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It never really bothered me either way, being an American, whether the UK continued to have a monarchy. It seemed just a touristy thing, or like a very expensiv

It never really bothered me either way, being an American, whether the UK continued to have a monarchy. It seemed just a touristy thing, or like a very expensive reality show. That was until Boris Johnson got the queen to suspend parliament so he could push through a no-deal brexit in 2019[0] Sorry, what kind of bullshit is that? The PM can just do an end-run around the elected members, pause everything to run out the clock, and then come back and force through his version of a highly contentious event for the UK? Fucking bonkers. End the monarchy. [0] https://www.npr.org/2019/08/28/754990771/britains-prime-minister-asks-queen-to-suspend-parliament-ahead-of-brexit-deadlin https://www.npr.org/2019/08/28/754990771/britains-prime-mini...

Smaug123 4y ago
I'd say this particular loophole has effectively been patched now, given the Supreme Court ruling that declared this incident unlawful. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_British_prorogation_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_British_prorogation_contr... is a much more informative link than the NPR one.)
- wfhordie 4y ago
  Didn’t this bill effectively reinstate that ability? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_and_Calling_of_Parliament_Act_2022 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_and_Calling_of_P...
  - Smaug123 4y ago
    Oh, you're quite right. Cemented it in law, even.
- Veen 4y ago
  It has not. Following the prorogation there was a general election. The Tories won a large majority and put forward the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022. It, in part emphasized that relevant Royal Prerogative powers are non-justiciable. Essentially, it made it clear that the Supreme Court shouldn't interfere (In the UK, Parliament is the supreme legal authority—it can make laws that override the Supreme Court).
sb057 4y ago
>That was until Boris Johnson got the queen to suspend parliament so he could push through a no-deal brexit in 2019[0] >Sorry, what kind of bullshit is that? The PM can just do an end-run around the elected members, pause everything to run out the clock, and then come back and force through his version of a highly contentious event for the UK? Having a non-monarch head of state wouldn't have inherently resulted in anything different.
- wfhordie 4y ago
  > Having a non-monarch head of state wouldn't have inherently resulted in anything different. The Queen is unelected and has the power to dissolve parliament. That’s fucked. At least without her the person doing the shitty thing is subject to being sacked.
  - scrlk 4y ago
    If she (or any future monarch) were to exercise that power unilaterally, the monarchy would be finished. So in a roundabout way, they'd be sacked.
    - wfhordie 4y ago
      The process of dissolving the monarchy is certainly more arduous than a routine election, though.
  - sb057 4y ago
    The alternative would be having a head of state that, in many countries, is also not directly elected and has the power to dissolve parliament. If you want to argue from principles that the latter is better, fine, but it would have done nothing to avert what Johnson did; indeed, as a political figure, a president in her role would have had additional pressure to dissolve parliament.
notahacker 4y ago
That sort of misses the important details that [i] his gambit failed a legal challenge so he ended up calling an election instead and [ii] the reason he could try had everything to do with the broad executive powers of the PM and nothing to do with the Queen. If you scrapped the Queen and kept the PM role as it is, he'd have had the same meeting with himself!
azangru 4y ago
> Sorry, what kind of bullshit is that? This bullshit is called prorogation. According to Wikipedia [0], there are a number of countries that have provisions for the prorogation of Parliament. They do not have to be monarchies. In absence of the queen, it could have been Boris himself who suspended the Parliament if the republic gave its prime minister (or president) such power. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prorogation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prorogation
- wfhordie 4y ago
  It seems to me that having the queen involved provides a false sense of separation of powers. Prorogation in most countries is a routine process that signals the end of a particular session. It seems unique to the UK that this power move could even play out. I’m not familiar with this process, which is why it surprised me. Are there any countries where the PM can routinely and/or for political purposes just end parliament without triggering an election? It strikes me as a situation where , absent the monarchy, such a situation would have been so quickly abused that the constitution would have been patched to preclude it. In any case, and on base principle, no unelected head of state should be able to dissolve parliament. Like, full stop.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - potatototoo99 4y ago
    It is common for PM-plus-president systems to have the PM govern and the president be allowed to dissolve parliament. They are usually independent enough unless the president is seeking reelection.
  - cf100clunk 4y ago
    A Canadian perspective is given in "Prorogation: A Powerful Tool Forged by History" https://www.lawnow.org/prorogation-forged-by-history/ https://www.lawnow.org/prorogation-forged-by-history/ In recent years, Canadians have tended to treat Prime Ministers who attempt prorogation with enmity: https://archive.ph/nKG0a https://archive.ph/nKG0a
James_K 4y ago
This is wrong. The prime minister technically asks the queen to do everything, he is only an adviser to her. All of the PM's powers are actually the queens, if she was removed he would retain any of his powers (prorogation included). The only difference would be that he wouldn't have to ask, but the asking is more ceremonial, the queen has no real choice but to do as he says. TL;DR asking the queen to do things is just a ceremony with no real impact on the PM's powers, removing the queen is removing the ceremony not the powers.
- wfhordie 4y ago
  The Queen has the power, but she has no choice than to do what the PM says? This is autocracy with extra steps. End the monarchy, end the bullshit ceremonies, and write up some rules for when you’re allowed to trash the government.
  - James_K 4y ago
    >This is autocracy No it isn't. The monarch's position is purely ceremonial. The queen doesn't pose even the slightest risk to democracy in the UK. She has no power to act outside of the government's will, just a bunch of old documents that say she theoretically can. >End the monarchy, end the bullshit ceremonies, and write up some rules for when you’re allowed to trash the government. You don't have an argument here. You have a claim that the ceremonies and culture of another country should be destroyed, and accompanying it you have a request that legal loopholes in its system of governance should be resolved. My counter-proposal is that the loopholes are resolved and the tradition remains intact.
blibble 4y ago
it would be nice if you put some effort into how constitutional monarchies work before starting an ill informed rant personally: I'd rather have our slightly flawed system that evolved to deal with various issues over the centuries rather than the disaster that is the system designed from scratch that is used in the US (so bad it's essentially used by absolutely no-one else)

