[HN Gopher] The Queen has more power over British law than we th...
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The Queen has more power over British law than we thought
Author : anonymfus
Score : 80 points
Date : 2021-02-09 18:55 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| [deleted]
| 8note wrote:
| So where's Glenn Greenwald's complaints that the Guardian's
| journalists are prying into the Queen's private conversations and
| that she should be allowed to have these without criticism?
| BeeBoBub wrote:
| You're suggesting that a head of state (more, a sovereign)
| should have the right to rule subjects by decree in private. I
| think that most would agree that the citizens should have the
| right to know how the laws they live under came to be. You are
| unfair to conflate Greenwald's advocacy for everyday individual
| privacy with the Queen's right to rule arbitrarily.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > The Queen pays tax
|
| Honestly, this is the most surprising part of the article to me.
| etrevino wrote:
| I used to work as a scholar of Britain (specifically executions
| in Early Modern England, but you pick up a lot along the way) and
| I've tried to explain to a lot of people the amount of influence
| and control that the monarch actually holds. I'm not sure that
| this is such a bad thing. The Queen can't create legislation, she
| can restrain it. She is purely a moderating influence in this
| sense. She could, in theory, name new people to the House of
| Lords, but the Lords is no longer a hereditary body and there is
| a mechanism for the House of Commons to override the Lords.
|
| Parliament _does_ have power over the monarch in some senses, of
| course, in that there is precedent for Parliament changing the
| order of succession or introducing a regency. This happened
| without the monarch 's assent, though admittedly over a hundred
| years ago. But the British constitution is one that replies on
| precedence, not a formal document.
|
| I've characterized the Queen's powers as "reserve powers"
| inasmuch as, if everything goes wrong and Parliament dies from a
| meteor strike, the government still legally operate provided
| there is a monarch (even if you have to reach deep into the line
| of succession to find that person). By law she has to call
| elections within a certain amount of time. Obviously there's
| nothing to force her to follow the laws, but that's true of any
| country. She (or her heirs) are the leaders of last resort.
| twoslide wrote:
| Interesting, does that mean that the Queen has implicitly
| agreed to a lot of controversial legislation (e.g. Internal
| Market Bill, and Brexit more generally), or the process of the
| proroguing parliament last year? It seems she might be a lot
| more conservative (lowercase) than many might like to think.
| leighfuu wrote:
| David Allen Green (as usual) has a decent take on UK
| constitutional matters.
|
| As for the Queen being a small c conservative, absolutely.
| British monarchy in this century is a badly run crime
| syndicate.
|
| https://davidallengreen.com/2021/02/the-queens-consent-a-
| str...
| Someone wrote:
| Probably. The same applies to other monarchies. King Baudouin
| of the Belgians famously asked parliament to declare him
| unable to govern for a day so that he didn't have to sign a
| pro-abortion law
| (https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/05/world/belgian-king-
| unable..., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudouin_of_Belgium#
| Religious_...)
| gruffalowboy wrote:
| It's called 'Royal Assent'.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_assent
|
| Certain bills (e.g. financial) are by convention not blocked
| by the Lords and so once these final bill has been approved
| it is sent to the queen for her signature to put it in law.
|
| The last time the Monarch refused to pass a law approved by
| Parliament was 1704
|
| http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/bbc_parliament/2327561.
| ..
| jesboat wrote:
| The article is describing a different process than Royal
| assent
| detaro wrote:
| In practice it's mostly ceremonial. It's not ceremonial in
| the way that she could do it and it would happen, but is in
| the way that AFAIK they haven't in centuries, and starting it
| outside _very_ exceptional circumstances would mean that
| power would be taken away quickly.
| mattmanser wrote:
| This is exactly what this article is about, turns out it's
| not uncommon, bills have been held up or changes added
| before assent was granted at the request of the monarchy
| over a thousand times in the present Queen's rein.
|
| That's like 150 times a year? Every 2 days? How is that
| 'exceptional'?
