God Save The King

[Barrister]

Well, we are talking about what people are saying today - and I have to tell you all my indigenous clients use the words like "colonial" and "decolonization" all the time.  I have never heard them refer to the Queen as the "Great White Mother". 

I agree that "Great White Mother" is a thoroughly historical term.  But it speaks to that history.

And I suspect that between the indigenous people I deal with on a regular basis, and your indigenous clients, my experiences are more representative of indigenous people as a whole.  And before you go there - no not the Accused people.  I never speak with them after all.  I mean all the witnesses, victims and family members.

[Barrister]

I guess my issue specifically with anti-monarchy feelings in Britain is that it seems kind of...irrational. Which is kind of weird considering we are talking about a very irrational institution.

But it not only serves a key part of the British Constitution but it also is a symbol of unity for the country in an era where that seems increasingly unstable. Then the monarch is head of the Commonwealth, which gives Britain a position of prestige it might not otherwise deserve. Likewise with the British monarchy being head of state to Antigua and Barbados, Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, the Solomon Islands, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint Kitts and Nevis. So this is an institution that seems to produce tons of benefits in the national interest with few drawbacks. It also gives the chattering classes something to waste their time on.

And replace it with what? Some figure-head president who will be some politician who will probably lack all the historical ties to Scotland and Wales and all those other countries. Not to mention there are probably a ton of unknown constitutional issues that would need to be solved. Seems like a huge cost to pay for very little gain.

It does seem worthwhile to point out that Barbados did become a Republic just last year.  Apparently they thought it was worthwhile.

BUt yeah this partly points out why I support the monarchy.  The monarch's role is 99.99% symbolic.  But in the once or twice per century where there's a constitutional crisis who do you want to make that call - a partisan elected President?  A President appointed by a partisan sitting government?  A Court which was also appointed by a partisan sitting government?

It seems to me that in those rare cases having an elected monarch who has been selected by nothing more than the lottery of birth is a better choice.  Even better if that person is overseas and is even more removed from any local pressures or influences.

[Sheilbh]

You have perfectly summed up why we still have a monarch as our head of state in Canada - and I suspect that is the reason the rest of the Commonwealth stays the course.

I think it might be a bit mixed.

Jamaica is committed to moving to a republic which I think is entirely understandable - though I believe a republic only has 55% support so that might change as I believe they plan to hold a referendum. I think it is probably symbolically worth it there and in the Caribbean - but not uncontentious/universally popular.

I'd be surprised if Australia and maybe New Zealand didn't become republics in the next few years but I think the issue of what you have instead was what lost the last referendum in Australia and might happen again.

I don't know if Charles stays as head of the Commonwealth - and I'm incredibly cynical about the value of the Commonwealth because it seems pointless to me. But recently there have been countries who weren't part of the British empire joining (I think Rwanda and Mozambique - maybe others?) - so there must be some benefit to being in it, but I can't work it out. Similarly I saw Kevin Rudd who is a republican saying that the Commonwealth was actually very valuable and undervalued in the UK - but again I'm not sure why or how?

[Valmy]

The calculus of how useful the monarchy is changes for the non-UK countries for sure. It just stupid from a UK perspective.

[Tamas]

Why would it be worthile? Because monarchies have people literally inheriting jobs and above the law status. A monarchy says that birth does determine who you are. A monarchy says the citizens of the state are not equal, some came out of superior wombs.

Not to mention that they are all remnants of warlords taking subjugating people.

[Barrister]

You have perfectly summed up why we still have a monarch as our head of state in Canada - and I suspect that is the reason the rest of the Commonwealth stays the course.

I think it might be a bit mixed.

Jamaica is committed to moving to a republic which I think is entirely understandable - though I believe a republic only has 55% support so that might change as I believe they plan to hold a referendum. I think it is probably symbolically worth it there and in the Caribbean - but not uncontentious/universally popular.

I'd be surprised if Australia and maybe New Zealand didn't become republics in the next few years but I think the issue of what you have instead was what lost the last referendum in Australia and might happen again.

I don't know if Charles stays as head of the Commonwealth - and I'm incredibly cynical about the value of the Commonwealth because it seems pointless to me. But recently there have been countries who weren't part of the British empire joining (I think Rwanda and Mozambique - maybe others?) - so there must be some benefit to being in it, but I can't work it out. Similarly I saw Kevin Rudd who is a republican saying that the Commonwealth was actually very valuable and undervalued in the UK - but again I'm not sure why or how?

I think Australia shows the exact problem why it's so difficult to move to a Republic.

First, it just isn't an issue many people care about that much to begin with.  Very few people are worked up one way or another.

But second it's one thing to agree that a change is needed - another thing entirely to agree on what that change should be.  We saw that in Canada in our 1992 constitutional referendum.  Nobody was super happy with the existing constitution, but when a new version was agreed to by the politicians you couldn't get a majority of Canadians to vote in favour of them.  Everybody found something in there to disagree with.

