you can't possibly understand
Even if I was an outsider, why not? Everyone has deep feelings about their own country, culture, history and so on. Don't you think it's a little silly to imagine a country is simply beyond understanding by anyone else? Certainly outsiders have a different relationship insofar as they didn't grow up listening to smack of leather-wrapped balls on cricket bats or [insert distinctive national trope here], but so what? Lacking experience of other cultures never deterred the British from opining about and sometimes taking them over during the age of exploration. If anything, their ability to understand the dynamics of other countries was a major factor in becoming an imperial power in the first place.
UK system is sublime and built on subtlety and nuance
That's just a flowery way to say you like how things have always worked and have a good grasp of unwritten rules. It's equally applicable to the Catholic church or Kalahari bush society.
people who don't fully understand it underestimate it
Americans think the same thing about their Constitution, and this has a lot to do with why the country nowadays lurches from one crisis to the next, failed to anticipate the possibility of a coup attempt 2 years ago, and still hasn't got to grips with it as a polity, despite having successfully prosecuted a number of people for sedition.
I recall 10-15 years ago where when I first became convinced that the US had some serious structural problems and was headed toward acute domestic conflict, academic/legal friends would just go misty -eyed and say nice things about constitutional checks and balances and the wisdom of the founders. If had been sufficiently prescient or had a time machine to say 'by 2021 you'll have civil unrest all over the country and a mob of Donald Trump supporters will force their way into Congress to prevent the transfer of power' they would have laughed out loud or summoned an ambulance.
Also English people do not make up the United Kingdom. Nor do they constitute the entirety of British influence. But that's a trivial matter to a world expert such as yourself, who can't even remain consistent in a baseless rant.
The distinction between English and British in my comment was intentional. The unique style of self-infatuation expressed in the parent comment is quintessentially English (white English, to be even more precise); not Scottish, Irish, or Welsh.
And that is another fear I share for the loss of a monarchy. Something familiar and deeply associated with our long history will be gone, and home will look even more like everywhere else.
Racism and xenophobia divide the working classes as the current government shifts to the far right to pander to white supremacist voters. Politicians lie with impunity. Human rights are supposed to be human. But by othering humans of different nations we are being tricked into dismantling what remains of our own freedoms.
The government would rather outlaw protest, than pay essential workers such as doctors and ambulance staff living wages.
The voting system is unrepresentative and politicians serve corporate interests above their citizens. You've articulated well how there have always been injustices, but as long as things were better than somewhere else, you had a captive and passive populace. They felt powerful despite not being a part of the establishment, as if they were supporting a sports team that was doing well. We were never on the team or a part of the inner circles of wealth creation.
The UK became short sighted, complacent, greedy, and lazy. The country is tearing apart at the seams as the inequality gap continues to widen. It feels as if after almost a decade of Conservative government that the UK itself is being run as if it were a former colony. There is no longer a cohesive populace or vision from government about how to bind the political and working classes together. It feels as if the UK itself has become colonised by international business interests. The elites can live anywhere they choose, so no longer have ties to the soil of the country and are not emotionally invested in saving it.
The UK has failed to prepare for the fact that it has become a multicultural society. You can't discuss the issues of racism in this country without discussing how it is that people of colour have come to live here. Reni Eddo-Lodge begins to ask these questions in her book 'Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race'.
We are still reckoning with imperialism and the end of empire and honest conversations about our past and the source of our nation's wealth are being capitalised on to further societal and political divisions and being labelled as culture wars or wokery. The transatlantic slave trade and the roles of royally chartered companies such as the East India Company/Royal African Company have through systemic exploitation and misery of others made Britain 'Great'. It provided the foundational wealth of industrialisation. The nation is a developed nation because of it. The City of London would not be as powerful as it is now, were it not for the abhorrent trade. There is an unwillingness to admit this, because to do so would expose the lies created to justify white supremacy, slavery and capitalism. Exactly how you describe, the larger population are assets to exploit and are not stakeholders in the business of the nation.
We desperately need to mature as a country.
/rant
The whole comment here reeks of hyperbole and university student angst and anger.
Not saying there aren't fundamental problems but this is extreme.
They're good at fooling people. They steal a few of Labour's policies, put a few non-White people in Government/Cabinet, and suddenly they're a centre party? Please.
They control who runs the BBC.
They hate poor people - just look at the realities of our benefits system.
They banned protests; those which cause annoyance.
They suppressed voters with voter ID, using the lie of significant voter fraud as justification
Every Home Sec recently been strongly authoritarian. They tend to use the Home Sec as a distraction, knowing they'll attract all the far-right accusations, leaving the rest of the party looking squeaky clean.
Prominent cabinet members have supported far-right groups/parties on Twitter.
