Skip to contentWillowOne's PositionsTagsWhat’s newMediaStatisticsSearch
WillowOne's Positions

UK Monarchy

My Positions

  1. The UK monarchy is outdated and incompatible with modern democratic values.
  2. The monarchy should not be publicly funded.
  3. Symbolic or hereditary power has no legitimate place in a democratic society. The head of state should be chosen by the people, or by their representatives, and should be removable by them.
  4. The monarch's constitutional roles (assent to legislation, the appointment of the Prime Minister, the dissolution of Parliament) are either purely ceremonial, in which case they could be performed by anyone, or they are not, in which case they should not be in the hands of an unelected person chosen by birth.

Notes

  1. Cost. The Sovereign Grant, the direct public funding of the monarchy, was £86.3 million in 2024–25 and rises to £132 million in 2025–26, following an increase in Crown Estate profits from offshore wind leases. The campaign group Republic estimates the full annual cost to the public, including security, the lost revenue of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, and the costs borne by local authorities for royal visits, at around £510 million. Even the lower figure is more than the cost of most European monarchies combined, and far more than the cost of an elected head of state in Ireland or Germany.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdxr2pk997no
  2. Accountability. The monarchy is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, from most equality and employment law, and from inheritance tax on sovereign-to-sovereign transfers. The practice of "King's consent", by which the monarch is consulted on, and can request changes to, legislation that affects the Crown's private interests before it is introduced to Parliament, has been exercised on over a thousand bills and is not subject to any public scrutiny.
  3. The argument from tourism is the weakest argument for anything. The Palace of Versailles has more visitors than Buckingham Palace, and France has not had a king since 1848. The buildings and the history would remain; only the family would go.
  4. The argument from stability confuses the monarchy with the constitutional settlement. The stability of the UK comes from its parliament, its courts, its civil service, and its habit of not shooting each other over politics, none of which depends on who lives in Buckingham Palace. Ireland, Germany, and Italy manage.
  5. Hereditary principle. No one would propose today that the job of head of state should pass from parent to child regardless of ability, character, or the wishes of the public. The only argument for it is that it is already the case, which is the Appeal to Tradition. It is, moreover, incompatible with Equality of opportunity: the job is closed to everyone except one family.
  6. Religion. The monarch is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and must, by law, be in communion with it. The head of state of a multi-faith and largely non-religious country is thereby required to belong to a particular denomination of a particular religion. See Hard Secularism.
  7. What should replace it. A ceremonial president, elected either directly or by Parliament, for a fixed term, with the same largely symbolic functions, on the Irish or German model. The practical change would be small; the change in principle would be the acknowledgement that in a democracy, the state belongs to its citizens.

Also see