Smells like the aftermath of a cattle drive in here.
I’m sure people have diverse views about the monarchy in the UK, but… as an outsider, it’s probably NOT a good idea to go to a pub in Bristol and loudly announce in an American accent that you’re against the monarchy and are tired of seeing the worlds “royal” and “imperial” everywhere… (well, it could be amusing when the police have to come rescue you)
Knock it off.
Whatever your opinion on the topic, your persistently obnoxious comments about other posts are not needed. Take it to The BBQ Pit or just stop reading the thread.
[ /Moderating ]
Honestly, I think it would mostly bemuse people. You might get challenged on facts: “royal” and “imperial” everywhere? You might be ignored. You could get bought a drink. Somebody may think it funny to say “Yankee go home”. Chance of police involvement: about as great as your chance of getting laid for saying it.
I’ve had some lively arguments about the monarchy. These days though I don’t bother. Nothing is going to change while Liz is still alive (unless she really is a lizard and undergoes an unfortunate transformation during a live broadcast) so there isn’t much mileage in being an active republican right now.
The only time I have ever known people to be aggressively pro monarchist they have been current or former members of the armed forces who have sworn their oaths to defend Queen and Country. Lust4Life, is that you?
If an American’s tired of seeing the words “royal” and “imperial” everywhere, he might consider never returning to the United States. Those two words seem to be rather popular for all kinds of businesses.
No. Just as in the UK, the monarch in the Commonwealth realms is subject to the Parliament.
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it’s hard to see why Canada, Australia etc would want to keep it. Even so, they’d likely have to re-jig the idea of governor generals with no UK-based monarch. You’d also have all the Royal infrastructure in the UK disassembled which could have a knock-on effect.
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The difficulty is in figuring out what to replace it with, as Australia discovered when they had a referendum on going republican. Plus, in Canada, you would need unanimous consent from the federal government and all the provinces. Even if the UK gets rid of the monarchy, it doesn’t follow automatically that it’s politically easy to do the same in the other realms.
But even if the UK were to abolish the monarchy, as Lord Feldon points out, that doesn’t mean that the monarchy is abolished in the other realms. There would still be a monarch for Canadian purposes, and if practice, there’s not much that the Queen of Canada needs to do - mainly appoint a new Governor General every five years or so. No need to re-jig the role of the GovGen - which would be difficult to do in any event, since it also would required unanimous consent.
Unless the Queen moved to Canada as Her new base of operations…technically when the monarch is present in a Realm the Governor-General is unnecessary, as he is the Queen’s representative in absentia.
Only in a colloquial sense I mean, Her Majesty is ‘the sovereign’ even if parliament is sovereign. It’s hard to imagine what the monarch could do in order to get parliament to abolish it in the U.K. where we have a huge vested interest in keeping hold of it (as mentioned above), more than the realms what with Royal institutions stretching back centuries and all that nice tourist income. In many ways, the monarchy would have to work a lot harder to get itself abolished in the U.K. as opposed to the realms (the Aussie referendum being an example, such a thing would be unthinkable here).
It follows that if they have so annoyed even the mother country the realms wouldn’t be too keen on keeping hold of a vestige. As for the GovGen, it depends what the hypothetical U.K. republic does and how the former British monarch acts - will they stay in the U.K. which has shunned them? Will they even be allowed to keep hold of the Royal estates? If the monarchy ups and displaces to Canada, the GovGen becomes pointless, as there’s not such post in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
While this difficulty exists in some degree, the Australian referendum doesn’t give any real insight into whether such a difficulty is very significant.
The referendum did not give voters a chance to indicate what model of replacement they would prefer. Voters were only given a choice between (a) no republic or (b) a particular (unpopular) model of republic.
John Howard, the Australian PM at the time, is a staunch monarchist. It is widely assumed that he deliberately stacked the referendum by tying a yes vote to an unpopular model, so as to split and diminish the republican vote.
If the referendum had simply asked whether people wanted a republic or not, and (if yes) there had then been a second referendum on which model of republic there was to be, the choice of model may well not have been a problem at all.
Although, if I were Australian, I would be a bit miffed if I voted yes to a republic but found the options offered in the second referendum were worse to me than the monarchy, and I don’t have a vote to go back to that.
I’d have preferred knowing the options up front.
No, it depends on the constitutional structure of the particular country. There is a difference between a Viceroy and a governor-general. A viceroy is, as you suggest, a deputy of the Crown who gets all his/her powers from the Crown, and therefore if the monarch is in the country, the Viceroy’s powers are on hold. But a governor-general is a constitutional office, and it depends on the powers that the Constitution gives to the Governor-General - it may well be that the monarch cannot exercise those powers directly, even if physically present in the country. For an example of the difference, consider the Viceroy of India: he was both Viceroy and Governor-General. He excercised the Crown’s powers as Viceroy over those parts of India which were under British sovereignty, but ruled under the prerogative. He was GovGen for those parts of India which were governed under the statutory powers set out in the Government of India Acts.
If the GovernorGeneral in a particular country is given a power that the monarch did not have at common law or under the prerogative, then there is a good argument that only the GovGen can exercise that power.
Alternatively, if the Constitution of the country clearly differentiates between powers of the Crown and powers of the GovGen, it may be that the Crown cannot exercise those powers assigned to the GovGen.
Sure, but that supports the other part of my comments: that there is no guarantee that it will be politically easy to abolish the monarchy in a Commonwealth realm.