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if the Guardian has a week of
| damaging headline from this.
|
| Today's was the Prince of Wales added an exemption shafting
| home owners on 'his' land, causing people's homes to become
| worthless so that he can collect extra rent. A clear abuse
| of power.
| jbay808 wrote:
| As an example of an exceptional circumstance, in a Canada a
| few years back there was a minority government. The
| opposition parties banded together and formed a coalition
| with a plan to take over as a majority.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Canadian_
| p...
|
| The Prime minister moved to keep power by requesting the
| Governor General (Queen's representative) prorogue
| parliament.
|
| In this circumstance, the Governor General accepted the
| Prime Minister's request, which ended up rescuing the
| Conservative minority government. But I think most people
| agree that if she had decided otherwise, and allowed the
| majority coalition to take over, that would also have been
| an acceptable result. So this was, indirectly, the Queen
| making a ruling on a power struggle between a minority
| government and a majority opposition.
| etrevino wrote:
| In my opinion? She would have consented to the final form of
| Brexit and the IMB.[1] I can't say about the process of
| proroguing Parliament, but I don't think she has the power to
| interfere in the running of Parliament. If she gave consent
| it was to the bill mandating Parliaments last no more than
| five years (which was a terrible plan) back when the Lib Dems
| and Tories allied.
|
| Personally, I think that the best way to characterize the
| Queen is that she was liberal for the 1950s, but as times
| have changed and as she's changed she's become more
| conservative.
|
| [1] EDIT: Because at the minimum they can be interpreted as
| affecting her finances.
| closeparen wrote:
| The Queen's job is to be above the fray of any particular
| moment's politics and politicians. She represents the
| abstract institution of state, regardless of who is calling
| the shots today. In the same way that Americans can be loyal
| to America even if they hate the President... the British
| people have a specific human being to which they can feel the
| same loyalty.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > the British people have a specific human being to which
| they can feel the same loyalty
|
| In particular so do the British Armed Forces, who swear
| allegiance to the Crown [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Armed_Forces#Comm
| and_o...
| retrac wrote:
| Yes, this is very true. The Crown plays a useful and vital role
| in the Westminster system. (I'm in Canada.) It can't just be
| tossed without _something_ to replace it. But I 'm not sure the
| monarchy offers anything not provided by a nonpartisan and
| mostly ceremonial presidency, similar to Ireland or Germany.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| > It can't just be tossed without something to replace it.
|
| Why not? I admit I'm more familiar with the Belgian situation
| than the British Crown, but to me it always seems not very
| difficult to replace the monarch with almost nothing. I don't
| see why we need any kind of president, even though that's
| what people always talk when there's talk of doing away with
| the monarchy. The real leader of the country is the prime
| minister anyway.
| graeme wrote:
| The Belgian situation seems fairly dysfunctional. Is the
| monarch completely absent from politics? This happened in
| 2007-11: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007-2011_Belgian_po
| litical_cr...
|
| In Brazil in the 19th century liberal democrats thought a
| monarch was unnecessary, after 67 years of successful
| politics under a king. Upon abolition the country devolved
| into a long succession of military coups and dictatorial
| governments.
|
| There have obviously been successful countries without
| monarchy, but it is very risky to say that a figurehead
| does _nothing_. Reserve powers are a pretty real restraint.
| etrevino wrote:
| You're 100% right. The UK would be served just as well by a
| nonpartisan president.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| And a republic. That said - what would happen to all the
| stuff owned by the crown?
|
| I'm not sure if the postal service still is, and the
| prisons could probably be let go - but I think there's a
| lot of land, especially in the south owned by the crown.
| retrac wrote:
| Property owned by the Crown is not the property of
| Elizabeth, as a person. If QE II were to abdicate, for
| example, she would not get to keep all of it. It's the
| property of the Crown, the office of the head of state.
| It belongs to the state, in practice. If she's advised to
| abdicate, she would, and she's advised to transfer all
| Crown property to a republic, she would.
|
| The royal family does have many billions in personal
| holdings as well, of course.
| mattmanser wrote:
| Do they actually though? If they do, how come Edward VIII
| had to go begging after his abdication?
| retrac wrote:
| AIUI he was effectively disowned by the rest of them, for
| placing his marriage above the stability of the
| institution. It could well have led to a British
| republic. And the next king did pay him an allowance
| anyway, apparently.
| gruffalowboy wrote:
| > nonpartisan president
|
| Oxymoron.
|
| You have to vote for a president right otherwise you end up
| with ... well Oliver Cromwell. A Dictator by any other
| name.
| gumby wrote:
| Consider the examples given, countries like Germany,
| Ireland, India, etc
|
| Where presidents have actual executive power such as USA,
| France, Russia, the issue you bring up can, at least in
| theory, occur.
