The issue with the British monarchy is that we pay them and their only duty is to not look like a bunch of idiots, nothing more is asked. But unfortunately all we got from the royal family is (1) somebody that gets involved in sex assaults against children, (2) somebody whose main achievement is having cheated repeatedly on his wife and (3) a TikTok influencer that writes books about freezing his dick.
I’m not sure my taxes are well spent on this insanity.
My understanding is that the royal family is financially a net benefit for the UK for several reasons.
1) The royal family leases most of it's belongings (from land for farming to museums/castles) and that's a 300M+ pounds benefit for the British government. The crown gives back more than it takes (40M pounds/year). If you removed them from power, why would they have to do so anymore? Like it or not, it's still their personal belongings and you would also need to confiscate those.
2) The royal family drives a lot of gossip business. It's a very huge industry on which many indulge out of boredom/curiosity that gets no parallel among other VIPs. Thousands of people's livelihood depend on that.
3) Apparently it's a huge bonus/benefit for tourism. I can't find the source but most tourists find it more interesting that real nobles and monarchs live in British castles. Goes without saying that the monarchy is also essentially a tourist attraction with all it's traditions/parades/coronations in London.
Essentially the Crown is more of a financial benefit to the UK than the opposite.
- Have you seen the lines in Versailles? No actual monarch, but definitely no lack of tourism.
- Gossip magazines are not the most desirable industry who need to be boosted by the government. But in any case, they are very adaptable and can just as well write about other celebrities. I doubt their business would shrink just because they write more about George Clooney and less about Prince William.
- You're first point is puzzling. Where does the royal family get money to pay the lease? Isn't that also either directly or indirectly from the state anyway?
> Have you seen the lines in Versailles? No actual monarch, but definitely no lack of tourism.
The correlation between "Castles being empty museums, or castles being also museums where real nobles live" is not easy to prove, just a sentiment from people that were asked the question.
> Where does the royal family get money to pay the lease? Isn't that also either directly or indirectly from the state anyway?
Nobles in UK are like any other private citizens with their own belongings, land, estate, etc.
Changing the legal status of this, in particular of The Crown Estate is complex as de jure it belongs to the monarch by various rights till William the Conqueror.
It should be noted that no tax payer money goes towards the Royal family, the Royal family gets 15% of the net income of the Crown Estate, a 15B private corporation that manages the belongings of the crown and ranges from rural houses, farming land, tourist attractions, equity in companies, etc.
The remaining 85% of the income is spent by the British Parliament for the British citizens. The Crown Estate alone is more than a good reason to not get rid of the monarch to avoid the obvious privatization that would benefit the British citizens very little.
Monarchy-related tourism on it's own is valued half a billion pounds. The monarchy moves people for events, celebrations, etc all around UK and the globe.
I am not saying that Britain would be destroyed financially by losing the monarchy, but I would advocate that the current status quo works good for the monarchy and its citizens.
The Crown Estate is not private property of the King in the sense that Bill Gates owns his property. It would probably be a legal nightmare to untangle this, but it's hard for me to see how it would be bad for the british citizens if 100% of the profits instead of 85% of the profits would go to them.
Versailles is jaw-dropping. It's a marvel of architecture, independent of royalty.
Further, it's not just connected with royalty, but with some of the most romanticized images of royalty. Those are linked: Versailles was a symbol of excess because it is excessive.
Nothing in the UK compares. People would still go see Buckingham Palace, I'm sure, but it's nowhere near as grand and nowhere near as historically interesting.
It's impossible to say what the profit/loss would be, but that's not really why I bring it up. My point is that Versailles isn't really a great comparison, because it is a modern Wonder of the World.
> "Like it or not, it's still their personal belongings and you would also need to confiscate those."
As long as they fully pay taxes (multiple dwellings, appreciation), maintenance and security out of their own pockets (like everybody else does) - as opposed to having all of that fully subsidized by the British public - I don't think anybody is going to have a problem with that.
Also, the claim that those are all "their personal belongings" is contestable. You could easily make the case that at it all belongs to the British people (as it's being funded, maintained, guarded and paid-for by the British people).
