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Parliament is sovereign. Consequently, the Queen has exactly as much power as Parliment allows. Sure, the Queen could decide to exercise her power outside of t

Parliament is sovereign. Consequently, the Queen has exactly as much power as Parliment allows. Sure, the Queen could decide to exercise her power outside of the constrained ways she currently does, but the very likely effect of that is a vote to strip her of her power.

gowld 6y ago
This is exactly what the article is about.
- meepmorp 6y ago
  I'm reacting to the central conceit of the piece, that this process of royal consent is somehow undemocratic. This is the system of government that the people of Britain have chosen, and the impact of the queen is exclusively a political problem. If there was a serious difference between the will of Parliament (Commons) and the Queen, the result is a foregone conclusion.
  - Silhouette 6y ago
    This is the system of government that the people of Britain have chosen There is surprisingly little basis for arguing that the people of the UK have ever chosen almost anything important about our current system of government. That system is largely based on historical conventions, often dating back centuries and in some cases to the outcomes of civil war, and the status quo has several built-in feedback loops that make it difficult to change even with widespread popular support. The constitution of the UK is a fascinating subject, but it can also be rather uncomfortable subject matter to study if you believe in ideas like democracy and civil liberties.
  - throwaway2245 6y ago
    > the system of government that the people of Britain have chosen As a "person of Britain", I have certainly never had any say in the system of government.
  - roelschroeven 6y ago
    How so? According to the article the Queen can simply veto any law that would restrict her power to veto.
    - meepmorp 6y ago
      Parliament is sovereign, including over the monarchy. She categorically cannot overrule any legislation without being granted the power to do so by parliament, who can revoke that power at will. There was a whole civil war and other crazy shit to figure it out, but the monarch hasn't had that kind of authority since the end of the 17th century. The article is actually making a big deal about the fact that the queen expressed an opinion about legislation in an area that the author decided wasn't covered by the vague wording of a pamphlet.
Silhouette 6y ago
Parliament is sovereign. This is always a fun start to any argument about the constitution of the UK. The thing is, you're building on a foundation that could potentially be challenged. As we discovered during the Brexit debates, people are happy to use words like "parliamentary sovereignty" when it suits their purposes, yet clearly many of them have never actually read Dicey, much less understood its entire argument or what the resulting concept of parliamentary sovereignty really means. And of course Dicey himself was not empowered with any special authority, but rather assembled a rational argument based primarily on historical precedent, which has subsequently been broadly accepted by figures in authority in the UK but is still, like everything else about our constitution, more a matter of convention than clear popular mandate. Perhaps more importantly, if Parliament really is constitutionally sovereign, in the sense that its rules are supreme over all others and nothing a current parliament does can ever bind a future parliament, then we can never improve our system of government by adopting a formal written constitution, even if doing so would have overwhelming public support at the time. If you're going to make any argument about improving the constitution, starting from a foundation that necessarily precludes the single most important improvement that could be made might not be the best idea.
- retrac 6y ago
  For what it's worth, Canada somehow managed the trick. That is to say, through an act of the British Parliament, the Canadian legislature became a sovereign legislature, bound by a written constitution. Basically, the UK Parliament passed a law delegating all of its powers to the Canadian legislature and declared it would never debate or pass a law again on the Canada question. Nothing actually stops them from doing so. But after 150 years of holding to this convention, it may as well be written in stone. One can imagine the UK Parliament delegating its powers to successor entities and then essentially abolishing itself to a purely ceremonial function. Give it some time, and everyone gets used to it and that's the new system. Just ramp up devolution, basically. For what it's worth, Parliamentary sovereignty is also an idea in the Canadian constitutional system, where it's taken to mean that the legislatures have absolute authority within their areas of jurisdiction, and that collectively the legislatures also have the authority to rewrite the constitution. (As an aside, "What would happen if the British Parliament did repeal the British North America Act 1867 or Canada Act 1982?" is a rather fun hypothetical from the Canadian side.)
twoslide 6y ago
I think we've heard enough about sovereignity in the UK recently to recognize that it is sovereignity is always contingent and somewhat ambiguous.