| retrac wrote:
| Why? The Queen was not elected. She's not a dictator. The
| de facto head of state in Canada is the Governor General
| who represents the Queen. The office is, in practice,
| appointed by the Prime Minister. Also not a tyrannical
| dictator. (Except with her personal staff, for the last
| one.)
|
| Nonpartisan in the sense that the Queen is nonpartisan.
| So of course, partisan. Still, nonpartisan like not
| publicly wading into political debates, and not opening
| up the office to the vulgarities of electoral politics.
|
| For example, Germany elects its president by convening
| both the Federal and State legislatures together, who
| then vote. By pulling in all the regional parties and
| legislators, the President has to have broad support
| across party lines. It's also convention that the
| President doesn't wade into daily political issues. The
| result is a largely ceremonial office, usually held by a
| broadly respected statesperson with former government
| experience. Which is what you want for the "emergency
| button" you hope you don't have to push in the first
| place.
| User23 wrote:
| A monarch actually holds a higher office than a dictator
| in the Western tradition.
|
| This is relevant because Western monarchs claim the
| office of Rex/Regina.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Monarchs are just as bad if not worse than dictators.
| There are also non-tyrannical dictators. The issue with
| dictators is an issue of incentives, not an issue of
| immediate result.
|
| Unelected officials should never have significant power.
| This led to a harmful coup d'etat in Australia. It's not
| a ceremonial office, and simply the fact that the
| emergency button exists makes it possible for perversions
| to continue and cause serious issues (and it has).
|
| Partisanship is very far from the only cause of
| dysfunction in governments. I'd argue it's not even the
| worst.
| Retric wrote:
| The difference between a Monarchy and a Dictatorship is a
| question of tradition and the concentration of power not
| the line of succession. North Korea for example moved
| from father to son as a Dictatorship, give it 5
| generations and you could call it a Monarchy.
|
| However, even if it's generally accepted that the child
| or close relative of the current leader should become the
| new leader there will eventually be back and forth over
| time between the royal family and other members of
| government. In theory they might have absolute authority,
| but in both practice and tradition there will be many
| informal limits.
| lacker wrote:
| _The Queen can 't create legislation, she can restrain it. She
| is purely a moderating influence in this sense._
|
| This isn't really guaranteed to be a "moderating" influence
| except in the most technical sense. The current queen does not
| seem very eager to grab more power, but one could easily
| imagine a more devious and power-hungry monarch parlaying the
| ability to interfere with some laws into greater political
| power.
|
| Imagine a Trump-type figure in England. Popular on social
| media, eager to bend the laws, and calling on the support of a
| loud minority willing to sacrifice the principles of democracy.
| Now imagine that figure is also the King of England, with the
| current powers given to the monarch. Why would you want such a
| hereditary system?
|
| Britain should scrap the monarchy entirely while they have the
| chance.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I was hoping the Queen's consent would be about things like
| foreign policy, going to war, etc. But it's just about laws that
| could possibly affect the Queen's income. That sounds just like
| garden variety corruption.
| etrevino wrote:
| Well, the article says that we don't really know, it just
| references a pamphlet. My understanding (and take this for what
| you will) is that it's interpreted very liberally. So, foreign
| policy and war are likely taken into account.
| MockObject wrote:
| Corrupted implies a previous state of uncorruption.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Isn't Britain a Constitutional *Monarchy*?
|
| Did they forget that? There's still the House of Lords and the
| House of Commons for a reason. The monarchy and the landowners
| are still a thing and are still a ruling class.
| subsubzero wrote:
| It seems like there are two groups of lords, one group has been
| heavily shown in the media(think Downton Abby or the
| aristocratic family having to sell or have tours of their
| estate). The other set of lords is not really shown in media
| and they are large landowners in London and other cities in
| Britain and are extremely wealthy and powerful, see the
| Grosvenor family -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Grosvenor,_7th_Duke_of_We...
| willyt wrote:
| Not really. You don't have to be a landowner or an aristocrat
| to become a lord. The 'Downtown Abbey' style lords, called
| 'hereditary peers' are on their way out, there's not many
| left. Most peers are appointed by the government of the day
| supposedly as a result of doing something useful for the
| country as a whole. I think that certain members of the
| clergy become peers by default, likewise top judges, 'The Law
| Lords'? Otherwise the majority of appointed peers, who are
| given the title of "Lord" or "Baroness" when they are
| appointed, are politicians that have been promoted out of the
| way of the young crew coming up, retired senior lawyers,
| judges, business people, doctors that sort of thing. Once
| appointed you are a Lord for the rest of your life.