> The royal family collects fees from The Sovereign Grant Act, a taxpayer fund that is used to maintain royal palaces and royal duties such as receptions and travel.
> The Sovereign Grant for 2022 to 2023 is just under $100 million. Payments are based on profits from the Crown Estate, a property business that is owned by the monarch but runs independently
Essentially most of the crown belongings are managed by the government and the royal family gets 15% of it, with the remaining 85% going to the British citizens.
But to say that average briton spends a single penny on the royal family is technically wrong.
Yeah about that, you may want to look into the Duchy of Lancaster. A huge holding whose owner (aka the sovereign) only pays income tax because they want to, and which has not been subject to inheritance tax.
I've heard several times the argument that they run a clown shitshow that produces lots of money (which is your points 2 and 3), and usually my retort is that another Champions League would look less classist, trickle down more wealth and entertain more people. Maybe a Love Island or a Big Brother edition with Kylie Minogue, Cristiano Ronaldo, Andrew Windsor and some child celebrity would be more interesting and produce more money.
Point 1 is debatable, there's lots of data that suggest they are a net cost (such as a recent investigation of the Guardian).
The Crown Estate and its revenues should really be excluded from costs/benefits. It is effectively the State, not their personal property, and I suspect that if the Monarchy was abolished the only change to it would be the name.
This is hyperbole. The monarchy has many problems but it seems Charles' principal failing is that he isn't as "hip" as his sons, despite being way ahead of his time on awareness of environmental issues. Every other argument against him you could easily level at any public official.
And please remember (if you were around at the time) that Diana was the mistress of media manipulation.
Fine, but Diana was not just a failure in herself, she was first and foremost a failure of the so-called royal family. Again, their job is to not behave like total idiots, which includes choosing partners that don't go mad if they are not cuddled enough.
You're going to have to pay for a head of state anyway so this isn't a great argument, and I don't know where you've been for the last decade if you don't think similar levels insanity exist with elected leaders too.
The monarchy is flawed, but at least provides a stable and apolitical head of state.
I think the term "sexual assault" covers everything from slapping someone's butt all the way to much worse. Epstein and his pedo island is towards the nightmare end of the spectrum for the kids involved.
For most Brits, at least by my estimation, have fairly complicated feelings towards the Monarchy that often cannot really be expressed. Many Brits aren't monarchists but 'Elizabethans', but now that the Queen has passed, those complicated feelings that were kept at bay by the public's genuine affection for the Queen are now rearing their head. The King, and I suppose the Royal Family in general, aren't doing themselves any favours either. That being said, we aren't shown really any examples of good republicanism.
We know that a Monarchy is weird, that this is the 21st century, that a birthright to rule is medieval... but what's the alternative? No really, what's the alternative? We look at America with its independent, co-equal executive in horror. We don't want that. And then we look at France, whose President just forced through a rise in the retirement age against the will of the Parliament. We don't want that either. Having an elected President inherently means that they'll have a democratic mandate, so there'll always be questions of whether they should be granted more power, or whether the President has the mandate to exercise power. There's great usefulness to having a Head of State who's not involved in politics or policy. And yes, WE KNOW that it's not that simple, that the Monarchy has its claws in the legislative process to grant themselves shady opt-outs to tax laws and such, we know this. We just need to be shown what a good republic looks like and then be able to actually make the change to the law without it being moulded in favour of whoever was in Government at the time. We are literally facing deterioration of our Human Rights. You think the Government wont go after the most fundamental parts of our constitution once they know it's on the chopping block? The Monarchy is the very last protection we have against a tyrannical government, as weird as that may sound. People who want the Government to remove that need to have a very convincing argument.
There's always the option of having a (largely) ceremonial president, usually elected by a non-standing representative body which is quite common in central Europe. It retains the role of a non-political head of state who represents the constitutional order and in theory even has quite a few powers should things go south, but without all the monarchy, blood based lineage, and pomp that at this point I think undermines the legitimacy these institutions have.
Monarchy even if in many countries still around and reasonably popular is in my opinion on life support without any sort of modern justification for its existence. The Economist a while ago had a good column how the drama within the British Royal family with Megan and Harry is essentially a 'all that is solid will melt into air' moment as the family itself is gradually absorbed into something more like capitalist American celebrity-dom.
