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There's a book called Who Owns the World? by Kevin Cahill. I haven't read it (I read his earlier Who Owns Britain?) though I did hear him talking about it on th

There's a book called Who Owns the World? by Kevin Cahill. I haven't read it (I read his earlier Who Owns Britain?) though I did hear him talking about it on the radio a while back, and he said that the only place in the world he'd found where you really could own your own land, was America. The Queen, technically, owns all of the UK, Canada, and Australia. She is or was also the largest or one of the largest landowners in Manhattan. I could be wrong in my recollections, I really should read the book. The one about Britain certainly was fascinating. Still, on the law in question, I wouldn't be surprised if the (common) law upholds the right simply because it's never been challenged or re-legislated.

zarzavat 5y ago
Somewhat of a nit but it's important. The Queen does not own all of the UK. She owns specific estates, such as Balmoral Castle. Then there is the land that is in the direct possession of the "Crown". The "Crown" is just a technical legal word which means the British State, stemming from times of absolute monarchy when the State and the Monarch were one and the same. But that has been abolished over the centuries and only this vestige remains. An example of land owned by the Crown/State would be Buckingham Palace or the White House. Lastly there is private land. This is not owned by the Queen nor is it owned by the State. Yes the law provides that the State can take back land into its possession but this right exists in both the US and UK. In the UK it is called compulsory purchase and in the US it is called eminent domain. The main practical difference is that the US has a constitutional right of privacy whereas the UK does not. The British Parliament is unrestricted in what it can take from you but the Queen cannot simply saunter onto your land and start playing croquet.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The Queen does not own all of the UK. That depends on what you mean by “own”, and “the Queen”. The Crown, that is, the monarch in official capacity, holds ultimate title to most land in the UK (IIRC, the exceptions are some parts of the Orkney and Shetland Islands), but exercises the rights associated with that title, like many other rights and powers, on the advice of the government ministers (and in practice through government officers), rather than unilaterally, at risk of Constitutional crisis. The monarch, as a corporation sole, owns the Crown Estate, in something more like private ownership, but for quite some time the rights of ownership of the Crown Estate have been exercised by a government-appointed body, with the monarch personally receiving a share of the proceeds and being relieved of the burden of funding government operations, for which they were previously responsible. The monarch also has private estates, which are owned so what like typical private holdings, except the usual expectation of neutrality on legislation does not apply where legislation impacts the private estates, and so the monarch has an effective and quietly exercised veto on legislation to the extent that it impacts those estates.
  - zarzavat 5y ago
    The trend throughout history, starting with the Magna Carta and most recently the Supreme Court case on prorogation, has been the slow but sure loss of the monarch's personal powers and the transfer of those powers to democratic bodies either parliament or the executive. One of the arguments in Miller II was that the monarch cannot be allocated any discretion to refuse a minister's order, because if she possessed that discretion then it would jeopardise her position as a politically neutral head of state. It is not that the monarch chooses to exercise powers on the advice of her ministers in fear of causing a constitutional crisis, but that her powers can only be lawfully exercised at ministers' direction. As far as the monarch's veto on legislation affecting her (Queen's consent), this is not a legal power of the monarch but rather a privilege granted to the monarch by parliament. If parliament decided to rescind that privilege it could do so. It's important to distinguish between language which describes the monarch from a symbolic point of view, and the actual constitutional reality. Symbolically the monarch is the personal manifestation of the state, but legally she is not much more than a rubber stamp for our democratic institutions.

zarzavat 5y ago

Somewhat of a nit but it's important. The Queen does not own all of the UK. She owns specific estates, such as Balmoral Castle. Then there is the land that is in the direct possession of the "Crown". The "Crown" is just a technical legal word which means the British State, stemming from times of absolute monarchy when the State and the Monarch were one and the same. But that has been abolished over the centuries and only this vestige remains. An example of land owned by the Crown/State would be Buckingham Palace or the White House. Lastly there is private land. This is not owned by the Queen nor is it owned by the State. Yes the law provides that the State can take back land into its possession but this right exists in both the US and UK. In the UK it is called compulsory purchase and in the US it is called eminent domain. The main practical difference is that the US has a constitutional right of privacy whereas the UK does not. The British Parliament is unrestricted in what it can take from you but the Queen cannot simply saunter onto your land and start playing croquet.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> The Queen does not own all of the UK. That depends on what you mean by “own”, and “the Queen”. The Crown, that is, the monarch in official capacity, holds ultimate title to most land in the UK (IIRC, the exceptions are some parts of the Orkney and Shetland Islands), but exercises the rights associated with that title, like many other rights and powers, on the advice of the government ministers (and in practice through government officers), rather than unilaterally, at risk of Constitutional crisis. The monarch, as a corporation sole, owns the Crown Estate, in something more like private ownership, but for quite some time the rights of ownership of the Crown Estate have been exercised by a government-appointed body, with the monarch personally receiving a share of the proceeds and being relieved of the burden of funding government operations, for which they were previously responsible. The monarch also has private estates, which are owned so what like typical private holdings, except the usual expectation of neutrality on legislation does not apply where legislation impacts the private estates, and so the monarch has an effective and quietly exercised veto on legislation to the extent that it impacts those estates.
- zarzavat 5y ago
  The trend throughout history, starting with the Magna Carta and most recently the Supreme Court case on prorogation, has been the slow but sure loss of the monarch's personal powers and the transfer of those powers to democratic bodies either parliament or the executive. One of the arguments in Miller II was that the monarch cannot be allocated any discretion to refuse a minister's order, because if she possessed that discretion then it would jeopardise her position as a politically neutral head of state. It is not that the monarch chooses to exercise powers on the advice of her ministers in fear of causing a constitutional crisis, but that her powers can only be lawfully exercised at ministers' direction. As far as the monarch's veto on legislation affecting her (Queen's consent), this is not a legal power of the monarch but rather a privilege granted to the monarch by parliament. If parliament decided to rescind that privilege it could do so. It's important to distinguish between language which describes the monarch from a symbolic point of view, and the actual constitutional reality. Symbolically the monarch is the personal manifestation of the state, but legally she is not much more than a rubber stamp for our democratic institutions.