The English Crown is a ditatorship that uses democracy as governance on autopilot.
05-20-2017, 10:23 PM
Before I left England, I had a spirited debate with a few English folks about how it appeared to me how their government worked.
Things were all good and dandy until I said this:
The Queen is the ultimate arbiter of what goes on in the government. Parliament runs at the consent of the crown and with the royal secret veto they essentially use representative democracy as a way to govern the country on autopilot with occasional vetos to make corrections to the country if the course starts to stray.
More here on the secret veto:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/...veto-bills
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/t...eveal.html
The royals will never ever publicly make a yay or nay opinion on anything but utilizing the power of the secret veto they can and do very much exert their silent influence on the country. Without any idea whatsoever, i'm willing to bet that royal influence is also exerted quietly via direct lobbying of members of parliament just like any other business currently does.
Secondly, the military doesn't make an oath of allegiance to a piece of paper. No, they take an oath of allegiance to the crown!
So if parliament wants to do something stupid like remove the UK's nuclear weapon's systems, the military can tell them to go f*ck themselves and have done so previously in the past: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/pol...09742.html
Now, the American in me understands a lot of English governance comes from an odd hodge podge mix of tradition and law. A common response i've heard, is that a lot of the tradition that is followed never really gets broken and as such must be treated like a law. I find this bitterly ironic that this assumption continues even in the face of previous royals breaking tradition and doing their own thing (ex Henry the 8th).
To me it sounds like if the royals really wanted to go full dictatorship they could and there wouldn't be anyone really to stop them. You really think the English populace would stage a revolt outside of some protests in major cities? Doubt it! This won't happen for obvious reasons, but to me there appears to be very little to stop that from happening.
Now, after I explained this to him he got mightily angry, said, "it doesn't work like that" , but hilariously failed to explain the right way of how it works to me.
I've asked a few other people and the results were similar. Anger and disbelief that such a thing like a secret veto exists and if it did it must be used rarely.
To be blunt, I believe that most people in the UK don't understand how their government works and due to government secrecy have no clear understanding of how often these extraordinary powers get used to influence their leaders.
My own theory: the surviving royal families of today are the result of their ancestors realizing that if they were to survive that they would need to allow a modicum of the appearance for self governance. The government of the UK today is the end result of this clever thinking.
I expect the more well read English members here to rip my thesis apart (please do). If anything, I have even more respect for the English crown and the magnificent efforts they've gone through to ensure their continued dominance.
I have an even more hair brained theory that there's a framework of law out there to allow the commonwealth to fall back and become the English Empire again, but that's a discussion for a different day.
Things were all good and dandy until I said this:
The Queen is the ultimate arbiter of what goes on in the government. Parliament runs at the consent of the crown and with the royal secret veto they essentially use representative democracy as a way to govern the country on autopilot with occasional vetos to make corrections to the country if the course starts to stray.
More here on the secret veto:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jan/...veto-bills
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/t...eveal.html
The royals will never ever publicly make a yay or nay opinion on anything but utilizing the power of the secret veto they can and do very much exert their silent influence on the country. Without any idea whatsoever, i'm willing to bet that royal influence is also exerted quietly via direct lobbying of members of parliament just like any other business currently does.
Secondly, the military doesn't make an oath of allegiance to a piece of paper. No, they take an oath of allegiance to the crown!
So if parliament wants to do something stupid like remove the UK's nuclear weapon's systems, the military can tell them to go f*ck themselves and have done so previously in the past: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/pol...09742.html
Now, the American in me understands a lot of English governance comes from an odd hodge podge mix of tradition and law. A common response i've heard, is that a lot of the tradition that is followed never really gets broken and as such must be treated like a law. I find this bitterly ironic that this assumption continues even in the face of previous royals breaking tradition and doing their own thing (ex Henry the 8th).
To me it sounds like if the royals really wanted to go full dictatorship they could and there wouldn't be anyone really to stop them. You really think the English populace would stage a revolt outside of some protests in major cities? Doubt it! This won't happen for obvious reasons, but to me there appears to be very little to stop that from happening.
Now, after I explained this to him he got mightily angry, said, "it doesn't work like that" , but hilariously failed to explain the right way of how it works to me.
I've asked a few other people and the results were similar. Anger and disbelief that such a thing like a secret veto exists and if it did it must be used rarely.
To be blunt, I believe that most people in the UK don't understand how their government works and due to government secrecy have no clear understanding of how often these extraordinary powers get used to influence their leaders.
My own theory: the surviving royal families of today are the result of their ancestors realizing that if they were to survive that they would need to allow a modicum of the appearance for self governance. The government of the UK today is the end result of this clever thinking.
I expect the more well read English members here to rip my thesis apart (please do). If anything, I have even more respect for the English crown and the magnificent efforts they've gone through to ensure their continued dominance.
I have an even more hair brained theory that there's a framework of law out there to allow the commonwealth to fall back and become the English Empire again, but that's a discussion for a different day.
![[Image: 004C9C8200000258-3163868-During_a_state_...910515.jpg]](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/07/16/18/004C9C8200000258-3163868-During_a_state_visit_to_Australia_in_2002_Prince_Philip_asked_Ab-a-1_1437066910515.jpg)
![[Image: roy1-725x413.jpg]](http://www.vosizneias.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/roy1-725x413.jpg)