They hate unions.
They hate human rights.
They're obsessed with appearing to defend our borders.
They strongly, STRONGLY defend the rights of corporations to exploit and profit.
They're anti-intellectual and anti-elitist, prominently expressed around the Brexit vote.
In 2019, Boris Johnson unlawfully suspended parliament
During and post Brexit they heavily promoted nationalism.
They're obsessed with appearing tough on crime.
Rampant cronyism and corruption (particular prominent during COVID)
It's a collection political confetti.
Civilizations are cyclical. The pretend-status of the commoners is cyclical. Sometimes they are too-free, and sometimes they are overtly enslaved. Generally speaking, and while nothing is black and white, these are the two extremes.
The idea is to find the Springtimes in this eternal cycle and to hold the cycle there for as long as possible, lest one of the extremes yet again comes back around sooner than later.
Holding Springtime requires compromise, grit, a respect for the social compact, clear eyes in regard to society's class hierarchies, individual morality, and moral reason in regard to government and social norms.
As those who benefit from the extremes will use any one of those compromised avenues. They have unlimited funds to both open the road and to travel.
The trick is that those who are most oppressed during any single extreme are the ones manipulated into advancing it.
If you think that this era is moving toward a Springtime and not away from it, then you're missing the clear and eternal signals and are going to be in for a shock.
I'm amazed that a book with this title was published. Some people disagree with the cynical 'everything western is evil' narrative for entirely plausible reasons. This title doesn't indicate an openness or curiosity from the author, and it does so on the basis of dismissing an entire ethnic group. The fact that the conversation has moved this way bodes ill for us all.
I'm not sure it's fair to characterize Magna Carta as the core of the UK Constitution, especially since most of it has not been in force for centuries. It looks to me that the main thing it imparts to the constitution is the existence of something which eventually becomes Parliament. Instead, the core of the constitution is probably the English Bill of Rights.
E.g. Manga Carta Article 39: "No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him except upon the lawful judgement of his peers or the law of the land."
By medieval standards, not bad.
Aren't you holding that up as a bit of a silver bullet? There are many republics in this world and I'd not want to live in them. Changing the head of state from a powerless unelected to a powerless (or worse, powerful) elected head of state would change little practically. It would be just another part of our nation handed over to the partisan political class.
And even if we became a republic, who would run for election? The members of same political class as before. Just now they're even more entrenched in the structure, and we will look a bit more like America with its heated Republican/Democrat presidential elections every few years.
I think your post comes off a bit cynical. Can you not see any advantages and positive achievements of the British history of constitutional monarchy, common law, Bill of Rights, etc? Jury trials, habeas corpus, etc, have done much for freedom. The legacy code, if we might call it that, is the only thing still holding back the authoritarian ambitions of the powerful.
I think we've fared a lot better than many other countries, and it has taken great effort to destroy our institutions. We're definitely far gone now, but I can't join in with the kicking of a formerly great man when he is down.
>Can you not see any advantages and positive achievements of the British history of constitutional monarchy, common law, Bill of Rights, etc? Jury trials, habeas corpus, etc, have done much for freedom. The legacy code, if we might call it that, is the only thing still holding back the authoritarian ambitions of the powerful.
So what's your position exactly? On one side you claim it's a powerless family that would get replaced by a (potentially) worse elected person, on the other side it turns out it's a very influential family that prevents authoritarians from taking the power. Then, you finish up with non specific examples of republics that are much worse off than UK monarchy while conveniently excluding republics that are doing equally well or better than UK (you didn't specify in what UK is better so I can also be nebulous I guess).
In my view, monarchy is an artifact of the past. It's pretty much a family inheriting rather high privileges because of some things (which we can agree were important) that happened in the remote past. Nowadays, what's the point? Why do we need to continue with that? If they're powerless as you say, why not just get rid of them? Save money, make the country more democratic (at least on paper) and all that. Oh yeah, and as a spaniard I can also guarantee that a monarch can become a piece of trash like any elected official so those guarantees are thin as paper.
I just would like to hear real arguments about why a monarchy is so much better than an alternative.
That's exactly the trick. Have the head of the state encrusted in titles, ceremony and tradition, but with no practical power. Leave the gritty parts of politics to the parliament. Let the King shake hands and open buildings and leave the governing to the MPs. It was basically figured out over centuries of compromise and finalised with William III's Glorious Revolution. Britain has had some bad eggs but never a tyrant. We've never had a Robespierre, Stalin, Mau or Franco. It seems to have worked.
> Save money
I look forward to finding a politician who will work for nothing. The royal family pay for themselves through their own property and holdings, they actually pay 80% of their earnings to the state and keep the remaining 20% for themselves.
