This has never been used in modern days but apparently the threat of it has been used multiple times, even by the current monarch when he was still a Prince (look up the “black spider memos”).
There is no such thing in most other Monarchies in Europe.
Then there’s all the soft power that comes from how the Monarchy controls who actually gets socially highly prized symbols such as Knighthoods and Lordships - there are quite a lot of high level and highly paid positions in Britain (such as membership of the BBC board) which are de facto almost impossible to get without one of those.
Don’t confuse the intense and very extreme (certainly when compared with, for example, The Netherlands) Royal Arse Kissing of the British Press often in the form of whitewashing the influence and actions of the Royals and misportraying their anti-democratic priviledges as normal, with the actual reality of how the Monarchy shapes policy in Britain and helps support what would be an extreme level of class stratification in any Democratic European country.
Yes and the second the king tries to use that power, the king will be replaced by a sorts of president. That power today is nothing but a formality.
There is no such thing in most other Monarchies in Europe.
Bullshit, this is perfectly normal for a kingdom, we have the exact same rule here in Denmark, it is a formality that the king must “stadfæste” (kind of confirm) a law before it is legally a law.
This was used actively by the king during WW2 when the Germans occupied Denmark and dictated new laws. In this way the King was able to soften German demands, because they knew that threatening the king would make the Danes angry, and make problems worse for the German occupation.
Don’t confuse
You’re the one who is confused, you very clearly fail to understand how these things work in reality, but has built a conspiracy theory that is completely disconnected from reality.
The power of the King is not in any formalities, because those can be changed by the parliament in an instant.
The power of a king is exclusively in his popularity, and can never in reality be used against a publicly elected government and parliament.
A king or Queen may be popular, but they are also only “tolerated” as long as they do their job well. They are not allowed to disrupt the governance of the people.
Again the problem in UK is FFP voting and the house of lords, that actually have power to stop laws from getting passed without being democratically elected!
Since in your own words you’re so much more knowledgable than somebody who lived for over a decade in Britain, was even in Politics there and knew people from all social classes even including Old Money, please
Explain the “black spider memos”
Also I lived for almost a decade in another country with a Monarchy - The Netherlands - and the influence and treatment of the Royals there is completelly different than in the UK (for example, before he became King the now Dutch King used to take the tram in Amsterdam just like other people, to go his job as a KLM pilotwhilst in Britain there are special air-traffic Laws, just for the Royal Family, clearing air-traffic corridors for the family helicopter to pass).
Also don’t get me started on the difference on the Press coverage of the Royals in the UK Press versus the Dutch Press (which I can read as I know Dutch) - the fawning coverage in the former is “world beating”.
I can only knowledgeably compare Britain with The Netherlands since I’ve only lived in those two Monarchies, and the mindset all across society when it comes to the Royals (and the actual power, influence and wealth of the Royals) is very different.
It’s not a Monarchy problem, it’s a British Society problem.
As far as I can tell, Then Prince Charles expressed “personal” political opinions, and even this is getting close to the line of what is accepted. Pretty much proving exactly what I wrote earlier.
There is AFAIK no evidence that any of these opinions had any actual influence.
These opinions were allegedly expressed as personal, and not in the function of being royalty. Even if they were, he had absolutely zero power of governance at the time.
Was this wrong? Maybe probably yes, because the King/Queen is supposed to be apolitical.
Was this in any way a threat to UK democracy? Hell no.
It’s not a Monarchy problem, it’s a British Society problem.
Yes this I agree on, British society has a problem, which this may be part of, and that is the British exceptionalism. Categorizing the king to be the highest, the lords to be second, the people third, and all foreigners fourth.
This is a sick attitude, that may stem from when UK was a world leading Empire?
But the parts about the king functioning as part of the democracy, that you see as problems are not.
Your perception of the problem is skewed. And without the King or Queen to fulfill certain elements of democracy, you would need another way to handle those functions, and the evidence shows us that they are not better in practice, even if they should be in theory.
Sure mate, it’s the Schrodinger Prince Charles Influence where he both had no Influence and only wrote quite a lot of secret letters to Government as somebody with no more political influence than any other Briton and AT THE SAME TIME the British Press was constantly celebrating how policy kept getting changed in ways that favored what he cared about.
Pull another one.
If you can regularly get the government to listen to you USING TOTALLY SECRET LETTERS (so it cannot possibly be via one’s influence in public opinion) and do things that benefit your interests or things you care about, then you de facto HAVE direct influence on policy.
Said influence not being formal makes it even worse - it means it’s not transparent and not subject to public transparency rules, which is why the discovery of the “spider memos” was a scandal.
Now, maybe the King of The Netherlands was also doing that kind of backstage shaping of public policy, but I certainly never saw the effects of it reported in the press and nothing ever emerged of him doing it, and I can tell you from experience that at least when I lived there the Press in The Netherland was way less propagandistic and manipulative than the British Press, so I suspect Willem-Alexander never exercised back then as Prince nor exercises now as King that kind of backstage policy shaping, being limited to using his prestige to shame the government in the eyes of the Public (and then the voter chose or not to punish the governing party for it), same as any other prestigious public person (and, IMHO, he’s infinitelly more deserving on any prestige he has - from earning it by his behaviour - than what any of the British Royals has obtained with their army of PR drones and fawning “opinion makers” and royal-titled editors, owners and board members in the British Press).
Either way you go about it, if an unelected Monarch can shape policy without going via the public opinion (i.e. doing it via backstage access to political leaders rather than convincing the public opinion that something is wrong and then voters chose by themselves whether or not to change their vote because of it), that’s anti-Democratic, and all that being via informal channels makes it even worse so, since that’s not open or transparent,
The King in Britain has the power to stop laws.