Smaug123 4y ago

I'd say this particular loophole has effectively been patched now, given the Supreme Court ruling that declared this incident unlawful. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_British_prorogation_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_British_prorogation_contr... is a much more informative link than the NPR one.)

wfhordie 4y ago
Didn’t this bill effectively reinstate that ability? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_and_Calling_of_Parliament_Act_2022 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_and_Calling_of_P...
- Smaug123 4y ago
  Oh, you're quite right. Cemented it in law, even.
Veen 4y ago
It has not. Following the prorogation there was a general election. The Tories won a large majority and put forward the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022. It, in part emphasized that relevant Royal Prerogative powers are non-justiciable. Essentially, it made it clear that the Supreme Court shouldn't interfere (In the UK, Parliament is the supreme legal authority—it can make laws that override the Supreme Court).

sb057 4y ago

>That was until Boris Johnson got the queen to suspend parliament so he could push through a no-deal brexit in 2019[0] >Sorry, what kind of bullshit is that? The PM can just do an end-run around the elected members, pause everything to run out the clock, and then come back and force through his version of a highly contentious event for the UK? Having a non-monarch head of state wouldn't have inherently resulted in anything different.

wfhordie 4y ago
> Having a non-monarch head of state wouldn't have inherently resulted in anything different. The Queen is unelected and has the power to dissolve parliament. That’s fucked. At least without her the person doing the shitty thing is subject to being sacked.
- scrlk 4y ago
  If she (or any future monarch) were to exercise that power unilaterally, the monarchy would be finished. So in a roundabout way, they'd be sacked.
  - wfhordie 4y ago
    The process of dissolving the monarchy is certainly more arduous than a routine election, though.
- sb057 4y ago
  The alternative would be having a head of state that, in many countries, is also not directly elected and has the power to dissolve parliament. If you want to argue from principles that the latter is better, fine, but it would have done nothing to avert what Johnson did; indeed, as a political figure, a president in her role would have had additional pressure to dissolve parliament.

notahacker 4y ago

That sort of misses the important details that [i] his gambit failed a legal challenge so he ended up calling an election instead and [ii] the reason he could try had everything to do with the broad executive powers of the PM and nothing to do with the Queen. If you scrapped the Queen and kept the PM role as it is, he'd have had the same meeting with himself!

azangru 4y ago

> Sorry, what kind of bullshit is that? This bullshit is called prorogation. According to Wikipedia [0], there are a number of countries that have provisions for the prorogation of Parliament. They do not have to be monarchies. In absence of the queen, it could have been Boris himself who suspended the Parliament if the republic gave its prime minister (or president) such power. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prorogation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prorogation

wfhordie 4y ago
It seems to me that having the queen involved provides a false sense of separation of powers. Prorogation in most countries is a routine process that signals the end of a particular session. It seems unique to the UK that this power move could even play out. I’m not familiar with this process, which is why it surprised me. Are there any countries where the PM can routinely and/or for political purposes just end parliament without triggering an election? It strikes me as a situation where , absent the monarchy, such a situation would have been so quickly abused that the constitution would have been patched to preclude it. In any case, and on base principle, no unelected head of state should be able to dissolve parliament. Like, full stop.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- potatototoo99 4y ago
  It is common for PM-plus-president systems to have the PM govern and the president be allowed to dissolve parliament. They are usually independent enough unless the president is seeking reelection.
- cf100clunk 4y ago
  A Canadian perspective is given in "Prorogation: A Powerful Tool Forged by History" https://www.lawnow.org/prorogation-forged-by-history/ https://www.lawnow.org/prorogation-forged-by-history/ In recent years, Canadians have tended to treat Prime Ministers who attempt prorogation with enmity: https://archive.ph/nKG0a https://archive.ph/nKG0a

James_K 4y ago

This is wrong. The prime minister technically asks the queen to do everything, he is only an adviser to her. All of the PM's powers are actually the queens, if she was removed he would retain any of his powers (prorogation included). The only difference would be that he wouldn't have to ask, but the asking is more ceremonial, the queen has no real choice but to do as he says. TL;DR asking the queen to do things is just a ceremony with no real impact on the PM's powers, removing the queen is removing the ceremony not the powers.

wfhordie 4y ago
The Queen has the power, but she has no choice than to do what the PM says? This is autocracy with extra steps. End the monarchy, end the bullshit ceremonies, and write up some rules for when you’re allowed to trash the government.
- James_K 4y ago
  >This is autocracy No it isn't. The monarch's position is purely ceremonial. The queen doesn't pose even the slightest risk to democracy in the UK. She has no power to act outside of the government's will, just a bunch of old documents that say she theoretically can. >End the monarchy, end the bullshit ceremonies, and write up some rules for when you’re allowed to trash the government. You don't have an argument here. You have a claim that the ceremonies and culture of another country should be destroyed, and accompanying it you have a request that legal loopholes in its system of governance should be resolved. My counter-proposal is that the loopholes are resolved and the tradition remains intact.

blibble 4y ago

it would be nice if you put some effort into how constitutional monarchies work before starting an ill informed rant personally: I'd rather have our slightly flawed system that evolved to deal with various issues over the centuries rather than the disaster that is the system designed from scratch that is used in the US (so bad it's essentially used by absolutely no-one else)