While how much money is spent on American presidential elections? It will frighten you. That money has to buy something, right?
> Nowadays, what's the point? Why do we need to continue with that?
Generally we continue with things because they've worked well for us for centuries. I don't see anyone in the current political class that I'd rather have as a 'president' than Elizabeth II or even Charles III. The British way is empiricism, biased more to observation than pure reason.
> I just would like to hear real arguments about why a monarchy is so much better than an alternative.
It gives us someone who can speak for the nation, untainted by party politics. This is something you'll miss if you abolish the monarchy.
If you are actually curious to read the other side, I'd recommend Roger Scruton.
If the king/queen shakes hands and open buildings, do we really need a royal family with all its associated costs (not only monetary) or a single appointed person that can do these things and get replaced if it's not doing a good job? Let the people vote for it in elections or let the Parliament appoint someone to do these things. I just don't see why the nation should keep giving power to the same family over and over.
>I look forward to finding a politician who will work for nothing. The royal family pay for themselves through their own property and holdings, they actually pay 80% of their earnings to the state and keep the remaining 20% for themselves.
I didn't say it'd cost nothing. Also, the majority of the property and holdings of the royal families come from all those privileges obtained over the centuries, which they get to enjoy while the rest of the people don't have a chance unless allowed in isolated occasions (if so).
>Generally we continue with things because they've worked well for us for centuries. I don't see anyone in the current political class that I'd rather have as a 'president' than Elizabeth II or even Charles III. The British way is empiricism, biased more to observation than pure reason.
Fine, but this is literally an appeal to tradition [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition
>It gives us someone who can speak for the nation, untainted by party politics. This is something you'll miss if you abolish the monarchy.
But this is the case in many republics as well! I live in Finland where the head of state speaks for the nation and is untainted by party politics. He was elected in 2012 and re-elected multiple times, becoming one of the highest valued officials of all time (I think it's currently the second). I have listened to him a bunch of times and I can clearly see he's a "king" with the difference of eventually getting replaced due to better people around or just doing poorly. Good luck doing that with a king/queen - in Spain, it just happened when scandals keep stacking up to an unbearable point where he had to forcefully abdicate or else monarchy could have been really gone.
All this being said, I believe the discussion won't become very productive because you're pro-monarchy and I'm anti-monarchy, in general terms, and some couple paragraphs here and there probably can't change much (specially given the feeling we're both well informed about our positions and it's not simple fanatism). We have exposed our arguments but I really see this can get really long and at the end pointless. I appreciate the time you spent answering my questions with your opinions that, while I don't agree with, are respectable and educated. I'll take a look at Mr Scruton.
I'll concede that the Finnish presidency sounds like a fair option, with some of the benefits I see in the monarchy. Longer term, but ceremonial and elected presidents are preferable to what we see in America. I think it is a similar arrangement in Ireland and Germany.
The British Monarch has more practical power than some elected heads of state in parliamentary republics (who typically do not have both vast personal landholdings and properties tied to the job and a veto, exercised confidentially, on any law that would impact them in their enjoyment of those privileges, which serves for potent and secret leverage on general legislation.)
Britain has a very vibrant and creative culture which has led to lots of great technical innovation in the past, but there are too many perverse incentives in place under the existing system for it flourish, in my view.
It's not the current government that's on its last legs, it's your system of government. With the upcoming coronation, police are being given sweeping new public order powers and opponents of monarchy are being pre-emptively warned not to upset the apple car or face penal consequences. Meanwhile the establishment press regales the populace with an endless torrent of nonsense about how many twists are in King Charles' gold braid and what sort of 500 year old pie recipe will be served at the royal feast.
After briefly abolishing the monarchy and establishing a parliament, the UK went back to being an aristocracy and went in an imperialist direction instead. The peasants and later the working class were willing to put up with it by virtue of feeling that they were at the top of the international heap and thus far better off than all those savages in the colonies. As imperial dreams faded under the stress and cost of war, the country pivoted to being the center of a 'commonwealth', but at its core its still an aristocracy, with nearly unlimited privileges for the very rich or the very well-bred, and open-air prison conditions with bread and circuses for everyone else, kept in line by an especially cynical press. The whole Brexit mess was based on nostalgia for the days of Britain being an empire with a built-in moat. The only things saving the UK from international irrelevance are money (in the sense of being a tax haven for the very wealthy), a seat on the UN security council, and a small nuclear capability.
Nothing is going to change until the country becomes a republic, and the only way to get there is to abolish your benighted aristocracy, confiscate its assets, and convert a subject population into citizens by refactoring your legal code to make it meaningful and comprehensible to schoolchildren. Otherwise it's just going to continue down the Harry Potter theme park track.