But most importantly are proud in unity of the big and independent Empire that is so influential in most of the UK. Or British Isles minus Ireland. Or Great Britain without some folks in Scotland. Or Englad + Wales. Difficult to follow what is what and where and why and who. Nevertheless, this amount of pride mandates a Brexit. Or maybe even two.
Not being funny, but 'elected' has lost some of the properties it used to be associated with. For example, the UK parliament consist of elected MPs - in theory, representing their constituents. In practice, they are 'whipped' by their party into however the government wants them to vote - often against the will of the constituents that elected them.
Another example is the Mayor of London, elected - but instituting wildly unpopular plans like extending the ULEZ zone despite the fact that it will not improve air quality, will push the cost of living in and around London higher and will cost more to implement than it raises in revenue.
What is the purpose of electing people who will then do as they please?
ULEZ did improve air quality in central London - owing to the large concentration of cars. I'd say probably strong incentives for non-gas vehicles helped also (exemptions from Congestion Charge, reduced parking fees in certain boroughs, etc)
The ULEZ 'extension' is different. It extends ULEZ to areas on the outskirts of London (the suburbs). There are a number of problems with this:
* Public transport options not as great, so car ownership is far higher. Lots of commuters (that either have to travel to surrounding areas or commute in from nearby).
* The area is not as densely populated as the central areas and there are more highways and things designed to support greater volumes of traffic.
* The costs are high (daily £12.50)
* From 2030, all new cars in the UK will be non-gas. The shift is already gaining momentum so naturally through incentives those that can afford to move to an EV are doing so. TfL's own analysis shows that the scheme will cost more to rollout than the revenue it generates.
Also, I detest the 'pulling at heart strings' approach taken to justify this extension. It is akin to the people who want to break E2E encryption and privacy crying 'think of the children' - the basis is not logically sound.
The point of elected people is that if the majority disapproves of their actions they will vote them out at the following election. IMO, the system is not so much about guaranteeing 'good' people are elected but rather about guaranteeing that 'bad' people have a limited expiry date.
This is especially valid for someone lie the Mayor of London, who is directly elected and has power individually, so ultimately Londoners will decide. Currently I suspect that Labour is safe, and that they know it.
Yea, I agree with you on this. It just sucks when the options available involve trying to guess which candidates are the 'lesser evil' rather than the 'greater good'.
But to dig down into the point, if it is to avoid 'bad' people, then the reasoning is questionable as far as the monarchy go. They have very limited powers as things stand and their economic impact from things like tourism has been greater than the cost of maintaining them. I doubt very much anyone will want to visit the UK to see an elected monarch.
Regarding tourism, what would change without the Monarchy? Frankly, I suspect nothing. People would still be able to visit Windsor Castle, perhaps even more of it. People would still be able to see Buckingham Palace, and may even be able to visit it. The parades, Changing of the Guard, etc could remain or be adapted.
Does it really make a difference whether you see where the King lives vs. where the King used to live? Especially since in the latter case you may actually be able to see inside, as mentioned.
Public sentiments regarding the monarchy have been massaged over the centuries via the British media which is also utterly entangled in the City. It's all one giant mutual interest collective which practises tax evasion on a galactic scale.
I'd recommend picking up a copy of "Treasure Islands" by Nicholas Shaxson. Chapter 12 ("Griffin") focuses on the City and I'd also recommend viewing the reactions to any anti-monarchy campaign through this lens.
Lots of coverage around the time of the Queen's death and unsurprisingly in the news now given the coronation. Little to no media coverage at any other time and has very little public support albeit growing support in certain demographics.
In all fairness, the elected officials of the past 10-15+ years have been awful in so many ways. Ineffective, populist, law-breaking, corrupt and laughing in the face of law. That's mostly Tories, but I don't seem to remember much love for Tony Blair.
End of Monarchy - maybe. But replacing it with elected officials doesn't sound like an improvement.
In that case of course everyone will vote for Kingsly McKingface.
The incumbents may also be clowns, but they are at least a bridge to the old world, dictatorships, etc, where they still have some clout, and can help peddle the national interest.