|
| So the House of Lords is democratic in the sense that lords
| are appointed by elected politicians, but its less democratic
| than say the European Commission, where commissioners are
| also appointed by elected governments but have a fixed term
| of office. Which is less democratic than the Houses of
| Parliament, which is less democratic than a proportionally
| elected government like the Germans have and so on, but I
| digress.
|
| Basically its a continuation of the idea that the British
| state has had the ability to create Lords for thousands of
| years, but now they don't pass the title on to their children
| and they dont get given a bit of land to build a castle on. I
| think there are probably a few hereditary peers that are
| actually just the great great grandchildren of very
| successful Victorian businessman, just because they have the
| title 'Lord' does not necessarily of aristocratic lineage
| dating back to William the Conquerer.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| People keep assuming it's a democracy and they're often told
| they are in charge, then somehow things never go their way...
| meepmorp wrote:
| That's kind of the fault of voters, the political class, and
| the media, though. The Queen's practical impact on the
| situation is practically nil.
| dhosek wrote:
| Did you read the article? Apparently what is widely assumed
| to be a pro forma aspect of the legislative process has, in
| fact, been used to make substantive changes to legislature
| before it's even presented to parliament and this is done
| in a manner outside of public view.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| On the other hand, is this process really that different
| than the usual process of legislation being crafted in
| private by people who _aren 't_ the Queen before it's
| presented?
|
| It _is_ worrying that the Queen can just say no before
| legislation gets off the ground, but that 's true of many
| of the more powerful MPs, too. I'm in the US, so I'm not
| exactly familiar with the process on your side of the
| pond, but over here, we have legislation stopped before
| pen hits paper simply because it's clear that the current
| leaders will never allow a vote on it.
|
| That is a broken system, yes, but given the length of
| time people in those positions tend to serve (and I use
| that term lightly), it doesn't seem like the Queen's
| influence is much more. And at least her input doesn't
| suffer from being completely partisan.
|
| To be abundantly clear: I don't think this is right, I
| just don't think it's very different than any other
| politician impeding democracy. Kings and Queens can and
| have been voted out, too.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| >It is worrying that the Queen can just say no before
| legislation gets off the ground
|
| The commonly-held belief in the UK is that the Queen gets
| to do this exactly one time before she is abolished
| completely, on the assumption that millions of people
| would riot if she used her power in such a direct fashion
| without a truly extreme reason (like a nuke blowing up
| Westminster or something).
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| Yep, and it's seen as a last bastion before a malevolent
| (even if elected) government invokes tyranny.
|
| She'd have to be _so_ sure that the populace would be
| behind her, and willing to risk the very existence of the
| monarchy. It 'd take stopping a really "bad" thing for
| her to take that risk.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I think it's different because the MPs are specifically
| elected by the public to propose (or block) legislation,
| and the hierarchy of Parliament is in turn determined by
| the votes of same elected officials. The Queen isn't
| elected. By the same argument you could say that it's
| fine for _me_ to have a veto over British legislation,
| and I assure you that it would not be.
| notahacker wrote:
| The article links to this which itemises what the three
| known instances were. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/2021/feb/08/queen-lobbie...
|
| So the Queen's advisers lobbied for a royal commission to
| not be possible to scrap by executive order (but it was
| scrapped anyway), for the royal estates to be exempt from
| road traffic regulation (all private land is) and some
| Queen's Estate representatives threatened to complain to
| a senior minister in a meeting with civil servants about
| the impact of a bill which the Queen gave assent to
| anyway. Over the space of half a century. If there are
| other instances where royal representatives were a
| roadblock rather than on of many special interests whose
| opinion they humour, the incentives for politicians to
| publicise them are strong.
|
| I think that's more consistent with the monarch's impact
| being "practically nil" than her being the reason things
| never go people's way. There's an argument that's more
| legislative discussion than the representatives of a
| ceremonial monarch _should_ be participating in, but you
| don 't pressure civil servants by threatening to tell the
| Chancellor you're gravely concerned if you're actually
| pulling the strings.
