Poll: How would you vote in a referendum to abolish the monarchy?

Would you get rid of the monarchy?

  • Abolish the monarchy

    Votes: 326 30.5%

  • Keep the monarchy

    Votes: 743 69.5%
  • Total voters
    1,069
I'm still anti monarchy. Don't get me wrong, queeny has done an amazing job representing the UK as a figurehead, and is no doubt a lovely lady. 70 years is an incredible burden to bear regardless of who she is. I have no ill will towards her, I just don't have any allegiance or "love" for her, I also find it old fashioned and not really suitable for a modern society. I guess she's good for tourism though.
 
Freefaller said:
I'm still anti monarchy. Don't get me wrong, queeny has done an amazing job representing the UK as a figurehead, and is no doubt a lovely lady. 70 years is an incredible burden to bear regardless of who she is. I have no ill will towards her, I just don't have any allegiance or "love" for her, I also find it old fashioned and not really suitable for a modern society. I guess she's good for tourism though.
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This. The Queen can see out her reign but after that it can dissolved. Too much privilege the proceeds can help the vulnerable heat there homes or feed themselves.

Never really got the whole tourism bit. Sure it generates money but I guarantee if you put David Beckham in their place, revenue would sky rocket.
 
BowdonUK said:
I'd rather remove the current house of lords situation i.e. people nominated and given titles, to an elected second chamber.
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I’d vote for that too. Plus mandatory disclosure on who and what funds/owns them. We want to know before you weiners
are voting for legislation, who’s been buying your influence.
 
BowdonUK said:
I'd rather remove the current house of lords situation i.e. people nominated and given titles, to an elected second chamber.
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Yeah that needs massive reform. Handing out peerages to their mates or donors is just wrong on every level. Also bishops getting a seat, why the hell are they getting a say? Government should be completely secular. No second job for MPs, not trading stocks, any stocks you own should be placed in a blind trust while you are an MP.
 
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Semple said:
I'm not anti-monarchy, but i do think the royal family needs to be cut down in terms of status/honorary titles. Just picking on Andrew's children, they're so far down the pecking order that for one of them to become queen would likely require a big act of treason. So even though they're the grand children of the queen, there shouldn't be any "official status". That should be reserved for first in line (Charles) and then his children. Then as they grow up, Will and Kates eldest would keep their official status, but the younger children would lose it. Rinse and repeat.
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There's already a cutoff point - grandchildren of the monarch and great-grandchildren in the direct line of succession. Maybe there's a case for tightening it further now that average lifespans are longer, but it's not a big deal since it's just a title. For example, what difference does it really make whether a particular person is called Princess Beatrice or Mrs Mozzi?

You do realise that happens outside of the royal family too? Plenty of people are born to wealthy parents just for "being born in the right cot" and live a life of luxury.

To some extent that example could even be applied to yourself. You could have just as easily been born to a poor African family living in a mud hut shared with your 9 siblings and no access to running water?
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In addition to that, very few people who inherited wealth voluntarily give almost all of their income to the state. The UK royal family does. The people who want to abolish the monarchy support seizing it all by force. I'm curious as to how many support seizing owned assets by force from other people and if so where they draw the line. For example, my mother owns a house worth about £300K. Should that be seized by force when she dies? How about someone who owns a business worth £10M? Should that be seized by force when they die? What if it was worth £100M? Or £1M? Where's the cutoff point? Should we go to the logical conclusion and have full communism?
 
Angilion said:
In addition to that, very few people who inherited wealth voluntarily give almost all of their income to the state. The UK royal family does. The people who want to abolish the monarchy support seizing it all by force. I'm curious as to how many support seizing owned assets by force from other people and if so where they draw the line. For example, my mother owns a house worth about £300K. Should that be seized by force when she dies? How about someone who owns a business worth £10M? Should that be seized by force when they die? What if it was worth £100M? Or £1M? Where's the cutoff point? Should we go to the logical conclusion and have full communism?
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You know the answer to that. The cutoff point will be just outside of where they qualify. :D


Edit: I really like Semple's point, a lot of people really don't realise or appreciate the life of luxury we have just by being born in the UK. Now I'm off to go enjoy some nice refreshing clean water delivered straight to my house.
 
