At the same time, I’ve yet to be consulted on policies which would directly affect me, why should being born into some archaic class system give a few people the power to pre-emptively veto/alter legislation which affects them?
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My understanding is that “directly effect her” has been interpreted very broadly and that in the consent process her representatives suggest edits, which are accepted. Pretty clear interference if true. They have also threatened to refuse consent apparently.
I mean she’s a taxpayer, so finance legislation effects her…
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I have been ignored when speaking out about policies that would directly affect me, does that count?
We don’t take any responsibility for that, monarchy is the opposite of anarchy.
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My apologies, I meant archaic… or maybe anachronistic… either way, wrong word.
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So what would happen if the Government didn’t submit bills to her for her consent? Is there a law that requires it?
I’m less concerned about monarchal interference in the bills put through this process than the fact that she spends 4 hours a day going through her Red Boxes and hours a week in private conferences with the PM. How much legislation is discussed there, and quashed before it even makes it to Parliament based on her say-so?
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That’s my point. We’re dealing with counterfactuals here but there is no evidence Italy (or Greece, or any other country) would have done any better in the last decades if they had their own currencies. Yes, they could have devalued them but that brings its own problems with it and not being part of a stable currency would have had huge repercussions on international and internal investment.
And either way, since we are talking about Brexit here, it is interesting that the Brexiters saw themselves on the losing side of the Euro here. They claimed to believe in Britain yet seemed to think the UK would have been an Italy or Greece under the Euro, not a Germany or Netherlands. Says a lot about their own confidence, doesn’t it?
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Most likely true, the fundamental structural problems would have caused issues sooner or later, but most of those people just see a pretty obvious correlation, and run with it.
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Yep, I simplified it a bit to make the point that, unlike in the US, politics in the UK isn’t always split along straight Tory/Labour lines. In fact, brexit has been a good example of how a smaller party can influence policy without needing to get a majority.
Mind you, maybe the US will finally get a chance to experience what a multi-party democracy is actually like, as it now seems to be splintering into Dems vs pro-trump Reps vs anti-trump Reps.
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Exactly. The GOP just said “Trump” is our platform. They were lazy and cowardly which is a really awful mixture that you see played out across the party time and time again. They also gaslight and throw out the trope of two sides of every issue. While there may be two sides to an argument, they are often on the side of nonsense with either made up talking points or disingenuous lies. For me, the worst is when they something like “I’m not an expert” or “I don’t really know”, but what about…blah, blah, blah…and then finish with “I’m just asking questions”. They aren’t.
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Also let’s not forget that Farage used to be an MEP from 1999 to 2020 and is now – as far as the EU parliament is concerned – presumably in comfortable retirement with a very nice pension from Brussels.
Farage is married to a German woman and has thoughtfully arranged for his kids to have German passports in addition to their UK ones, so unlike most of their peers they will be able to travel, study, and settle anywhere in the EU with no visa requirement or other pesky administrative issues getting in the way.
If they gave out Nobel prizes for hypocrisy, Farage would be a very strong contender.
He did try to get elected to the House of Commons a number of times (7, to be exact) but never actually managed to get in, usually having been defeated by a huge margin. That pretty much precludes him from taking a role in UK government because a Prime Minister or cabinet minister is supposed to be an MP. (The rules are a bit unclear here because most of this is built on tradition rather than actual written law.)
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There is plenty of evidence that being in the Eurozone has harmed some of its members. You just have to look at the recovery from the 2008 recession to see that even Iceland has recovered faster than the south of Europe, which was politically forced into years of needless high unemployment, low growth and crushing austerity because of the actions of the ECB and the structure of the single currency. Eastern European countries that had not yet joined the Euro are seeing higher growth and more inward investment than the countries in the Euro. Even in the north, Finland, in the Euro has recovered more slowly than Sweden and Denmark with their own currencies (Though Denmark is still suffering slightly from pegging the Krone to the Euro.).
The fundamental problems is that a currency union without a political union is a dangerous situation. Without a framework of fiscal transfers to poorer areas, parts of Europe have been trapped in a deflationary cycle where interest rates are too high for their economy and cutting their way out of debt leads to a decade of economic depression (and all the political turmoil that goes along with it).
The Euro was always supposed to be a staging post on the way to full political union, but this half-way position is incredibly dangerous economically and politically.
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If the PM chooses to change policy on the back of discussions with the Monarch, that is fully within the intent and expectation of our constitutional setup. Bonkers and archaic as it may be.
That’s the democratically elected executive taking advice from the Monarch as he or she is supposed to.
The consent provisions are treated as cases where even if the democratically elected elements of the executive want to proceed and the elected legislature want to pass the legislation, they are not allowed to.
For what it’s worth when a Private Bill was put forward to abolish the consent requirement a few years back, both the Queen and Charles granted their consent to that bill. It didn’t get through the House.
Basically, the government likes having it around because it gives them rather than Parliament final say over issues relating to the Royal Prerogative.
For example they killed the bill requiring a vote in Parliament before taking military action in Iraq by “advising” the Queen not to consent.
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If some arsehole puts him in the House of Lords then that counts.
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I don’t see enough discussion of this, that the Russian meme trolls played the Brexit issue like violinists
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A nice potted history of the “grubby little opportunist riding the coat tails of history”. I would like to add (again, because it should not be forgotten) the frog-man of the people’s gloating post-referendum when his Poundshop Enoch Powell act won out over humanity by claiming not a single shot was fired after an MP had already been killed murdered in the street just a week previously.
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That was really the moment my disdain for Farage burst into white-hot hatred. It burns still.
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Then there was Cambridge Analytica.
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Yes, this exactly.
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Are you saying such massive transfers of wealth from richer EU member states to poorer ones aren’t taking place?
I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you, to find that apparently all the pro-Brexit media were lying about my hard money was being sent to Brussels and thence onwards to Romanian beggars, people smugglers and drug dealers to finance their train tickets to the UK.
/s
More seriously, there is a limited mechanism for financial transfers in that the poorer countries get more access to development funds, etc.
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I swear on my double-signed copy of Good Omens that I have met English people who indeed still can’t process the simple facts that the Republic of Ireland:
- Is a sovereign nation.
- Is still part of the EU.
- Has no Queen (See: Republic.)
- Does not answer to Parliament.
- Has a very, very different relationship with France, Spain, and Germany.
- Would like the English to eff off. Again.
- And likes it that way.
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