| meepmorp wrote:
| Royal powers went away in 1689. The Queen's role here is
| entirely pro forma, and she cannot alter legislation.
|
| The fact that governments have sought her approval on
| matters, despite not being required to do so, isn't
| remotely surprising. And if you didn't care about the
| state providing a privileged life for the royals before,
| why would you care now?
|
| The fact is, not enough people care enough to make it a
| political priority.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Royal powers went away in 1689.
|
| More to the point, virtually all royal powers can, by
| tradition which is as strong as fundamental law, if not
| as clear on how you might amend it, be used only on the
| advice of (which in practice means at the direction of)
| of various bodies of Government, mostly the Cabinet
| wearing different hats.
|
| The Crown just provides a bit of formal distance from the
| acts for the actual actors (but, being as it's been true
| for so long, that probably doesn't mean much in terms of
| practical accountability.)
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Except she has been repeatedly caught using the situation
| to her advantage and she presides over the whole mess...
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| If she's useless and using up resources, I would suggest
| you get rid of her.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| The House of Lords has included many political appointees since
| 'Life Peers' were created in 1958. Hereditary peers were mostly
| removed from the House of Lords in 1999, though a small rump of
| 92 remained as a motivation to decide for the long term whether
| it should be appointed or elected.
| gowld wrote:
| This is addressed in the article.
| sleavey wrote:
| I wonder if private members' bills are subject to the same
| consent. As far as I'm aware, the first time the chamber hears of
| these bills is when they are submitted by the member, and
| presumably by that stage it's public and can't be retracted
| without bringing a huge spotlight on this obscure rule. A private
| member's bill could therefore potentially be used to bring about
| the abolition of this practice.
| makomk wrote:
| If Wikipedia is to be believed, it already has been used to
| prevent a Private Member's Bill from being debated relatively
| recently in 1999:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_parliamentary_approval_for_...
| Also, I don't think this rule is really any more obscure than
| any of the other subtle details of the UK's unwritten
| constitution - people who care about this sort of thing almost
| certainly already knew about it (I certainly did!) The Guardian
| is probably trying to turn it into a big scandal because they
| don't really like the fact that we have a monarchy.
| motohagiography wrote:
| How does one even become a monarch? They weren't always
| hereditary, and it would be interesting to see what they were
| based on. Seems like you need some kind of divine recognition, as
| otherwise you're just a dictator.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Not all monarchies are hereditary. The Holy See is, while
| technically theocratic and thus not a monarchy, an example of
| what elective monarchy would look like. Perhaps the weirdest
| example is Andorra, which makes Emmanuel Macron (the President
| of France) an elected, er, diarch (he's only Co-Prince) by the
| virtue of being elected by people who have no ties to the
| country.
|
| To answer the question of how hereditary monarchies get
| started: in the modern era (post-Napoleonic Wars, generally),
| new monarchies carved out of existing states either elevated
| important local elites (the Sharif of Mecca's sons got kingdoms
| in Iraq and Transjordan out of WWI, with the Sharif himself
| proclaiming a kingdom in Hejaz), or they shopped around
| important royal families in Europe to import a monarch (e.g., a
| lot of German princes found themselves kings of newly-created
| Balkan states in the 19th century). The right of conquest to
| attain a royal title is pretty well-accepted, although conquest
| usually comes from someone who already has a heritable noble
| title anyways (cf. the Dukes of Normandy becoming Kings of
| England).
|
| The older noble lineages in Europe (and elsewhere, but I really
| don't know much about the history of nobility outside of
| Europe) appear to largely arise from a Germanic system of
| elected chiefdoms where one family gradually gains enough power
| to force the elections to choose them, eventually (though not
| always, cf. the Holy Roman Empire) dispensing with the pretense
| of election. Given the paucity of written sources, we obviously
| have very little record of how these influential families
| actually came to gain their influence, and the sources that we
| do have tend to be edited to suggest divine providence as the
| originator of their rule.
| ardy42 wrote:
| > How does one even become a monarch? They weren't always
| hereditary, and it would be interesting to see what they were
| based on. Seems like you need some kind of divine recognition,
| as otherwise you're just a dictator.
|
| IIRC, you conquer a territory, descend (biologically or
| legally) from someone who did, or politically maneuver to
| replace an existing monarch or heir (for instance, by
| assassinating them).
| Veen wrote:
| The straightforward answer is that you are born the heir of
| someone who is already the monarch.
|
| A better answer for the UK in line with your point about
| religious recognition is that you are anointed monarch. There
| is a coronation ceremony where the heir is anointed with holy
| oil (chrism) by the Archbishop of Canterbury. After that, they
| stop being an ordinary person and become monarch.
|
| You can see part of the coronation of Elizabeth II (and hear
| the incredible Zadok the Priest coronation anthem by Handel)
| here [0], although not the anointing itself, because it happens
| under a canopy and has never been filmed.
