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>The King does have a form of absolute power but only on the understanding that it is never used. Its not quite that simple but it is! Didn't it come out recen

>The King does have a form of absolute power but only on the understanding that it is never used. Its not quite that simple but it is! Didn't it come out recently that Queen Elizabeth was actually putting her thumb on the scales for decades to get royal opt-outs for all sorts of random laws? (including, most egregiously, anti-discrimination law) Regardless, your King was also having protesters jailed for holding blank signs under the suspicion that they might write something republican[0] on it. And there's that video of Irish soccer hooligans chanting "Lizzie's in a box" during a minute of silence they did for Queen Elizabeth. Not exactly something that happens in a country with "another governor". [0] Americans: no I don't mean the GOP

cameronh90 3y ago
Ultimately our elected representatives can always overrule the monarchy though, since parliamentary sovereignty trumps all. It might involve dissolving the government, but ultimately parliament would win. You could obviously make the case that the monarch has unfair influence, but at the end of the day they still don’t have absolute power in any real sense.
- brazzy 3y ago
  > Ultimately our elected representatives can always overrule the monarchy though, since parliamentary sovereignty trumps all. Formally, it's a lot more complicated and weird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-in-Parliament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-in-Parliament
- lozenge 3y ago
  If that's true, parliament seemingly doesn't want to win. The monarch is excluded from environmental law, inheritance tax, heck they can even racially discriminate in hiring. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/series/queens-consent https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/series/queens-consent
  - zimpenfish 3y ago
    > If that's true, parliament seemingly doesn't want to win. Aside from the Tories largely being aligned with the idea that you shouldn't be bound by environmental law (see sewage dumping), have to pay inheritance tax (they're considering scrapping it as an election boost), or not discriminate racially (pick whatever policy you want here), the kind of people who support the monarchy also tend to be rabid Tories - exactly the kind of people you don't want to antagonise if you want to stay in power. A Corbyn government might well have gone against the monarchy. I can't see Starmer doing it, though.
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
      > I can't see Starmer doing it, though. Remind me again: what does the 'K' in 'KC' stand for? Also: whose "loyal opposition" is it that Starmer leads?
mrmrcoleman 3y ago
Not exactly. Protestors were arrested for holding “Not my king” signs, so they later adopted blank signs as a symbol of free speech. I think the football fans you’re referring to were supporters of Shamrock Rovers, a team from South Dublin. The Republic of Ireland is a separate country, with no monarchy and no ties to the British monarchy since the formation of the Irish Free State in the early 1920’s. There were however reports of Dundee United fans singing the same chant. Dundee is in Scotland which does share the Monarch, so that would support your point better.
chgs 3y ago
The Home Secretary via the police used their anti protest laws to remove the Republican protests, in like with what the majority of the country (or at least the majority of the supporters of the current government) wanted. Brenda may have had some influence over laws, but nothing compared to the influence normal political lobbyists and donors of the governments party have.
- rob74 3y ago
  If you would go by "what the majority wants", you could completely forget free speech, and the rights of most minorities too (and I'm not only referring to the UK, but to most of the world).
  - badgersnake 3y ago
    Like most contemporary free speech advocates, the current conservative government only advocates for free speech for those whose views align with their own. They’ve been enacting laws to restrict protest and strikes, stripping funding from media organisations that dare to criticise it and making it harder for young people to vote.
  - chgs 3y ago
    Not everyone shares the views on freedom of speech that the US has. For example holocaust denial in Germany, or corporate donations, attack adverts, libel laws, Nor do many countries share the view on the same limits that the US does. Theres a somewhat arrogant view amongst Americans that their view on what does and dies not count as freedom of speech is the only view. Picketing funerals with hate speech is not wanted in many counties for example. Waving the flags of terrorist groups and calling for the extermination of a people isn’t wanted in many countries.
    - kmeisthax 3y ago
      American here, I think you might be slightly off. The views of Americans as to what constitutes free speech are different than what the 1st Amendment actually says and what SCOTUS is willing to extend it to. There are very few people who look at the reasoning in, say, McCutcheon v. FEC, and say "yes, this totally improves free speech". They look at it and say "this is legalizing bribery and calling it free speech". Donald Trump literally campaigned on "opening up our libel laws" so he could sue the shit out of anyone who accurately reported his net wealth. The crowd ate it up. People like the Westboro Baptist Church aren't exactly loved either. In fact, they're a meme. We make fun of them. I'm sure there's a lot of Americans who would love the idea of banning them, and there's groups of bikers who go around running their bikes to shout over them and thus censor them. America's reputation for free speech extremism comes from the ACLU, which up until recently was the sort of legal nonprofit that would literally sue for the free speech rights of Nazis, a group of people who explicitly reject freedom of speech. They've backed off on this only because it blew up in their faces with the Unite the Right rally. My personal belief, probably not shared by all Americans and definitely not shared by HN, is that Germany's laws banning Holocaust denial actually improve freedom of speech. More generally, political speech that calls for censorship needs to be treated the same as actual laws that ban speech - i.e. we need to censor them. I mention HN because a lot of tech enthusiast viewpoints are influenced by the EFF, which is run by people who think censorship is just spicy packet loss. Those viewpoints here are actually rather extreme even by American standards.
James_K 3y ago
> your King was also having protesters jailed for holding blank signs He was not personally doing this. The decision to arrest protesters comes down to the police present at the time, and I believe there was no arrest in the case to which you are referring. Specifically a single person holding a blank sign outside of parliament who was approached and questioned by a police officer but not arrested. I believe there where also subsequent protests involving blank signs, but no arrests for those either. It always shocks me how readily people from other countries take a republican position in matters which really do not concern them. The right to protest in the UK has been degraded as a direct result of our elected government, rather than because of some nebulous power held by the king.