This has never been used in modern days but apparently the threat of it has been used multiple times, even by the current monarch when he was still a Prince (look up the “black spider memos”).
There is no such thing in most other Monarchies in Europe.
Then there’s all the soft power that comes from how the Monarchy controls who actually gets socially highly prized symbols such as Knighthoods and Lordships - there are quite a lot of high level and highly paid positions in Britain (such as membership of the BBC board) which are de facto almost impossible to get without one of those.
Don’t confuse the intense and very extreme (certainly when compared with, for example, The Netherlands) Royal Arse Kissing of the British Press often in the form of whitewashing the influence and actions of the Royals and misportraying their anti-democratic priviledges as normal, with the actual reality of how the Monarchy shapes policy in Britain and helps support what would be an extreme level of class stratification in any Democratic European country.
Yes and the second the king tries to use that power, the king will be replaced by a sorts of president. That power today is nothing but a formality.
Bullshit, this is perfectly normal for a kingdom, we have the exact same rule here in Denmark, it is a formality that the king must “stadfæste” (kind of confirm) a law before it is legally a law.
This was used actively by the king during WW2 when the Germans occupied Denmark and dictated new laws. In this way the King was able to soften German demands, because they knew that threatening the king would make the Danes angry, and make problems worse for the German occupation.
You’re the one who is confused, you very clearly fail to understand how these things work in reality, but has built a conspiracy theory that is completely disconnected from reality.
The power of the King is not in any formalities, because those can be changed by the parliament in an instant.
The power of a king is exclusively in his popularity, and can never in reality be used against a publicly elected government and parliament.
A king or Queen may be popular, but they are also only “tolerated” as long as they do their job well. They are not allowed to disrupt the governance of the people.
Again the problem in UK is FFP voting and the house of lords, that actually have power to stop laws from getting passed without being democratically elected!
Since in your own words you’re so much more knowledgable than somebody who lived for over a decade in Britain, was even in Politics there and knew people from all social classes even including Old Money, please
Also I lived for almost a decade in another country with a Monarchy - The Netherlands - and the influence and treatment of the Royals there is completelly different than in the UK (for example, before he became King the now Dutch King used to take the tram in Amsterdam just like other people, to go his job as a KLM pilotwhilst in Britain there are special air-traffic Laws, just for the Royal Family, clearing air-traffic corridors for the family helicopter to pass).
Also don’t get me started on the difference on the Press coverage of the Royals in the UK Press versus the Dutch Press (which I can read as I know Dutch) - the fawning coverage in the former is “world beating”.
I can only knowledgeably compare Britain with The Netherlands since I’ve only lived in those two Monarchies, and the mindset all across society when it comes to the Royals (and the actual power, influence and wealth of the Royals) is very different.
It’s not a Monarchy problem, it’s a British Society problem.
As far as I can tell, Then Prince Charles expressed “personal” political opinions, and even this is getting close to the line of what is accepted. Pretty much proving exactly what I wrote earlier. There is AFAIK no evidence that any of these opinions had any actual influence.
These opinions were allegedly expressed as personal, and not in the function of being royalty. Even if they were, he had absolutely zero power of governance at the time.
Was this wrong? Maybe probably yes, because the King/Queen is supposed to be apolitical.
Was this in any way a threat to UK democracy? Hell no.
Yes this I agree on, British society has a problem, which this may be part of, and that is the British exceptionalism. Categorizing the king to be the highest, the lords to be second, the people third, and all foreigners fourth.
This is a sick attitude, that may stem from when UK was a world leading Empire?
But the parts about the king functioning as part of the democracy, that you see as problems are not.
Your perception of the problem is skewed. And without the King or Queen to fulfill certain elements of democracy, you would need another way to handle those functions, and the evidence shows us that they are not better in practice, even if they should be in theory.
Sure mate, it’s the Schrodinger Prince Charles Influence where he both had no Influence and only wrote quite a lot of secret letters to Government as somebody with no more political influence than any other Briton and AT THE SAME TIME the British Press was constantly celebrating how policy kept getting changed in ways that favored what he cared about.
Pull another one.
If you can regularly get the government to listen to you USING TOTALLY SECRET LETTERS (so it cannot possibly be via one’s influence in public opinion) and do things that benefit your interests or things you care about, then you de facto HAVE direct influence on policy.
Said influence not being formal makes it even worse - it means it’s not transparent and not subject to public transparency rules, which is why the discovery of the “spider memos” was a scandal.
Now, maybe the King of The Netherlands was also doing that kind of backstage shaping of public policy, but I certainly never saw the effects of it reported in the press and nothing ever emerged of him doing it, and I can tell you from experience that at least when I lived there the Press in The Netherland was way less propagandistic and manipulative than the British Press, so I suspect Willem-Alexander never exercised back then as Prince nor exercises now as King that kind of backstage policy shaping, being limited to using his prestige to shame the government in the eyes of the Public (and then the voter chose or not to punish the governing party for it), same as any other prestigious public person (and, IMHO, he’s infinitelly more deserving on any prestige he has - from earning it by his behaviour - than what any of the British Royals has obtained with their army of PR drones and fawning “opinion makers” and royal-titled editors, owners and board members in the British Press).
Either way you go about it, if an unelected Monarch can shape policy without going via the public opinion (i.e. doing it via backstage access to political leaders rather than convincing the public opinion that something is wrong and then voters chose by themselves whether or not to change their vote because of it), that’s anti-Democratic, and all that being via informal channels makes it even worse so, since that’s not open or transparent,