If we assume India is in the mix then it has no chance and is a really bad idea. Looking at cricket we see that most decisions are based on what is good for India and not for the entirety of world cricket. So all that would happen is smaller countries with less of a voting block would get shafted.
Or are you saying that India and Tuvalu carry the same voting power?
That would require a constitutional amendment. In Canada, that’s not as easy as it sounds–we’ve had two tries at major constitutional reform (though not nearly as major as you’re suggesting), and each has failed.
Canada (to cite one example), must have a monarch, under its constitution. Politically, and constitutionally, it is a constitutional monarchy. That cannot be changed overnight. See, for example, sections 38 et seq. of Canada’s Charter. I would not be surprised to find that other countries’ constitutions are just as difficult to change.
It is easy to say, “elect your head of state.” It is much less easy to amend the constitution to allow such elections.
If India were to join, its population would exceed the population of all the other countries put together so, assuming parliamentary seats are distributed proportionate to population, MPs representing Indian constituencies would be an absolute majority in Parliament - about 55% of the seats, if every Commonwealth member state were to join this new entity, but more if some did not. The next most populous Commonwealth member state, Pakistan, if it were to joint, would have one-seventh the number of seats that the Indians had, this being the ratio of their respective populations. The UK would have one-twentieth the number of seats that India had; Canada 1/35th; Australia, less than 1/50th.
Obviously, in this scenario, nobody could hope to have any influence in Parliament unless they aligned with one or other of the major Indian parties, and all the political parties from other countries would rush to do so. Unless Indian MPs enjoyed travelling to London for prolonged periods, the Parliament would very soon relocate to New Delhi, and so would the Ministers and, therefore, the ministries and departments of the central government.
Oh, it must be terrible to be a republic like FRance, USA, italy, and all the other unlucky countries that, having no monarch, have no tourist industry whatsoever.
True enough. And perhaps I should clarify: my remarks were directed to (and for) Canada, under its constitutional amending formula; and cannot be extrapolated to other Commonwealth entities. My mistake.
IMHO, and in my memory, Canadian constitutional amendments fail because the requirements of ss. 38 et seq., supra are not met. We’ve seen this twice so far (the Meech Lake and Charlottetown conferences); and those proposals were not nearly as radical as the OP suggests.
It can be done, UDS; you are correct. But whether it will be done is a matter left to Canada and its provinces. This is the type of obstacle that the OP will have to overcome–he seems to be asking independent countries to give up their independence; and especially in the case of federated countries (such as Canada and Australia), seems to think that the provinces/states have no say in the matter. I’m unsure why, and I’d like to know, as I (and others) asked earlier.
To be frank, I think it would be much easier to persuade Canadians to ditch the monarchy than it would to get them to join the political union envisaged in the OP! I can think of arguments for the former but, really, none for the latter.
In all honesty, things haven’t been the same since Pangaea broke up. Can’t we just move all the landmasses back to their rightful places and have done with it?
I think most British people would be remarkably unenthusiastic about this idea. For starters the Empire has a lot of embarrassing history; secondly it wouldn’t be an Empire with Britain solely in charge, it would in effect by a transglobal federation to which Britain would be a subject and not independent, and secondly, the Empire was expensive, dude. No wonder once India was given independence the rest was shaken off.
Even as the fan of Colonialism and the British Empire that I am, the OP’s suggestion just isn’t practical for reasons which have already been outlined by pretty much everyone else in the thread.
What I would like to see, though, is a sort of Schengen Zone-style arrangment within the Anglosphere - basically, any citizen of any of the Western, First World, English-speaking countries (UK, Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, some of the various Caribbean Islands etc) can move to and work in any of the other countries more or less without restriction.
Yeah, but then again people aren’t going to flock to England for its cuisine, women, weather *or *sandy beaches. One makes do with one’s lot :).
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The term you’re looking for is “head of government.”
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Fair enough.
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secondly it wouldn’t be an Empire with Britain solely in charge, it would in effect by a transglobal federation to which Britain would be a subject and not independent
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nod, and we know how badly they dislike these sorts of positions and muck things up when they don’t get their way. Ask the blokes in Brussels
When Martini Enfield doesn’t like the idea, you know it won’t fly. It was you that wanted to reinstate a sort of kinder colonial system, wasn’t it?
I really don’t see the point. The Commonwealth of Nations is united (to an extent) by a common language, to a lesser extent by a common culture, to an even lesser extent by a common system of government, and otherwise by just about nothing else. You might as well create an international federation of states by picking countries at random.
Here’s a novel idea - hold an election for the job.
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Now that’s a different proposal from your original suggestion, of “just letting it go.” The Queen exercises constitutional powers in all of her realms, and it’s therefore not possible simply to “let it go.” There would be a void in government.
Hold an election - sure - but the Queen has a broad range of constitutional powers with respect to Parliament and the executive. She only exercises those powers on the advice of the elected government, because she lacks democratic legitimacy.
But if we switched overnight to a person who was elected in a general election, that person would have considerable democratic legitimacy and could start exercising those powers independently of whoever commands a majority in Parliament. That would be a fundamental change in our constitutional structure, not simply abolishing the monarchy.
Or do you want a ceremonial head of state? If so, a popular election is not the best way to go. But then how do you have an election of some sort?
It’s just too simplistic to say “get rid of the Queen” without devoting considerable thought to the much more important question: “what do you replace her with?”
In Canada, stripping the monarch of all constitutional powers would require a constitutional amendment, consented to by the federal Parliament and all ten provinces. Politically, rather difficult.
And stripping the monarch of those powers still leaves unanswered the question of “who will exercise those powers?” Little things like dissolving Parliament and calling elections, appointing the Prime Minister, appointing judges. Those are all done now at the federal level by the GovGen in the name of the monarch, and at the provincial level by the Lieutenant Governors.
But, the GovGen and the Lt Govs have no independent powers in these areas: if the Crown no longer has those powers, neither would the GovGen and the Lt Govs.
It can be done, though. We did it in Ireland without too much difficulty.
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Sure, but there was strong popular support for it in Ireland, as part of the general independence movement. Getting rid of the ties to the British monarch were an important symbolic step for the Irish in becoming a new, independent nation. That’s not necessarily the case for the Commonwealth Realms, who have already achieved independence while keeping the ties to the Crown.
As well, the Irish were starting afresh, drafting a new constitution. That’s the best time to make decisions about the fundamental structure of one’s government. It’s much harder to make fundamental changes once the constitutional structure has been up and running for decades, or more than a century in some cases.