Socialist Live Laugh Meme Abolish The Monarchy T-Shirt

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As someone who believes the monarchy is an outdated concept that compromises our democratic right and signifies colonialism, I am suddenly being turned into the bad guy for deciding not to celebrate that aspect of the Queen’s life. I think we will become a republic, but when this will happen, I'm not sure. Undoubtedly it will be a long and painful process. I think when current baby boomers and Gen X generations pass, those outdated ideas of allegiance to the monarchy will too, and it will bring more fresh perspectives willing to challenge the notion of 'divine right to rule' and the monarchy's sordid history. How Meghan and Harry get more flak is difficult to comprehend. Yet, I find how they’ve treated their respective families in public incredibly selfish and unkind. What terrible disruption did these nefarious republicans have in mind? Were they planning to plant bombs in letterboxes? Were they going to throw paint at the King’s golden carriage? No. They were there to hold up some placards in protest against the institution of monarchy. They liaised with the Met for months before the coronation and, so far as we know, had no plans to do anything seriously disruptive, let alone illegal.

Smith believes admiration for the Queen has largely repressed republicanism, with the issue likely to be imbued with renewed energy. “The Queen was the monarchy for most people and has been all our lives. Charles will not inherit that level of deference and respect, and this really does change the whole dynamic,” he said. Although Queen Elizabeth II was one its most loyal supporters, her passing may not have any effect on it. The British have a monarchy that is extremely important. It gives a strong sense of self and plays an important part in tourism,” Dr. Carole Levin (Willa Cather Emerita professor of historical history at the University of Nebraska) said.Here’s everything we know about the anti-monarchy protests – and whether or not it would actually be possible to abolish the royal family. During the coronation of King Charles III, the Metropolitan Police arrested 64 people, most of whom they claimed were there to disrupt the inauguration of our new head of state. Six of these were members of the group Republic, which seeks to abolish the monarchy. They were detained for 16 hours. Indeed many question why we are even having a coronation, given that most other European countries have long since abolished them, the last one in Spain was in 1555 and Denmark, Sweden and Norway have all deemed them archaic and unnecessary since 1906.) Other republicans admit they feel bullied into supporting something they don’t believe in. “I feel unable to express an opinion without being branded disrespectful, so therefore I’ve been funnelled into complying with the country’s grief,” said Aisha, who also requested a pseudonym.

I have always felt this way about the monarchy because I have been a republican since I started to engage with politics less than a decade ago, for the aforementioned reasons. More surprising still, given that he leads a group called Republic, Smith appears to have little familiarity with the 2,500-year-old tradition of republican thought. Where are Plato, Machiavelli and Rousseau? Where are the Levellers, the Radical Whigs and the Founding Fathers? Thomas Paine does get a mention, though one is left with the suspicion that Smith’s acquaintance with him comes via The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations rather than Rights of Man, since he is invoked merely to make the point that the appearance of something being correct doesn’t make it so. Well, a lot of people believe the monarchy to be an outdated institution. Many argue that the royal family no longer has a place in our country, particularly during a cost of living crisis and rising inequality across the country. Also, if you hate the royal family so much, why keep your titles? But there’s no escaping the fact that James Holt has got a valid point.Kennedy stated that states don’t keep membership unless they have some benefits. It will continue to exist for as long as there is interest. Elizabeth II might have been its most prominent supporter but it doesn’t affect its institutional purpose.

The obvious problem with the moralistic approach is that any society, let alone one of sixty-five million people, will harbour a vast diversity of values, as is borne out by recent polls of public attitudes to the monarchy itself. Perhaps unwittingly, Smith concedes as much. He says that the attitudes of the royal family to race are contrary to the nation’s sense of fairness and equity. At the same time, however, he refers to the outpouring of public support for the courtier Lady Susan Hussey when she was accused of racism. Monarchists speak with revulsion of who an elected president may be. The royal historian Robert Lacey, in a recent debate, asked in tones of horror, “President Lineker? President Street-Porter?” But, urges Graham Smith, CEO of the Republic pressure group, look around Europe at dignified presidents who understand their ceremonial duties and the political limits to their role, while acting as constitutional guarantors. Former politicians take on a presidency with as much independence as our Speakers in parliament. Look across the Irish Sea at Michael D Higgins, Mary McAleese or Mary Robinson and ponder why British voters are too wild or daft to be trusted to make equally sensible choices. Kennedy said, “My answer is that it’s a legitimate moment to ask the future monarchy.”“Republican/anti-royalist sentiments have existed for a very long time, but they wax and wane. These sentiments are now waxing slightly more. Charles III, his mother Queen Elizabeth II wasn’t as warm and fuzzy as he was. I think the monarchy should be abolished because the whole idea of hereditary monarchy is an outdated anachronism that is not fit for the 21 st century. The whole premise of the Monarchy is that bloodline is more important than the democratic will of the people, I believe that instead of giving Charles the 'god-given right' to become Britain's head of state that, instead, the people should decide who the Head of State should be through a democratic process. People in Britain are 'subjects' rather than citizens and the country will never be truly egalitarian if this dated institution continues to exist.