Angilion said:
In addition to that, very few people who inherited wealth voluntarily give almost all of their income to the state. The UK royal family does. The people who want to abolish the monarchy support seizing it all by force. I'm curious as to how many support seizing owned assets by force from other people and if so where they draw the line. For example, my mother owns a house worth about £300K. Should that be seized by force when she dies? How about someone who owns a business worth £10M? Should that be seized by force when they die? What if it was worth £100M? Or £1M? Where's the cutoff point? Should we go to the logical conclusion and have full communism?
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Who is saying we should seize all their assets? I just don't want them to get another penny once the queen pops her clogs. The Dutchy of Lancaster and Cornwall money should go to the state. They've hoarded enough over the centuries to keep them going for centuries. Enough is enough. Let them live in luxury if they want to but let them spend their money doing it, not the states. No family should be placed above all others, its an outdated institution that need to go.
 
Semple said:
You do realise that happens outside of the royal family too? Plenty of people are born to wealthy parents just for "being born in the right cot" and live a life of luxury.

To some extent that example could even be applied to yourself. You could have just as easily been born to a poor African family living in a mud hut shared with your 9 siblings and no access to running water?
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I've lived in Zambia so I'm fully aware of what poverty looks like. So because I was born in the UK I should just accept a family being placed above all others and live a life of privilege and luxury with money that could go to the state instead of them? They have enough money stashed to keep them in luxury for generates to come, let them spend it.
 
The constitutional monarchy shtick has had its day. Not to mention the patchwork of convention that is the UK constitution at the moment due to the institution it weaves its thread around being such an anachronism it has to wrestle with and accommodate.

The heads of state and government should be elected from the society they represent in a democratic system. Though even an indirect choice through a predominantly two party system is preferable to random chance, which is what any line of succession is at its core - dumb luck for leader, even a ceremonial one. With the latter approach you're guaranteed to get mediocrity or worse most of the time.
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
Who is saying we should seize all their assets? I just don't want them to get another penny once the queen pops her clogs. The Dutchy of Lancaster and Cornwall money should go to the state. They've hoarded enough over the centuries to keep them going for centuries. Enough is enough. Let them live in luxury if they want to but let them spend their money doing it, not the states. No family should be placed above all others, its an outdated institution that need to go.
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The monarch owns about £15B worth of assets in the UK designated as the crown estate. The money you claim the royal family gets from the state actually comes from the monarch's own assets. She gives 100% of the income from those assets to the state and the state gives her 25% of it back.

So you have two choices:

1) Don't seize all their assets and have the state (i.e. us) eat the increased cost (plus the costs of a new head of state, plus the costs of previous surviving heads of state).
2) Seize all their assets. Or at least almost all of them, i.e. the crown estate. Probably some more too.

I'm betting you're in favour of seizing their assets. Probably dishonestly by pretending that they don't own them. So my question still applies - where would you draw the cutoff point for the state seizing privately owned assets by force? Only for people you don't like? How do you plan to gain the dictatorial power required to do that? Or would you impose a value limit? If so, how much? How would you deal with assets being transferred to another country? That would obviously happen if your asset seizure plans were implemented. Dodging taxes is a large industry. Dodging asset seizure would be even more so because at least taxation doesn't take everything.
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
Who is saying we should seize all their assets? I just don't want them to get another penny once the queen pops her clogs. The Dutchy of Lancaster and Cornwall money should go to the state. They've hoarded enough over the centuries to keep them going for centuries. Enough is enough. Let them live in luxury if they want to but let them spend their money doing it, not the states. No family should be placed above all others, its an outdated institution that need to go.
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The cost of a new head of state and the process for electing them etc would likely be very similar and we would still be saddled with the bill for maintaining the royal palaces etc. Would you have a head of state with real power or just an elected figure head? Imagine president Boris….
 
a1ex2001 said:
The cost of a new head of state and the process for electing them etc would likely be very similar and we would still be saddled with the bill for maintaining the royal palaces etc. Would you have a head of state with real power or just an elected figure head? Imagine president Boris….
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I was just thinking that myself, President Blair, President Cameron etc.

I don't believe the Queen, or Charles, or William are corrupt, but imagine if we had a President Blair and a Prime Minister Boris .........

There has to be some balance, those born into power and raised for it are not necessarily worse than those who crave it.....
 
martin363 said:
I was just thinking that myself, President Blair, President Cameron etc.

I don't believe the Queen, or Charles, or William are corrupt, but imagine if we had a President Blair and a Prime Minister Boris .........

There has to be some balance, those born into power and raised for it are not necessarily worse than those who crave it.....
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and our head of state has nothing more than symbolic power, are we saying we want to replace the head of state with someone with real power and open up a whole new layer to our politics? Do we really want/need a president with executive powers sitting above the house of commons and the the house of lords? I think very few people actually have a well thought out solution to this and the number who see it as a simple abolish the monarchy decision is staggering, we certainly shouldn't be holding any sort of referendum until properly fleshed out and costed alternatives are on the table with proper independent analysis to underpin them.
 
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