You will find that written constitutions are about as effective as unwritten ones; if the people in power choose to disregard them, and have popular support, they tend to get away with it for long enough to do damage.
Fun fact: The UK has the Magna Carta, the original bill of rights signed in 1215. Did you know that's 561 years before the US declared its independence from the UK? To put it another way, 561 years is more than double the length of time the US has been a country.
Second fun fact: UK Prime Ministers aren't elected. Their party is elected, and tends to command a majority in the House of Commons, but if they don't, they get to trade horses with other parties to see which coalition can command a majority, and thus win a confidence vote. The party selects a leader through their own internal processes. Doesn't even have to be an elected MP. Then they tell the king, who rubberstamps the decision. They can do this at any time, not just after an election. Provided the leader can command a majority in Parliament, they get to continue. If enough of your own party dislikes you as leader, they will vote against a confidence motion and drop themselves and you out of power; your job is to not let it get to that.
The House of Lords is a secondary chamber, which scrutinises what the House of Commons passes and suggests rewordings and rewrites. (There's a whole other layer of scrutiny at the committee stage, for costing, etc.) They can send back bad bills, but can't send them back indefinitely, if the government had that in its election manifesto, so appointed or not, they can't defy the "will of the people".
The king doesn't rock the boat, not because he fears for his life, but because he'd trigger a constitutional crisis which will inevitably resolve in the form of a republican UK.
This isn’t an accurate interpretation. The UK is a _constitutional_ monarchy, not an absolute monarchy, meaning that the monarchy exists and acts in accordance with the constitution.
In the case of the UK, some of the rituals (such as the one you’re referring to with the prime minister) are based on longstanding traditions, because humans are weird and we like those sorts of things, but the requirement to do that stems from the constitution, not from the King deciding if he likes the PM or not.
And to be clear, the UK constitution is really the combined law passed over centuries (including the Magna Carts). There is no single, “sacred” document as in the US (which isn’t really sacred in practice - we can amend it or let SCOTUS re-interpret it).
The biggest difference between the UK and other constitutional countries is that parliament power is pretty much absolute and it is not bound by any document or pre-existing law.
In theory at least. In practice the courts have hinted that there are limits even for the parliament, and if it were to overstep some unwritten rules, it would cause a constitutional crisis.
This may have been the case historically, but these days the king's role is largely ceremonial.
As to the House of Lords, around 11% of its members are hereditary peers. A bill [1] is in progress to reduce that to zero:
> The bill would remove membership from 89 hereditary peers who currently sit in the House. Their membership would end at the conclusion of the current parliamentary session.
So, in summary, the UK is a democracy with its own set of historical quirks, much like many other democracies (Electoral College, anyone?).
We recently had a significant test of this. Boris Johnson asked the late Queen to prorogue (shut down) parliament in order to prevent debate on the Brexit negotiations between the UK and the European Union.
In theory he was asking permission from the Queen. But in practice, everyone knew that the Queen was powerless to reject his request. Even for something as plainly anti-democratic.
The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the prorogation was not lawful.
Lots of people were hoping that the Queen would stand up for the people. It was a complicated moment when she didn't!
This kind of stuff is fascinating because it's the state interacting with itself. The Queen was powerless to reject his request, he being the leader of the government who governed in her name, whose prorogation was overturned by judges she appointed. She ultimately did not need to act because she had an army of people who acted on her behalf. This is not to say that every misuse of power is always caught, but rather that the Monarch gets to maintain a facade of impartiality because all the partiality is being done by their institutions instead.
> The proposed Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill emphasised the non-justiciability of the revived prerogative powers, prevented courts from making certain rulings in relation to a Government's power to dissolve Parliament. It received royal assent over two years later, on 24 March 2022.
As some have said before, it effectively means in future the Supreme Court can't undo or interfere with prorogation like what Boris Johnson did in 2019. The Labour party have said they won't cancel this law, so Kier Starmer can now do same as Boris and courts can't stop him.
>which is akin to if we handed a bunch of decendants of the mayflower and rich industrialists and priests their own house of Congress.