And they are able to use all of their clout to give themselves advantages while ignoring their country, like any leaders - only these also lack oversight.
It's not as though they are some shadowy government agency free from scrutiny.
In some ways they are better than elected leaders. They have a long-term reputation to uphold, whereas elected leaders might be gone in a term - Almost like one of those supermarket 'free smash and grabs' where competition winners get 5 minutes to grab and keep whatever they can from the supermarket shelves.
I'm not particularly a fan of monarchy, but if we're going to abolish it, we should just do that, not put up some other kind of clown show.
> It's not as though they are some shadowy government agency free from scrutiny.
Maybe not shadowy, but the rest? How do you have anything comparable to democratic scrutiny in a monarchical system?
> They have a long-term reputation to uphold, whereas elected leaders might be gone in a term
You're putting it like the politicians don't have a reputation to uphold. Can you clearly explain why the long-term reputation of monarchs is more important than that of politicians? The politician will have to face re-election, the monarch will stay in power.
So due to heredity a monarch is more interested in upholding their reputation, which the politician (who needs good reputation to be re-elected) is less interested?
UK Republicanism has very little (but growing) public support. People are deeply invested in the national emblems and will defend them even if rational cases for reform can be made. For the Brits this is NHS, BBC and Royal Family
As a Brit, if we're ranking those things in order of practical importance, I'd put the Royal Family dead last.
People will whinge about the NHS being slow or badly managed, but generally defend its existence to the hilt. Barring some free market extremists, there's no political will in this country to explicitly privatise and dissolve the NHS as a free at point-of-care nationalised healthcare service.
The BBC gets teased for being old-fashioned, quite a bit of stick for the mandatory licence fee, and a lot of well-deserved criticism for the Jimmy Saville mess. Excluding some absolute nutters with dubious motivation and funding, no one's trying to get rid of the BBC.
By contrast, there's a significant political bloc who are at least apathetic towards the monarchy, especially now the late Queen, the last symbol of continuity, has died.
The NHS is a slavery farm delivering questionable value to citizens. As an example, a British brain surgeon will earn less than an American car wash manager while British health outcomes are worse than ever.
35% of people with EMERGENCY cancer referrals don't get seen within 2 months, and wait lists now hold over 6,000,000 people, and the worst wait periods (over a year) are rising rapidly.
Doctors and nurses get absolutely scammed, while citizens get left to die.
Additionally, despite the use of slave doctors, NHS funding is rising 2,000% faster than close neighbor France -- with further massive increases planned to 2025.
Is the "car wash manager" an intended reference to Breaking Bad, where the genius teacher becomes a drug lord to pay for healthcare and avoid bankrupting his family and then uses the car wash where he used to work a second job to launder money?
If you decide you can move on up to checks board managing the production of burritos and burgers as a Food Service Manager, you can out-earn a British brain surgeon by 50% :)
You should dial back the hyperbole and get some more sources in there, if you actually want to debate, and not come across as a for-profit healthcare shill.
I wouldn't be opposed to the UK having two heads of state and reforming the monarchy somewhat, but I struggle to understand how some people don't some to see any benefit of the system at all.
Personally I like having a politically neutral head of state as a personification of the country.
An elected head of state will be impossible to keep politically neutral and inevitably will polarise things.
Maybe a system with an appointed head of state instead of elected, similar to peerages in the House of Lords. Someone vetted and trusted, approved by an elected parliament.
Although the Monarchy is already completely controlled by parliament which is democratically elected so I’m not sure what the difference would be.
This basically my position too. I think the concept of a stable and politically neutral head of state makes a lot of sense.
For me it's more the out dated ceremonies and the displays of wealth that I don't like. I think if the monarch just lived in a nice country house and deprecated silly things like the Crown Jewels and the Royal Carriage then I'd be completely fine with them.
I think it's the "royal" part of the monarchy that people oppose rather than the system itself.
The monarch has not exercised direct political power since the English Civil War.
Yes they’re wealthy and have exercised power that wealth gives you but they’d still be wealthy if they were not a monarch.
If we want to talk about the power that money brings you in politics then we’re having a different discussion, a discussion that is not UK specific.
