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I think a large part of the resistance British people have to the idea of abolishing the monarchy is that they don't know what they would replace it with, and t

I think a large part of the resistance British people have to the idea of abolishing the monarchy is that they don't know what they would replace it with, and they think that having a royal family is a harmless fairy tale that makes Britain special. Fortunately that still leaves room for compromise with those who prefer a more egalitarian constitutional system, and I think this is something that organisations like Republic should consider (at the risk of shrinking the Overton window). As a transitional step, then, towards one day abandoning the monarchy, Britain should introduce the role of a Governor General for the country, who would be given a democratic mandate to exercise the powers that people assume the Queen can still wield but which are in practice held by the Prime Minister (depriving the country of the checks and balances that republics generally have). Specifically, the Governor General would be able to veto laws, treaties, and wars, but would be kept accountable to parliament through the possibility of impeachment, which would trigger a new election for their replacement. Eligibility for the role should be limited to citizens who are nominated by at least 20% of MPs, and I would propose that the Supplementary Vote system be used for these elections.

zarzavat 4y ago
How do you ensure that the Governor General is apolitical? The monarchy is essentially a system for rearing apolitical figureheads. Any change towards a president would therefore be concrete change to how things are run and I’m not sure it would be a change for the better.
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  > How do you ensure that the Governor General is apolitical? How do you ensure the monarch is apolitical?[0] How do you ensure that the person effectively wielding the monarch's powers under the current system is apolitical? That isn't even a claimed feature of the current system, because those powers are wielded by the PM who is decidedly not apolitical. The only concrete change of introducing a Governor General would be that some powers are removed from the PM and given to someone with a democratic mandate to (rarely) use them. These powers would be just as political as they are now, except they would be properly shared between two people, providing a separation of powers that is common outside of autocracies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_consent#Vetting_of_bills_under_consent_procedure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_consent#Vetting_of_bil...

zarzavat 4y ago

How do you ensure that the Governor General is apolitical? The monarchy is essentially a system for rearing apolitical figureheads. Any change towards a president would therefore be concrete change to how things are run and I’m not sure it would be a change for the better.

dane-pgp 4y ago
> How do you ensure that the Governor General is apolitical? How do you ensure the monarch is apolitical?[0] How do you ensure that the person effectively wielding the monarch's powers under the current system is apolitical? That isn't even a claimed feature of the current system, because those powers are wielded by the PM who is decidedly not apolitical. The only concrete change of introducing a Governor General would be that some powers are removed from the PM and given to someone with a democratic mandate to (rarely) use them. These powers would be just as political as they are now, except they would be properly shared between two people, providing a separation of powers that is common outside of autocracies. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_consent#Vetting_of_bills_under_consent_procedure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_consent#Vetting_of_bil...