A question for people from the UK

[Black Sheep]

Uhm..

excuse me...

but exactly WTF is the deal with the queens and princes and stuff in your country?

[Pogue]

The Royal Family? Left overs of a monarchistic autocratic past. I'm not going to patronise you with the history of kings and queens but basically they're the descendents of Henry VIII, Queen Victoria etc. They have a ceremonial role in our political system, for example the queen is the head of Parliament, opens and closes it, etc, and all laws passed in Parliament have to be signed/approved by her. She can't actualy do anything though. She's purely ceremonial.

For example, in order to form government over here you need 'Royal Ascent', i.e. you have to ask the Queen for permission. She always say yes, but if she said no, she'd just be ignored and we'd probably become a Republic.

We've mainly kept them for tourism and to have a neutral and ineffectual ceremonial head of state without the need for a President. The Prime Minister basically assumes her role now, as 'ruler' of the nation. Also, the Royal Family is considered part of British culture and traidition by many, and thus brings in alot of revenue from tourism (but alot of tax money goes to the maintenance of the Royal Family too).

I think they're a bit of an embarassment to be honest, out-dated, out of touch, useless and racist.

[Invincible Summer]

They're Reptilians in humanoid form!!!




Canada, until the late 1980's, still had to get governments and laws approved by the Queen. Ridiculous. Even now, she's still our HOS.

[Black Sheep]

HLVS hasn't any party,organization, i don't know, propose the abolition of the queendom?

It sounds crazy...

[cleef]

HLVS hasn't any party,organization, i don't know, propose the abolition of the queendom?

It sounds crazy...

Yes there are various. 'Movement against the monarchy' (M.O.M) being one of the bigger ones i believe?

[Pogue]

Yes there are various. 'Movement against the monarchy' (M.O.M) being one of the bigger ones i believe?

yeh that one is mainly anarchist

Theres a few notable Republicans but the movement isn't that big because its not really much of an issue, we can assume they'd go along with capitalism.

[Bitter Ashes]

I think all legislation has to pass the Queen's approval too before it's made law. A bit like the President of the United States.
The only time, I know of, since the civil wars, that the monarch has ever said no to a law though, was Queen Victoria refusing to allow the criminalisation of lesbian relationshps.
The entire royal family costs each UK taxpayer 41p a year if I remember right. I'm sure they bring in far more in tourism.
It's not very fair that a certain family automaticly gets born into wealth, but at the same time, they're doing us Brits more good than bad I'd say.
-Rach'

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

[quote=Scaeme;1358431
Queen Victoria refusing to allow the criminalisation of lesbian relationshps.

[/quote]

This was is because she could not work out how two women could have sex with each other and no one wanted to explain it to her.

[ComradeOm]

Uhm..

excuse me...

but exactly WTF is the deal with the queens and princes and stuff in your country?You might as well ask the same question of Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway... to name just a few European nations. There are surprisingly many nations in which bourgeois revolutions found it unnecessary to behead the monarch and constitutional monarchies are the result

[Killfacer]

It's shit, but essentially the queen is completely powerless so it doesn't really matter to most people. Personally i think we should execute her.