But yes the monarchy as an institution has not involved itself in political matters in living memory, and has not exercised political power (executive orders, vetoing bills) in centuries.
Parliament is the sovereign political power in the UK. If they wanted to they could pass a bill today that dismantled the crown and the monarchy.
Direct political power is one thing, but indirect political power is very much another. The monarch gets briefed in advance on pretty much everything. Where there’s direct commercial impact to the crown’s businesses the laws are often changed to favour them.[1] There’s also a wide range of exceptions written into the UK’s legal system after direct political pressure specifically for the royal family.[2] This might be done in the shadows, but done it nevertheless is.
I think if you assembled a list of elected MPs who have changed laws to suit them or lead directly to their profit (the PPE scandal, the recent scandal with Rishi Sunaks wife owning shares in a company the government officially endorsed, etc). You’d have a much longer list than the laws the crown has influenced.
I think if you made a list of how many laws and bills have been influenced by private lobbying and donations you’d have an inconceivably large list.
My point earlier is that the wealthy get their say, the monarchy as an institution hold the same amount of political power as the wealthy in the UK, but they do not hold direct political power.
>but I struggle to understand how some people don't some to see any benefit of the system at all
The monarchy is a living remnant symbol of a thousand years of violence, slavery, genocide and theft. It's an insult to the rest of the world to keep up the farce of dressing up rich, pompous jackasses and parading them through palaces waving around scepters encrusted with blood jewels just because some British people like to pretend they live in Narnia instead of the real world.
The one royal the UK actually liked is dead now. (edit: OK not counting Diana.) It's time to burn it all the fuck down.
Fair enough, I got a bit hyperbolic. Although I also consider monarchy and aristocracy evil by definition.
I feel like one obvious way to address the incontrovertible problems with the monarchy is to recognize that the system no longer serves any purpose besides acting as a symbol of imperialism and class hierarchy that has no place in the modern world, and dismantling it.
Keep the castles and whatnot for the tourist money but why still have a King?
Most if not all of the castles and palaces in the UK are open to the public through the national trust. The Monarchy have multiple residences but apart from Windsor castle (which is open to the public when they’re not there) and Buckingham palace, they are mostly cottages or manors in the countryside.
The monarchy today is not seen by anyone as a symbol of imperialism and class hierarchy unless they explicitly set out to see them as a symbol of imperialism and class hierarchy.
They are mainly to most people a symbol of the country and its traditions. Again the monarchy has existed for a thousand years and has changed as society has changed. They are a reflection of the country that hosts them. Everyone is taught about the English civil war at school and knows that the monarch was beheaded and a republic was formed (150 years before the French Revolution). Nobody feels like the monarch has us under their thumb.
As an ethnic minority growing up in Britain I can tell you from my experience and the experiences I’ve heard from other ethnic minorities, the monarchy represented to me a more fair and kind view than the politicians we elected.
The Queen would have seen me (had we met) as a subject like any of her subjects regardless of race or class, she stood above it all and the monarchy still is above it all.
While the BNP and EDL were organising marches across the country the Monarchy actually made me feel like I belonged in the country I grew up in, that is a powerful thing.
Such an American viewpoint. Imagine the horror of having one of the nouveau riche becoming head of state. They probably didn't even go to the right schools!
Really thinking about it. The Richest might not be horrible pick.
At least if the process is proper. Every quarter, everyone who want to be in the running would be fully audited, all of their holdings, accounts and liabilities would be fully public. Then we could just tally it all up and pick the one with largest number.
Just need amount of transparency that will never happen.
I don't think you could design a process that wouldn't lead to horrible outcomes. Rich people aren't rich because they are smart, but because they are selfish. Having someone like that lead the country will not lead to good outcomes for citizens.
There's tonnes of evidence that proportional representation and voting systems other than FPTP are important for the health of a democracy. The problem in the UK is that the parties in a position to make it happen stand to lose a lot of power as a result, so it's not likely to happen.
The 2011 Alternative Vote referendum was a solid victory for FPTP, and it's often used as a cudgel on anyone who dares to suggest a better voting system.
I’m not sure my taxes are well spent on this insanity.