3 ms·

So does this mean the Queen is still the absolute ruler of some random bits of real estate? I always thought that the Queen was reduced to a figurehead status.

• toyg 11y ago
  UK constitutional affairs are crazy; believe me, I've looked at them at several times. It's a rabbit hole of ad-hoc agreements for little bits of land here and there, acquired or controlled at various points in time by feudal or commercial means, and just maintained as they were or with minimal harmonization. It's the same at all levels, from the smallest of towns to the humongous London (the City or the Metropolitan Authority? it's all a mess...) to Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories, etc etc. You then couple this legal patchwork with Common Law and a formalized-but-not-quite-fully-consistent parliamentary process, evolved day-by-day over several hundred years, and you can understand how very few people at any given time actually know who really should be in charge of this or that. What matters is that the right someone should be considered in charge at the right time on the right matter, correctness be damned. It's an extremely pragmatic stance on Power: it decouples highfalutin declarations of what Power is and where it comes from, in favour of simply making sure that Power exists and can be exercised for everyday purposes by trusted insiders without facing a riot. The current system has been running continuously for more than 300 years (and it's not incredibly different from the one it replaced, which was almost 600 years old at the time). Imagine maintaining a custom backend for 300 years, piling hack over hack because you're never allowed to rewrite it all from scratch. That's what the British system basically is. But going back to your question: of course the Queen is a figurehead, but it's because she decides to be so, as British monarchs have done since the Glorious Revolution. In theory, she (or her heirs) could, at any time, try to force the constitutional compromise, reasserting everyday powers that today are in Parliament hands (the list grows longer every year, as it often happens with elderly rulers)... but there is really no reason for her to do so: she is well looked after, paid handsomely to basically be a 365/24/7 global PR representative for her country, and allowed to own a large amount of wealth and property, some of which she (or rather her heirs) can directly manage and profit from (Duchy of Cornwall etc). Why would you give up all that and precipitate a disastrous conflict and potentially a civil war? For some misplaced pride of power, at 89, after having seen through (and won) the Cold War? So the powers stay there, she just doesn't use them (and would likely be rebuffed if she tried too hard to); she exercises influence were strictly necessary and that's enough to keep everyone happy. It's a bit like owning nuclear weapons without ever using them. This whole setup is also the reason some people still worry about the return of "activist" monarchs. HRH the Prince of Wales at various points tried to wield his unwritten power a bit... ungraciously, stoking these fears, but he seems to have recently accepted that his reign will be too short to really worry about, so we should be ok.