Commonwealth is the same.  I don't know if it has a ton of value, and probably not something you'd create today from scratch, but more trouble than it would be worth to leave it.

[Valmy]

Why would it be worthile? Because monarchies have people literally inheriting jobs and above the law status. A monarchy says that birth does determine who you are. A monarchy says the citizens of the state are not equal, some came out of superior wombs.

Not to mention that they are all remnants of warlords taking subjugating people.

Of course I get all of that. But that is just ideological stuff, I am talking about the political reality and national self-interest.

[Sheilbh]

The calculus of how useful the monarchy is changes for the non-UK countries for sure. It just stupid from a UK perspective.

It is wrong on principle but I agree convincing people that we should change now is very difficult. At least until we have a monarch who oversteps the bounds or something similar.

[Tamas]

Why would it be worthile? Because monarchies have people literally inheriting jobs and above the law status. A monarchy says that birth does determine who you are. A monarchy says the citizens of the state are not equal, some came out of superior wombs.

Not to mention that they are all remnants of warlords taking subjugating people.

Of course I get all of that. But that is just ideological stuff, I am talking about the political reality and national self-interest.

How can you know its ideology only and that it would not result in advantages?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Of course. I'll simply note that it's easier to be decent when one hasn't borne the brunt, or is living through some of the most dire consequences of, say, British imperialism. The sheer inequality of treatment is often enough to bring out a meaner streak - and that was before social media. 

That being said, none of the "edgy takes" I have seen online was very thought-provoking, or much more than, as Sheilbh said, a somewhat obscene desire to inject yourself in a widely-covered event.

"Borne the brunt", the vast majority, of places the British colonized were far better off after and because of colonization than they were prior to colonization.

[Valmy]

Why would it be worthile? Because monarchies have people literally inheriting jobs and above the law status. A monarchy says that birth does determine who you are. A monarchy says the citizens of the state are not equal, some came out of superior wombs.

Not to mention that they are all remnants of warlords taking subjugating people.

Of course I get all of that. But that is just ideological stuff, I am talking about the political reality and national self-interest.

How can you know its ideology only and that it would not result in advantages?

I don't. I wouldn't have posted that if I didn't want robust rebuttals proving me wrong.

Just that whenever I hear people saying why the monarchy is bad, it is only ever for those reasons.

[Sheilbh]

How can you know its ideology only and that it would not result in advantages?

I'm not sure it would - but that might be because countries I quite like and think get lots of things right like much of the Scandis, Japan are also constitutional monarchies. So I don't think it necessarily makes a difference.

I assume we'd go for a German or Irish style president which I like a lot as a system - but I suppose there is a non-zero risk we actually end up going for a US or French system where the President as an individual with a direct mandate has power which I'm not sure would be great

[Barrister]

"Borne the brunt", the vast majority, of places the British colonized were far better off after and because of colonization than they were prior to colonization.

That's a hard argument to make, because so very few places were not colonized.  In Africa you had Ethiopia, but even then it was conquered by fascist Italy for a period of time.  In Asia you had Thailand, but hard to compare Thailand to places outside of SE Asia (and even then Thailand did a kind-of self-colonization).  Persia I guess as well, but it was fairly well developed on its own.

I have seen reasonably convincing arguments that it was better to be colonized by the British than the other European powers, but that's something different.

[Tamas]

How can you know its ideology only and that it would not result in advantages?

I'm not sure it would - but that might be because countries I quite like and think get lots of things right like much of the Scandis, Japan are also constitutional monarchies. So I don't think it necessarily makes a difference.

I assume we'd go for a German or Irish style president which I like a lot as a system - but I suppose there is a non-zero risk we actually end up going for a US or French system where the President as an individual with a direct mandate has power which I'm not sure would be great

Yeah because the monarch has been excellent in keeping PMs like Johnson in check. 

[Josquius]

Of course. I'll simply note that it's easier to be decent when one hasn't borne the brunt, or is living through some of the most dire consequences of, say, British imperialism. The sheer inequality of treatment is often enough to bring out a meaner streak - and that was before social media. 

That being said, none of the "edgy takes" I have seen online was very thought-provoking, or much more than, as Sheilbh said, a somewhat obscene desire to inject yourself in a widely-covered event.

"Borne the brunt", the vast majority, of places the British colonized were far better off after and because of colonization than they were prior to colonization.

Ish. But then to what extent is that a product of the era in which the empire existed vs the empire itself?

To say the British empire was in most cases better than the likely alternatives is a point of view I have a lot of time for. For instance it was much better than just leaving capitalism to run rampant.

As sure. As nice as the idea is that India could just me a lovely modern Republic from the 18th century that just wasn't happening.

But its going a bit far on top of this to say the colonisation itself actively made things better on all occasions.

Overall my view on such things is fuck nationalists of all stripes. Though there are fragments of truth from all sides.