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-QvwFWTB5c
| mattmanser wrote:
| Actually, not true. What you're referring to is known as
| primogeniture succession, but there were also elective
| monarchies and tanistry, and probably more that I don't know
| about. Sometimes succession was limited to the immediate
| family, sometimes a 'bloodline', sometimes any eligible
| nobles.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_succession
|
| For example that article mentions the Kingdom of Italy was
| briefly had this as the succession law:
|
| _The Kingdom of Italy was designated a secundogeniture for
| the second surviving son of Napoleon I Bonaparte but, failing
| such, provided for the emperor 's stepson, Eugene de
| Beauharnais, to succeed, even though the latter had no blood
| relationship to the House of Bonaparte_
| Veen wrote:
| > Actually, not true.
|
| Actually, it is true but not exhaustive. Nor was it
| intended to be. I was addressing the context of monarchy in
| the UK, as the rest of the comment makes clear.
| mattmanser wrote:
| The GP was asking in general, so your straightforward
| answer is explicitly wrong and must be read in that
| context, whether the UK's one happen to evolve into one
| is a bit irrelevant. Then again, even in 'recent'
| history, William of Orange was invited to take the
| English crown without primogeniture.
| Tomte wrote:
| In Sweden: you have people from several factions argue whose
| candidate should be King, and then you compromise on a French
| (Bernadotte).
|
| In the Holy See: you have people from several factions argue
| whose candidate should be Pope, and then you compromise on a
| Pole (Wojtila).
| alasdair_ wrote:
| >How does one even become a monarch?
|
| Just call yourself one, and have enough people agree with you.
| headcanon wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_monarchs
|
| Pretty fascinating history overall. In England's case, the
| earliest monarch we'd recognize as "King of England" was Alfred
| the Great, who was king of what was called Wessex at the time.
| Wessex was the last holdout of "native" English as opposed to
| being ruled by Vikings and their descendants. Wessex eventually
| re-conquered the island a few hundred years later and became
| England.
|
| As to how earlier kings gained their position, at least in
| England I'd say it was some combination of local warlords that
| were semi-legitimized during Roman rule, then later their
| descendents consolidated power after the Romans left, either
| through marriage, trade, or violence.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > As to how earlier kings gained their position, at least in
| England I'd say it was some combination of local warlords
| that were semi-legitimized during Roman rule, then later
| their descendents consolidated power after the Romans left,
| either through marriage, trade, or violence.
|
| That definitely didn't happen. The locals in Roman Britain
| would be the Bretons, a Celtic-speaking people. The
| withdrawal of Roman power from Britain was followed with the
| Anglo-Saxon migrations of people from what is now the
| Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark, which (actually rather
| rapidly) displaced the Celtic speakers with Germanic
| speakers. The Anglo-Saxon petty kingdoms arose after the
| migration, although they were subsequently occupied by the
| Great Dane Army that settled in the Danelaw region of
| England. It was the Mercian (one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms)
| failure to deal with the Vikings and Alfred the Great's
| success that led the Wessex king, and not the then-dominant
| Mercian king, to actually unify all of the Anglo-Saxon
| kingdoms into a single Kingdom of England.
|
| The origination of these Anglo-Saxon kingdoms is _extremely_
| unclear, happening during the Great Migration and in an area
| where the written record rather abruptly dies out. Virtually
| the entire list of sources for this period is Bede 's
| Ecclesiastical History of the Peoples of Britain and the
| Anglo-Saxon Chronicle commissioned by Alfred the Great.
| User23 wrote:
| The Queen is also literally above the law and the military is
| sworn to her personally and not the government. Of course British
| history has shown the effectiveness of extralegal measures for
| dealing with bad monarchs so those powers are still limited.