Unwilling to make the case for republicanism on its own merits, Smith builds his argument on the apparent shortcomings of monarchy itself. Both in principle and in practice, he states repeatedly, monarchy contravenes the ‘values’ of the British people: it is undemocratic, expensive and impractical; it enthrones privilege, nepotism and inequality. He offers up a familiar list of royal peccadilloes – King Charles’s petulance, Prince Andrew’s promiscuity, Prince William’s indolence – and slays sacred cows along the way: Queen Elizabeth II was a tax evader; her mother was a racist; their Tudor and Stuart precursors were slave traders. This is of course not a judgment of the individual human Queen Elizabeth II, who none of us other than a very limited circle of people have any potential to understand or to know."

She added that Charles has to demonstrate that he can save money and recognize the difficulties people face. This could be a reduction in the number of people on the payroll. This centralisation of power, and the powerlessness of our head of state in the face of it, is one of Smith’s favourite themes. Without an elected head of state and a written constitution, we are left at the mercy of parliamentary sovereignty—which in practice means the supremacy of the government. There is almost nothing stopping the Prime Minister of the day from legislating for whatever they wish, so long as they have an unassailable parliamentary majority. And this is not even to mention the sweeping powers, not subject to any sort of democratic process, afforded to the Prime Minister by the royal prerogative and the Privy Council. The pessimists have long had the upper hand in the ongoing debate over whether to cut the umbilical cord that has linked Canada to the British Royal Family since the birth of this country. The obstacles between the start and end points have seemed too numerous or too insurmountable to even try. It could be argued too that the monarchy continued because of Queen Elizabeth II, and that sentiment to abolish it could grow louder now with her passing. However, what wasn't as immediately considered is what could be lost if the monarchy is abolished. The monarchy is very important for the British people. It provides a strong sense of identity and also plays an important role in tourism," said Dr. Carole Levin, Willa Cather Emerita professor of history at the University of Nebraska.The saturation point for many, he envisaged, would be the middle of this week and although he anticipated overt republican and anti-monarchy sentiment to decline around the Queen’s funeral, he expected a resurgence soon after, when many predict the UK will enter a different era of debate over the future of its royal family. My response is that it is a perfectly legitimate time to question the future of the monarchy," Kennedy continued. "Republican/anti-royalist sentiments have existed for a very long time, but they wax and wane. Now they are simply waxing a bit more. One reason is that Charles III is not the warm and fuzzy person that his mother Queen Elizabeth II was." I feel like, since The Queen's death, we have entered a place in which I think people in the UK and across the Commonwealth feel a lot more comfortable having conversations about the relevancy and the purpose and the current status of the monarchy, in their lives and the society that they live in,” he tells me. I ask him if he thinks that Meghan and Harry have acted as a catalyst for this? Moreover, since the Meech Lake Accord was negotiated behind closed doors in 1990, several provinces have passed legislation requiring provincial referenda to ratify significant changes to the Constitution. In addition, since the 1995 Quebec referendum, each region of the country – Quebec, Ontario, the Atlantic provinces and the Western provinces – has been given by Parliament a veto over any change to the Constitution. For a long time, it was possible to argue that the monarchy should be retained because abolition would involve major constitutional upheaval. But leaving the EU has already opened the door to “root and branch” reform of how Britain governs itself. Even Scottish independence and Irish unification are now realistic prospects—foreshadowing, perhaps, the breakup of the British state. In this context, abolishing the monarchy alongside other constitutional reforms can be seen to make a great deal of sense, especially if the UK is to fragment into two or more entities.