I’m watching Netflix’s The Crown about the time period where Queen Elizabeth first became the Queen after her father died.
It seems that despite the Monarchy having very little legal power to run the country, the Queen is still treated with great deference by British politicians, including the Prime Minister.
In the show, the King is approached by another politician to ask Winston Churchill to step down as Prime Minister. In a later episode, Winston Churchill is worried that the Queen might do the same thing after he had a stroke.
How much does the Queen’s opinion actually matter when it comes to running the British Government? Can she call up Theresa May and tell her she needs to step aside because she’s not up to snuff? Can she tell the PM about her ideas for a new tax policy?
Is the Queen just a glorified tourist attraction or does she have power in the government?
I believe the saying is, the Queen has “the power to advise, the power to be consulted, and the power to warn.” Technically, all acts passed by Parliament must receive her approval (the “Royal Assent”), but this is just a formality; if I heard correctly, the monarch has not had veto power since something like 1700.
I think George the second of revolutionary war fame was the English last king to have any real power …
But I know monarchs as recently as Victoria had some because allegedly when the bill that made homosexuality illegal in the British empire she had to 1 have it explained what homosexuality was and 2 took all female references out of the bill before signing it
Queen Anne was the last to use the veto power - in 1708, and it was on ministerial advice against the will of parliament - but the power still technically exists.
George V was involved in the events surrounding the passing of the Parliament Act of 1911 that limited the power of the House of Lords - basically he said he would agree to create enough Liberal peers to ensure that the Act passed through both Houses. That’s probably the last significant intervention a monarch has made in domestic UK politics, although George tried to resolve some issues around the Government of Ireland Act a few years later, to no great effect.
These days, politically speaking, the value of the monarch is that the Prime Minister has someone to talk to that isn’t after their job, and in the case of QEII, someone who has been copied in in all Cabinet papers for over 60 years. Prince Charles has also been copied in for decades, and no doubt William will be/is being too. Young George only gets any potato prints and finger paintings that Cabinet generates, and there’s not too many of them, alas.
This is a common myth. It’s one of those things that a lot of people know to be true, but it’s not actually true.
There are actually two versions of the myth going around. The first is that Victoria refused to sign it because she refused to believe that women did such things. A less common version is that Henry Labouchere, the man who drafted this amendment, was afraid to explain to Victoria what lesbianism was and so just avoided it entirely. Both of these stories are modern inventions.
It is true that the law only applies to men. According to wikipedia, this is the text of the Labouchere amendment:
While there’s some dispute among historians as to why the law only applies to men, one thing that historians pretty much agree on is that Victoria had no influence on it one way or the other.
Historians also point out that Royal Assent was, by that time, just a formality.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 really settled the question of how much executive power the King/Queen of the UK has: none.
While the other question - how much influence the monarch has - is a little more debatable, when it comes down to the question of who has the actual power, it’s parliament.
He was following precedent - in 1832 William IV was also confronted with a Parliament hotly divided over its own reform, and agreed that since an election under the old rules had returned a majority for a government committed to the Reform Bill, he had to agree to create enough peers to force it through the Lords. And the Duke of Wellington would just have to put up with it.
The point about this sort of issue is that any influence the monarchy has is used towards whatever is likely to create a consensus. Sometimes that will be towards major change as in those examples, but sometimes it will be towards the status quo - George may have had some influence in encouraging the formation of the all-party (but Tory-dominated) National government when the minority Labour government split in 1931 over the question of cutting government expenditure to maintain confidence in the currency.
The monarch is kept pretty busy signing things and going through the “sanctifying” motions of formally approving legislation, assorted public appointments, meeting and greeting other heads of state, ambassadors, and senior appointees in the law, armed forces, the Church of England, and generally lending a presence at state and community events. She sees the Prime Minister once a week for an entirely private chat, which isn’t minuted; but by all accounts that tends to be a matter of lending a sympathetic ear to whatever seems to be the current problem, and maybe after all those decades of dealing with peculiar foreign leaders and the like she might have some useful insights to offer. She’s about the one person a PM can chew the fat with, without having to worry if she’s got an axe to grind or any temptation to leak information to the media.
I suppose they all have their own individual styles (the weekly audience with the PM is a fairly recent innovation), but (again, by all accounts - Peter Hennessy has written an interesting and readable book or two on this sort of topic) this monarch is more likely to leave potentially controversial matters (as in, “Careful, or you’ll drag me into your mess!”) to seemingly indirect suggestions from her Private Secretary to the Prime Minister’s: that leaves no fingerprints. And by all accounts such interventions tend to be about protecting her position from controversy, rather than waking up one morning and saying “I know! Let’s bomb Ruritania!”.
Indirection and influence are the names of the game. I recall one occasion - I may have mentioned it here - where the government of the day was about to embark on some hugely stupid financial move, so she ‘invited’ the Governor of the Bank of England to lunch to explain it to her. The backtracking from Downing Street was immediate.
But Brenda only has the influence because of the respect she has gained over the years. A stupid or foolish monarch would have little influence.
No, that’s not correct. The Revolution established that Parliament had the ultimate authority, but William III exercised considerable executive power, particularly in the choice of his ministers and in foreign affairs/military matters.
The decline of the monarch’s actual executive authority and the establishment of Cabinet government took most of the 18th century.
As I understand it Parliament has the authority to change the constitution to eliminate the monarchy. So if a monarch fails to wield popular opinion, by irking the Parliament they risk losing their job.
I guess the point is the monarch hasn’t had to wield (or try) power for a very long time. The country has been stable, even in wartime.
Heaven forbid but if somehow a political party became led by a narcissist businessman and that party got elected to lead the country, the Head of State (the monarch) becomes a potential rallying point for sanity and thus a constitutional crisis could unfold.
Arguably, the closest the country came to that was during the Irish independence crisis around 1916.
Otherwise, the monarch sits tight and opens fetes.
Doesn’t the Queen (or rather, the current monarch) have the power to dissolve the Parliament?
I’ve always understood that the Queen has more responsibilities than power, but that the power to dissolve the Parliament was a pretty strong one, even if seldom – if ever – used.
This powe is exercised on the advice of the Prime Minister. She can’t, constitutionally, do it off her own bat.
There’s a not-quite-resolved question over whether the Queen can refuse a dissolution to a Prime Minister who has lost the confidence of Parliament, and asks for a dissolution. If the monarch thinks that there is another possible Prime Minister who could command the confidence of the House, can she refuse to dissolve Parliament and instead send for this other bloke and invite him to try to form a government?
The question is unlikely to arise in practice. Since the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011, there are limited circumstances in which a Prime Minister can request an early dissolution. As Parliament, by passing that Act, has indicated it’s view that these are circumstances in which a dissolution is appropriate, it seems very unlikely that the monarch would think it proper to refuse one.
Yes, and she does so when advised by her government.
Were the monarch to dissolve parliament without the assent of her government there’d be a new monarch pdq.
May not apply to the UK monarch but the Australian Governor General’s (and State Governors) first option on receiving advise from their Prime Minister (Premier) is to determine whether there is another leader within the current parliament who can command a majority and guarantee Supply rather than issue writs for elections to form a new parliament. This has been the practice since Federation and for States before then.
When the PM tenders their resignation they also advise the GG whether there is an alternative PM or to call an election. The GG is not bound by that advise and may act on it, seek a third party not advised, or issue writs for an election if not assured that the alternative PM can command a majority.
There are precedents in the various state Parliaments for all these instances, but they are uncommon and most have been resolved either in the House or in Cabinet before the GG is approached.