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.

Do you believe that the current monarchy is politically neutral?

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.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2015/may/...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/14/queen-immuni...

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.

A thousand years is bit much.

A monarchy existed in the UK since the fall of Rome.

The monarch since the signing of the Magna Carta has had relinquished political power in England.

Since 1640 the monarch has been largely symbolic and subject to parliament.

The violence, slavery, genocide and theft was definitely present during a period of the history of the monarchy, and should be addressed.

But we cannot necessarily paint the entire history of the monarchy as evil.

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?

To be honest this is already largely the case.

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.