The House of Lords does need reform, but this is not in any way an accurate picture of it since at least 1999 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords_Act_1999). When you strip away the historical baggage, the House of Lords is just an appointed second chamber. I'm fully in favor of removing the last vestiges of the hereditary principle in government, but hereditary peers do not have a significant amount of power in the current system.
>And when they "elect" a prime minister
Elections really do happen in the UK and really do determine who is Prime Minister. No need for the scare quotes here.
> so basically, there's this constant ritual of pretending they're a democracy when really it's only like that because the king current feels like it.
I'll resist the temptation to point out which country is more pertinently and accurately described this way in the present situation.
> Elections really do happen in the UK and really do determine who is Prime Minister.
Different person, but while this is true, it's also true that the Prime Minister is not elected: they [ordinarily] emerge as being the leader of whichever party commands a majority in Parliament. It's how we've had so much Prime-Minister turnover since the Brexit referendum: those didn't happen because the electorate "determined" it.
Yes sure, it’s a simplification to say that elections always directly determine who the Prime Minister is, and I probably should have been clearer on that point. However, this difference between a parliamentary system and a presidential one has nothing to do with rogue Kings going mad with power.
Even ignoring your flawed understanding of the UK's government, what is your glorious bill of rights worth at the end of the day? Your president just does whatever the hell he wants, ignoring any checks and balances as he sees fit. Freedom of speech? Well, as long as you don't criticise a certain deceased extremist, that is. Freedom of religion? Well, as long as you're a Christian. Freedom of the Press? As long as you're a right-wing influencer. Freedom of assembly? As long as you're not a Democrat. Right to petition the government? You might get shot by ICE agents for following their orders.
>Even ignoring your flawed understanding of the UK's government, what is your glorious bill of rights worth at the end of the day? Your president just does whatever the hell he wants, ignoring any checks and balances as he sees fit.
Are you talking about Bush, or Trump? Because the logic goes both ways -- when Blair bent over over when Bush wanted to go gallivanting into Iraq, we were set upon this path, one that started before I was old enough to vote... so maybe don't show up at the finish line to tut after literal decades of inaction?
You will find that written constitutions are about as effective as unwritten ones; if the people in power choose to disregard them, and have popular support, they tend to get away with it for long enough to do damage.
Fun fact: The UK has the Magna Carta, the original bill of rights signed in 1215. Did you know that's 561 years before the US declared its independence from the UK? To put it another way, 561 years is more than double the length of time the US has been a country.
Second fun fact: UK Prime Ministers aren't elected. Their party is elected, and tends to command a majority in the House of Commons, but if they don't, they get to trade horses with other parties to see which coalition can command a majority, and thus win a confidence vote. The party selects a leader through their own internal processes. Doesn't even have to be an elected MP. Then they tell the king, who rubberstamps the decision. They can do this at any time, not just after an election. Provided the leader can command a majority in Parliament, they get to continue. If enough of your own party dislikes you as leader, they will vote against a confidence motion and drop themselves and you out of power; your job is to not let it get to that.
The House of Lords is a secondary chamber, which scrutinises what the House of Commons passes and suggests rewordings and rewrites. (There's a whole other layer of scrutiny at the committee stage, for costing, etc.) They can send back bad bills, but can't send them back indefinitely, if the government had that in its election manifesto, so appointed or not, they can't defy the "will of the people".
The king doesn't rock the boat, not because he fears for his life, but because he'd trigger a constitutional crisis which will inevitably resolve in the form of a republican UK.
This isn’t an accurate interpretation. The UK is a _constitutional_ monarchy, not an absolute monarchy, meaning that the monarchy exists and acts in accordance with the constitution.
In the case of the UK, some of the rituals (such as the one you’re referring to with the prime minister) are based on longstanding traditions, because humans are weird and we like those sorts of things, but the requirement to do that stems from the constitution, not from the King deciding if he likes the PM or not.
And to be clear, the UK constitution is really the combined law passed over centuries (including the Magna Carts). There is no single, “sacred” document as in the US (which isn’t really sacred in practice - we can amend it or let SCOTUS re-interpret it).
The biggest difference between the UK and other constitutional countries is that parliament power is pretty much absolute and it is not bound by any document or pre-existing law.
In theory at least. In practice the courts have hinted that there are limits even for the parliament, and if it were to overstep some unwritten rules, it would cause a constitutional crisis.
