No, as it wouldn’t have become law. If for the purposes of argument we’re positing a situation in which royal assent is being withheld for some reason, then we’re in uncharted waters, and how it would all play out would depend on the circumstances, chief of which would be the strength of public feeling either way (conventionally, as demonstrated in prior election results). Ultimately the system works on consensus between government, opposition and the public as to what’s fair: if that breaks down, then the situation’s up for grabs.
The devil into converting into a republic is in the details. Australia’s attempt to convert foundered on the nature of the replacing presidency.
Except for the U.S., Russia and most Latin American countries, the head of state is a president or monarch and a prime minister runs the government. Given that all that would likely be accomplished in Britain would be a name change, from “king” or “queen” to “president” the people may not be so eager to shed the monarchy.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Furthermore, to my knowledge, the only countries which have peacefully converted from monarchy to republic are the USA, Greece, and Nepal. All others had revolutions or coups. It’s a very difficult thing to attain.
One could quibble about examples… Italy could possibly count, since there was a referendum about it in peacetime. But Greece became a republic under the junta of the colonels if you remember, Nepal had had an extremely bloody meltdown within the royal family - and the USA arose out of a certain period of unpleasantness!
Not entirely relevant to the British situation, since the whole inherited ethos of the monarchy is not to stand in the way of a clear majority in parliament and people, and not to encourage or foment divisions in society. If those divisions arose anyway, they’d be duty bound to try to find a way out of it, rather than take sides (I don’t suppose any of them would want to hang on if enough people take against the institution). The problem would more likely be the fiddly and time-consuming practical consequences as all sorts of inherited mediaeval customs, rights and duties came to light, which might be no more than picturesque nowadays but whose historic and symbolic significance would still have to be sorted out one way or another, which might require legislation, or at least the first couple of Presidents would be continually asking the Prime Minister or anyone who knows “Why are we doing this?”
I’m not sure if the U.S. Revolutionary War counts as a peaceful conversion from monarchy to republic. Technically India and Pakistan had Governor Generals for brief periods after independence and no particular bloodshed marked the conversion to republics. There was, however, plenty of bloodshed over both independence and carving Pakistan out of the former India. I don’t know if the actions of a former colony “counts” though.
How can you be unsure? Roughly one percent of the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies died in that revolution. It was no small war.
There’s no compelling needed. This is what Prince Philip says, and I can’t see any successor, in the foreseeable future, having a contrary view:
I was understating. Obviously the U.S. doesn’t count as a peaceful transition.
My bad. Your point was clear enough on a half-way careful reading.
I agree, also with the part about it not being broken. Constitutional monarchy largely works just fine for Britain. Personally, I like the separation of a largely ceremonial head of state from the active head of government. I feel it (appropriately) exposes the head of government to more withering political opposition and scrutiny, and helps to avoid situations arising like our current “Imperial Presidency.” In general I don’t like the concept of inherited titles, so I wouldn’t want a hereditary constitutional monarchy here, but something like Hamilton’s idea wouldn’t be a terrible one. The rough outlines of his government prototype reportedly included a lifetime elected governor who would have a lot of passive power as head of state but wouldn’t be super involved in day to day governing.
I’m not sure on “most”, that situation doesn’t describe a lot of Asian countries I can think of–Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam, North Korea, South Korea and most of Central Asia’s quasi-democratic, quasi-despotic countries, most of the MENA region etc.
My point about the US was that the decision to become a republic was one made by a free people in a reasoned way - it was that decision that led to a war with a now-foreign power, i.e. Britain. But the decision itself did not cause a civil war within America.
Or maybe I’m being inaccurate.
Eh, it’s probably 6 in one hand, half a dozen in the other sort of situation.
There’s an old saying that in the American Revolution, 1/3rd were Patriots who wanted independence, 1/3rd essentially were neutral and didn’t want to fight about it either way, and another 1/3rd were loyalists to the crown.
While that’s a neat/tidy breakdown, I think more modern scholarship puts loyalist numbers lower–around 15-20%. The number of “Patriots” is probably about right, and then the larger remainder now are people that mostly didn’t want to fight and die over a political/taxation dispute. Remember that for a great many Americans life under the crown wasn’t bad, and the vast majority of the benefit of the revolution, were it to be successful, was going to accrue to wealthy coastal mercantile interests and early industrialists. Farmers and those who made their money on selling any form of raw material abroad really didn’t have too much beef with being part of the British Empire. At least not an economic/taxation beef, obviously some of the most famous American Founding Fathers were farmers who had a pretty big ideological beef with the Westminster Parliament. While a lot of these neutrals did lean towards the ideological arguments the Patriots made, that was a far jump from picking up a musket and facing down redcoats over the matter.
So you could argue that there’s an element of civil war between the Patriots and the Loyalists in the American Revolution. It’s not usually put that way, but you could make such a charge.
Britain granted Fiji independence in 1970.
There have been a series of coups since they became independent.
Which conversely further proves your point.
You are right that there was not exactly a Civil War, although loyalists and revolutionaries did, from time to time, shoot at each other.
But independent Fiji was a monarchy (under Elizabeth II as Queen of Fiji) from 1970 until 1987. It was declared a republic by Sitiveni Rabuka, an army officer who took power in a military coup.
So Fiji can’t really be listed as a country that transitioned from monarchy to republic without a coup, revolution or rebellion.
Nor, really, can the US. I think Malden Cappell’s distinction between the Declaration of Independence and the subsequent Revolutionary War is not really sustainable. The Declaration of Independence was a itself a revolutionary act, and treasonable under the then-prevailing legal and political norms. It was always going to require violence to carry it into effect, and the signatories knew that. The effective establishment of the US as a sovereign republic was achieved through the use of force.
Conversely, Ireland could be offered as an example of a transition from monarchy to republic which did not involve the use of force. The independence of the state involved a war of independence, and a subsequent civil war, but the state had a formally monarchical constitution from 1922. The monarchical elements of the Constitution were dismantled in a piecemeal fashion between 1932 and 1948, and that process was entirely peaceful.
I believe that the majority of the public would side with the military who you would need to quell public unrest The police would be divided on the issue many siding with the public.
This is a can of worms no government dare to open
We have the same problem (we call ours MP’s)
This assumes a sufficient strength of feeling among a sufficient number of people on one side or the other. We simply have no idea about what would be “sufficient” in entirely unpredictable circumstances.
The power of the monarchy is in the support of a people who has lost its faith in parliament
Yes, obviously a parliament that tried to abolish the monarchy in the face of overwhelming public support for the monarchy would find itself in trouble.
If the military and the public support the monarchy, then the parliament is dissolved and a new one is chosen that doesn’t want to abolish the monarchy. The British constitution is presupposed on the notion that alien brain slugs won’t secretly attach themselves to enough MPs who will then vote to sell the country as slaves to the new alien overlords. If it turns out that mind control technology exists then we deal with that. Like, if the American President appears on TV with a brain slug attached to his head, we don’t have to pretend that he doesn’t have a brain slug, we can take action based on that knowledge.
Same thing with Britain. It’s not Parliament that is supreme, it is the people.
Bumped. HM turns 90 today.