gowld 6y ago

This is exactly what the article is about.

meepmorp 6y ago
I'm reacting to the central conceit of the piece, that this process of royal consent is somehow undemocratic. This is the system of government that the people of Britain have chosen, and the impact of the queen is exclusively a political problem. If there was a serious difference between the will of Parliament (Commons) and the Queen, the result is a foregone conclusion.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  This is the system of government that the people of Britain have chosen There is surprisingly little basis for arguing that the people of the UK have ever chosen almost anything important about our current system of government. That system is largely based on historical conventions, often dating back centuries and in some cases to the outcomes of civil war, and the status quo has several built-in feedback loops that make it difficult to change even with widespread popular support. The constitution of the UK is a fascinating subject, but it can also be rather uncomfortable subject matter to study if you believe in ideas like democracy and civil liberties.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  > the system of government that the people of Britain have chosen As a "person of Britain", I have certainly never had any say in the system of government.
- roelschroeven 6y ago
  How so? According to the article the Queen can simply veto any law that would restrict her power to veto.
  - meepmorp 6y ago
    Parliament is sovereign, including over the monarchy. She categorically cannot overrule any legislation without being granted the power to do so by parliament, who can revoke that power at will. There was a whole civil war and other crazy shit to figure it out, but the monarch hasn't had that kind of authority since the end of the 17th century. The article is actually making a big deal about the fact that the queen expressed an opinion about legislation in an area that the author decided wasn't covered by the vague wording of a pamphlet.

Silhouette 6y ago

Parliament is sovereign. This is always a fun start to any argument about the constitution of the UK. The thing is, you're building on a foundation that could potentially be challenged. As we discovered during the Brexit debates, people are happy to use words like "parliamentary sovereignty" when it suits their purposes, yet clearly many of them have never actually read Dicey, much less understood its entire argument or what the resulting concept of parliamentary sovereignty really means. And of course Dicey himself was not empowered with any special authority, but rather assembled a rational argument based primarily on historical precedent, which has subsequently been broadly accepted by figures in authority in the UK but is still, like everything else about our constitution, more a matter of convention than clear popular mandate. Perhaps more importantly, if Parliament really is constitutionally sovereign, in the sense that its rules are supreme over all others and nothing a current parliament does can ever bind a future parliament, then we can never improve our system of government by adopting a formal written constitution, even if doing so would have overwhelming public support at the time. If you're going to make any argument about improving the constitution, starting from a foundation that necessarily precludes the single most important improvement that could be made might not be the best idea.

retrac 6y ago
For what it's worth, Canada somehow managed the trick. That is to say, through an act of the British Parliament, the Canadian legislature became a sovereign legislature, bound by a written constitution. Basically, the UK Parliament passed a law delegating all of its powers to the Canadian legislature and declared it would never debate or pass a law again on the Canada question. Nothing actually stops them from doing so. But after 150 years of holding to this convention, it may as well be written in stone. One can imagine the UK Parliament delegating its powers to successor entities and then essentially abolishing itself to a purely ceremonial function. Give it some time, and everyone gets used to it and that's the new system. Just ramp up devolution, basically. For what it's worth, Parliamentary sovereignty is also an idea in the Canadian constitutional system, where it's taken to mean that the legislatures have absolute authority within their areas of jurisdiction, and that collectively the legislatures also have the authority to rewrite the constitution. (As an aside, "What would happen if the British Parliament did repeal the British North America Act 1867 or Canada Act 1982?" is a rather fun hypothetical from the Canadian side.)

twoslide 6y ago

I think we've heard enough about sovereignity in the UK recently to recognize that it is sovereignity is always contingent and somewhat ambiguous.