2 replies →
This may have been the case historically, but these days the king's role is largely ceremonial.
As to the House of Lords, around 11% of its members are hereditary peers. A bill [1] is in progress to reduce that to zero:
> The bill would remove membership from 89 hereditary peers who currently sit in the House. Their membership would end at the conclusion of the current parliamentary session.
So, in summary, the UK is a democracy with its own set of historical quirks, much like many other democracies (Electoral College, anyone?).
[1]: https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/hereditary-peers-in-the-h...
We recently had a significant test of this. Boris Johnson asked the late Queen to prorogue (shut down) parliament in order to prevent debate on the Brexit negotiations between the UK and the European Union.
In theory he was asking permission from the Queen. But in practice, everyone knew that the Queen was powerless to reject his request. Even for something as plainly anti-democratic.
The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the prorogation was not lawful.
Lots of people were hoping that the Queen would stand up for the people. It was a complicated moment when she didn't!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_prorogatio...
This kind of stuff is fascinating because it's the state interacting with itself. The Queen was powerless to reject his request, he being the leader of the government who governed in her name, whose prorogation was overturned by judges she appointed. She ultimately did not need to act because she had an army of people who acted on her behalf. This is not to say that every misuse of power is always caught, but rather that the Monarch gets to maintain a facade of impartiality because all the partiality is being done by their institutions instead.
The page you linked to ends with:
> The proposed Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill emphasised the non-justiciability of the revived prerogative powers, prevented courts from making certain rulings in relation to a Government's power to dissolve Parliament. It received royal assent over two years later, on 24 March 2022.
As some have said before, it effectively means in future the Supreme Court can't undo or interfere with prorogation like what Boris Johnson did in 2019. The Labour party have said they won't cancel this law, so Kier Starmer can now do same as Boris and courts can't stop him.
>because [the King has] heard of what happened in France etc
And, err, in England: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_of_Charles_I
>there is no "bill of rights"
There very literally is a bill of rights: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_Rights_1689
>which is akin to if we handed a bunch of decendants of the mayflower and rich industrialists and priests their own house of Congress.
The House of Lords does need reform, but this is not in any way an accurate picture of it since at least 1999 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords_Act_1999). When you strip away the historical baggage, the House of Lords is just an appointed second chamber. I'm fully in favor of removing the last vestiges of the hereditary principle in government, but hereditary peers do not have a significant amount of power in the current system.
>And when they "elect" a prime minister
Elections really do happen in the UK and really do determine who is Prime Minister. No need for the scare quotes here.
> so basically, there's this constant ritual of pretending they're a democracy when really it's only like that because the king current feels like it.
I'll resist the temptation to point out which country is more pertinently and accurately described this way in the present situation.
> Elections really do happen in the UK and really do determine who is Prime Minister.
Different person, but while this is true, it's also true that the Prime Minister is not elected: they [ordinarily] emerge as being the leader of whichever party commands a majority in Parliament. It's how we've had so much Prime-Minister turnover since the Brexit referendum: those didn't happen because the electorate "determined" it.
Yes sure, it’s a simplification to say that elections always directly determine who the Prime Minister is, and I probably should have been clearer on that point. However, this difference between a parliamentary system and a presidential one has nothing to do with rogue Kings going mad with power.
Even ignoring your flawed understanding of the UK's government, what is your glorious bill of rights worth at the end of the day? Your president just does whatever the hell he wants, ignoring any checks and balances as he sees fit. Freedom of speech? Well, as long as you don't criticise a certain deceased extremist, that is. Freedom of religion? Well, as long as you're a Christian. Freedom of the Press? As long as you're a right-wing influencer. Freedom of assembly? As long as you're not a Democrat. Right to petition the government? You might get shot by ICE agents for following their orders.
>Even ignoring your flawed understanding of the UK's government, what is your glorious bill of rights worth at the end of the day? Your president just does whatever the hell he wants, ignoring any checks and balances as he sees fit.
Are you talking about Bush, or Trump? Because the logic goes both ways -- when Blair bent over over when Bush wanted to go gallivanting into Iraq, we were set upon this path, one that started before I was old enough to vote... so maybe don't show up at the finish line to tut after literal decades of inaction?