| jnwatson wrote:
| The most obvious difference between the American and British
| legislative systems is the presence of a foundational document
| like the Constitution.
|
| The British system is strictly about convention and precedent,
| whereas Americans have a little more explicit guidance from the
| Constitution.
|
| I think what we've learned as Americans in the last few years is
| that it isn't enough to have a foundational document. Convention
| and precedent indeed play a large role in the function of how the
| well government works. Congress is now terminally defective,
| largely because of the loss of the norms and violations of
| precedent, starting roughly in the mid 90's.
|
| Perhaps the idea that convention and precedent is the _only_
| thing holding the British system together makes it stronger.
| pasabagi wrote:
| > Perhaps the idea that convention and precedent is the only
| thing holding the British system together makes it stronger.
|
| Coronavirus has been a pretty good litmus test for which
| countries have good governments, and which countries do not.
| The UK has consistently led the charts in terms of deaths and
| infections. I think it shows the fundamental defectiveness of
| the system itself - a defectiveness that has been pretty
| visible for years if you looked at the country with a critical
| eye, but doesn't seem to be often acknowledged, since english
| people have a cultural prohibition against complaining.
| seneca wrote:
| > Perhaps the idea that convention and precedent is the only
| thing holding the British system together makes it stronger.
|
| This echos the Roman senate during the late Republican period
| quite strongly. They, like the British, depended on precedent
| (their "Mos Maiorum"). Like us Americans, once the social norms
| were violated things quickly devolved.
| meepmorp wrote:
| 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.
| Silhouette wrote:
| _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 wrote:
| 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.)
| jsmith45 wrote:
| > (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.)
|
| The Queen would likely (rightly) refuse Royal Assent if
| parliament tried that, given that as she is also Queen of
| Canada, she could never legitimately allow the UK
| Parliament to do that.
|
| And if so some reason she did not, it would have no real
| impact on Canada anyway. Practically speaking Canada is in
| no way bound by the UK at this point. While legal theory
| may claim otherwise, it does not really matter. Legal
| theory would also claim the US constitution is
| illegitimate, because it was not passed in the way
| considered correct by its predecessor document (Articles of
| Confederation). Nobody cares.
|
| The UK trying to change Canada's constitutional situation
| would be no more effective than the US passed a law
| claiming to amend Canada's constitution. The Government of
| Canada would laugh at it, and otherwise move on with their
| day. In the UK case they might debate changing to no longer
| be a Monarchy, since their Queen had failed them here.
| retrac wrote:
| Yes. It's just a silly thought experiment, of course. I
| mentioned it, if anything, to highlight how, what the law
| says on paper, may not be the real law.
|
| Canada would, of course, simply ignore any such act. Even
| if there were a strong legal argument made in our own
| courts that it somehow abolished our sovereignty, we'd
| all agree to simply pretend otherwise.
| Silhouette wrote:
| The legal situation might be somewhat different for other
| Commonwealth or former Commonwealth states anyway, because
| you don't necessarily have the same historical arguments
| about the supremacy of the _UK_ parliament within those
| jurisdictions.
|
| But yes, if we _did_ want a new written constitution to
| become superior to any other legal authority except for a
| popular decision to change that constitution, one strategy
| that _might_ be compatible with our current legal order
| would be to establish and empower whatever new order was
| intended and then render the historical Parliament
| functionally impotent so that no mechanism remained for it
| to pass any new legislation that would undermine the new
| order.
|
| I wonder what Dicey would have made of such issues today. I
| suspect he might have argued that any claimed authority
| under any system of government is relevant only if that
| system has popular consent, so regardless of historical
| precedent, if the will of the people is clearly to change
| to a new system of government then the old system no longer
| enjoys any moral authority anyway.
|
| As a practical matter, if the public view is clear and most
| of those in positions of power within the new order, such
| as political representatives and judges, support that view,
| then arguments about preserving the historical order become
| moot points anyway. And if the public ever felt strongly
| enough about our constitution that this kind of change was
| a realistic prospect, I wouldn't expect anyone in a
| position of power to keep that position under the new order
| if they didn't support it.
| twoslide wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| This is exactly what the article is about.
| meepmorp wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| _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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| How so? According to the article the Queen can simply veto
| any law that would restrict her power to veto.
| elil17 wrote:
| This is probably a better article, it explains what changes the
| queen has actually secured using this rule:
| https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/queen-lobbie...
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