialtures to abolish the monarchy, while Britain just needs a simple Act of Parliament.)
So, I continue to maintain that even if Britain became a republic, that would not abolish the monarchy in the other constitutional monarchies of the Commonwealth. The monarchy (and the rules governing its succession) would continue to apply in those countries, even though Britain had become a republic.
(Another way to express this same point is that the British Parliament no longer has the power to legislate for the other Commonwealth countries - see the Canada Act 1982, s. 2, for example. So Britain cannot do anything to abolish the monarchy in Canada, as that would be applying British laws to Canada.)
Now, turning to the Statute of Westminster, there are four points I would make. First, the Statute was the result of the Commonwealth Conference of 1926, which recognized that all of the Dominions were equals. The conference stated that as a constitutional convention of the Commonwealth, the British Parliament would only legislate for a Commonwealth country if that country asked the British Parliament to do so. Since the Crown was part of the domestic constitutions of each of those countries, a corollary of that convention was that Britain could not change the succession without the agreement of all those countries.
The second point about the Statute is that the Preamble refers to that constitutional convention, as an authoritative statement of the convention. However, conventions are not part of the statute law, which is why the reference to the convention is in the Preamble, not the body of the statute. (And, it’s a general principle of statutory intepretation in the Anglo-Canadian systems that preambles are simply aids to interpreting the statute, but do not themselves have binding force of law.)
The third point is that it’s now questionable whether the convention stated in the Preamble continues to be true today. The reason for the convention was that the British parliament should not legislate for other Commonwealth countries without their consent. Now that the British Parliament no longer has the legal power to legislate for the other countries, it may be that the basic rationale for the convention is gone.
Finally, it’s a general principle that the British Parliament can repeal any act that it has enacted. It could repeal the Statute of Westminster, but that repeal would only be effective for its own domestic purposes. For example, the Statute is part of the Constitution of Canada (see s. 52(2)(b) of the Constitution Act, 1982, and item 17 of the Schedule to that Act.) Repeal of the Statute by the British Parliament would not affect its force of law in Canada.
Apologies for the extremely long post, but you asked some questions that take lengthy answers.
Akatsukami, I’m not sure that this is correct. It appears to conflict with the passage from Halsbury’s Laws of England, which I quoted earlier on, about a failure to perform the regal duties. It also seems unusual to me that a monarch who does not wish to be king/queen could be forced to do it unless Parliament let him/her off the hook.
I went back to Halsbury’s to check this point, but didn’t find anything definitive one way or the other. So I dug out His Majesty’s Declaration of Abdication Act, 1936 (U.K.), 1 Edw. VIII & 1 Geo. VI, c. 3, to see if it casts any light on the issue.
My impression reading the Act is that its purpose was not simply to authorise the abdication, but rather to clarify the legal implications, since this was arguably the first voluntary abdication in English/U.K. history. (We can debate James II & VII if you wish!)
The Act provides as follows:
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It gives a definite date for the abdication to take effect, namely the date of royal assent to the Act, which was December 11, 1936.
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It declares that upon the Act taking effect, there is deemed to be a “demise of the Crown,” a technical term for the death of a monarch which triggers various legal and constitutional consequences.
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It declares that upon the demise of the Crown, the Crown passes to the member of the Royal family next in line, namely Prince Albert, who became George VI.
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It changes the succession, by providing that none of Edward’s issue (if any) will be eligible for succession to the Crown. This was an extremely important point, since one of the other abdications (albeit forced) was that of Edward II, who was succeeded by his son, Edward III. In that case, abdication did not affect the right of the issue to take the throne. (I freely admit that the circumstances were very different, but on such an important point, one can understand the British government’s concern to avoid any ambiguity.) Similarly, at common law, issue born after the death of the father can inherit, so equating the abdication to a “demise of the Crown,” by itself would leave open the question of what would have happened if the Duke and Duchess had had a happy event 9 months after the abdication.
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The Act provided that after it came into force, the Royal Marriages Act (U.K.), 12 Geo. III, c. 11, would not apply to the Duke or any of his issue, if any. This amended the law with respect to the Duke, to ensure that neither he nor any of his issue would need the current monarch’s permission to marry.
Overall, I read the Act as clarifying the legal effect of the abdication. Once King Edward had solemnly indicated his desire to abdicate, in his Instrument of Abdication dated December 10, 1936, Parliament took the necessary steps to implement it and resolve any constitutional ambiguities which could have resulted.
Lord Denning, looking at the Abdication Act also gives some support for my argument that the Statute of Westminster is not binding on subsequent British Parliaments, as a matter of law. The Abdication Act is the only act since the Statute which changes the line of succession, and it did not follow the strict requirements of the Statute.
Section 4 of the Statute provides:
[My emphasis]
Yet, the Abdication Act does not follow this formal requirment, as shown by the preamble to the Act:
[My emphasis]
The Abdication Act only expressly declares that Canada has requested and consented; for the other three Dominions, it just states that they have assented to the Act. Technically, this does not comply with the Statute’s requirement that a Dominion must both request and consent to an Act of the British Parliament before it will apply to that Dominion. However, there is no doubt that the British Parliament had the authority to take a somewhat different course in enacting the Abdication Act in the form that it took, nor that the Act was binding on all of the Dominions.
(All of which leaves open the reason why Canada “requested and consented” and the other three dominions merely “assented.” Was it just timing - with the communications available, were they unable to get a formal request from the Dominions in time? Were those three Dominions unwilling to see a change in the succession, and only gave a grudging consent?)