cameronh90 3y ago

Ultimately our elected representatives can always overrule the monarchy though, since parliamentary sovereignty trumps all. It might involve dissolving the government, but ultimately parliament would win. You could obviously make the case that the monarch has unfair influence, but at the end of the day they still don’t have absolute power in any real sense.

brazzy 3y ago
> Ultimately our elected representatives can always overrule the monarchy though, since parliamentary sovereignty trumps all. Formally, it's a lot more complicated and weird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-in-Parliament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-in-Parliament
lozenge 3y ago
If that's true, parliament seemingly doesn't want to win. The monarch is excluded from environmental law, inheritance tax, heck they can even racially discriminate in hiring. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/series/queens-consent https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/series/queens-consent
- zimpenfish 3y ago
  > If that's true, parliament seemingly doesn't want to win. Aside from the Tories largely being aligned with the idea that you shouldn't be bound by environmental law (see sewage dumping), have to pay inheritance tax (they're considering scrapping it as an election boost), or not discriminate racially (pick whatever policy you want here), the kind of people who support the monarchy also tend to be rabid Tories - exactly the kind of people you don't want to antagonise if you want to stay in power. A Corbyn government might well have gone against the monarchy. I can't see Starmer doing it, though.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > I can't see Starmer doing it, though. Remind me again: what does the 'K' in 'KC' stand for? Also: whose "loyal opposition" is it that Starmer leads?

mrmrcoleman 3y ago

Not exactly. Protestors were arrested for holding “Not my king” signs, so they later adopted blank signs as a symbol of free speech. I think the football fans you’re referring to were supporters of Shamrock Rovers, a team from South Dublin. The Republic of Ireland is a separate country, with no monarchy and no ties to the British monarchy since the formation of the Irish Free State in the early 1920’s. There were however reports of Dundee United fans singing the same chant. Dundee is in Scotland which does share the Monarch, so that would support your point better.

chgs 3y ago

The Home Secretary via the police used their anti protest laws to remove the Republican protests, in like with what the majority of the country (or at least the majority of the supporters of the current government) wanted. Brenda may have had some influence over laws, but nothing compared to the influence normal political lobbyists and donors of the governments party have.

rob74 3y ago
If you would go by "what the majority wants", you could completely forget free speech, and the rights of most minorities too (and I'm not only referring to the UK, but to most of the world).
- badgersnake 3y ago
  Like most contemporary free speech advocates, the current conservative government only advocates for free speech for those whose views align with their own. They’ve been enacting laws to restrict protest and strikes, stripping funding from media organisations that dare to criticise it and making it harder for young people to vote.
- chgs 3y ago
  Not everyone shares the views on freedom of speech that the US has. For example holocaust denial in Germany, or corporate donations, attack adverts, libel laws, Nor do many countries share the view on the same limits that the US does. Theres a somewhat arrogant view amongst Americans that their view on what does and dies not count as freedom of speech is the only view. Picketing funerals with hate speech is not wanted in many counties for example. Waving the flags of terrorist groups and calling for the extermination of a people isn’t wanted in many countries.
  - kmeisthax 3y ago
    American here, I think you might be slightly off. The views of Americans as to what constitutes free speech are different than what the 1st Amendment actually says and what SCOTUS is willing to extend it to. There are very few people who look at the reasoning in, say, McCutcheon v. FEC, and say "yes, this totally improves free speech". They look at it and say "this is legalizing bribery and calling it free speech". Donald Trump literally campaigned on "opening up our libel laws" so he could sue the shit out of anyone who accurately reported his net wealth. The crowd ate it up. People like the Westboro Baptist Church aren't exactly loved either. In fact, they're a meme. We make fun of them. I'm sure there's a lot of Americans who would love the idea of banning them, and there's groups of bikers who go around running their bikes to shout over them and thus censor them. America's reputation for free speech extremism comes from the ACLU, which up until recently was the sort of legal nonprofit that would literally sue for the free speech rights of Nazis, a group of people who explicitly reject freedom of speech. They've backed off on this only because it blew up in their faces with the Unite the Right rally. My personal belief, probably not shared by all Americans and definitely not shared by HN, is that Germany's laws banning Holocaust denial actually improve freedom of speech. More generally, political speech that calls for censorship needs to be treated the same as actual laws that ban speech - i.e. we need to censor them. I mention HN because a lot of tech enthusiast viewpoints are influenced by the EFF, which is run by people who think censorship is just spicy packet loss. Those viewpoints here are actually rather extreme even by American standards.

James_K 3y ago

> your King was also having protesters jailed for holding blank signs He was not personally doing this. The decision to arrest protesters comes down to the police present at the time, and I believe there was no arrest in the case to which you are referring. Specifically a single person holding a blank sign outside of parliament who was approached and questioned by a police officer but not arrested. I believe there where also subsequent protests involving blank signs, but no arrests for those either. It always shocks me how readily people from other countries take a republican position in matters which really do not concern them. The right to protest in the UK has been degraded as a direct result of our elected government, rather than because of some nebulous power held by the king.