Republic4uk

Graham Smith is campaign manager for Republic, which calls for the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of an elected head of state.



Graham Smith:
"30 Sep 2009 I was interviewed by a Swiss journalist the other day, who was interested in the Republic campaign and our arguments for abolishing the monarchy. Aside from taking a keen interest in the finances he suggested that a key pro-monarchy argument is that the strength of the institution isn’t what power it has, but what power it denies others.

I was quite surprised to hear this line of argument from a foreign journalist. It’s not one I’ve heard for a while and I didn’t think it had very wide currency. However, someone did suggest something similar on this blog just recently, so I thought I’d ask if any monarchists can explain how this is supposed to work.
The argument is that as the Queen holds certain powers she denies them to the politicians (presumbaly the monarchist logic is that politicians would just use that power for their own benefit).
The trouble is, it just doesn’t work like that. For the most part the Queen is a puppet of the prime minister. If you don’t believe me, try writing to the palace and take issue with something the Queen has or hasn’t done, or ask her to take action on something. You’ll get a polite letter back explaining that your letter has been passed to the relevant minister. You will be told the Queen only acts “on the advice of her ministers”. That’s a constitutional euphamism for “she does as she’s told”.

Bush flirts (?) with Queen Elizabeth - From the net

While it is possible that the Queen can exercise informal influence on the government through her secretive meetings with the prime minister, there is little scope for her to actually limit the power of the politicians. Sure, in the past monarchs have interfered more directly in government business. But the opportunities to do so have become vanishingly few and far between as prime ministers have become more dominant, “democratic” conventions have bedded down and deference among the political classes has become diluted.
Monarchists often base their arguments on fantasy and wishful thinking, and I suspect this is one such case. They like to believe that the monarch has some useful purpose, some kind of paternal role as protector and servant of the people. In truth the royal household is constitutionally pointless, serving not the people but themselves.

The royals place absolutely no limits on the powers of the politicians, quite the opposite in fact. It should be no surprise that our politicians tend to be pro-monarchy – our monarchy is pro-politician. Through parliamentary sovereignty granted by the Crown to royal prerogatives and the shambolic, un-written nature of our feudal constitution, the monarchy ensures that power can remain centralised and virtually unlimited in scope.

The pomp and ceremony and the fairy-tale hype that surrounds the household provides a perfect diversion, a way of distracting people from a serious and critical debate about the nature of our democracy.
It is the people, not the politicians, who are denied power by the monarchy. The people don’t get to decide the important questions about their own constitution, the people have limited control over the government and the people cannot place limits on the powers of their own parliament. The monarchy is a charter for centralised and undemocratic rule, it offers no comfort or protection for those concerned about the over-mighty state or the dubious intentions of our political masters.

The royals may well interfere where they can and where they choose, even the Queen has been to known to do so in her own way. But actually keeping power out of the reach of politicians? Nothing could be further from the truth.". / Graham Smith