UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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!ukpolitics@lemm.ee appears to have vanished! We can still see cached content from this link, but goodbye I guess! :'(
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Grins constitutional monarchy. Honestly, yes, you need to overhaul the system to do that.
This is why the queen volunteered to pay taxes on her income in the 1990s. (As I said they do pay taxes)
Remember, while our current royals are technically powerless. Our parliament is still only using their power. This is the literal meaning of parliament is sovereign.
Think of our Parliament as a regent. Because that is sort of how the power structure works.
This means it's hard for parliament as is to create laws that affect the king. As such laws would lack constitutional support.
Same with our justice system. Anyone in the UK taken to court. It is technically them vs the king. As such, it is actually impossible for the king to be prosecuted.
My understanding is that the estate pays no taxes and extracts money from the treasury.
Unwillingness of the parliament to fix it, is that just.
But I understand, the rich rule us and fuck all we can do.
I am more amazed at working class accepting as oh well to some being in favour of it lol
This is a miss understanding.
The estate is run by the government. All its profit goes to the government. From that they fund the royal family with (currently 20% but historically less)
So pay no taxes is a huge misunderstanding. It works more like a nationalised company. But is owned by the crown.
History of this is related to Giii fight against US independence. At that time armies etc belonged to the crown. (Still answer to them technically) but no longer funded by them.
Royal families personal property is different. And until 1990s did not pay tax. But the Queen set up a voluntary offer to do so. Rather then force the UK government to become a Republic. Something they did not have the votes or support to do.
As for why the UK put up with it. Long and complicated. But the fact that our last republic was the same people who left the UK to form the US. Having banned Xmas and anything fun due to religiose ideals.
Left a pretty long bad taste in the UK for republics.
While most don't worry about that. The US lack of health care workers rights etc still leaves folks pretty uncomfortable with a change.
As I said. Most folks sorta liked the Queen. Her working as a nurse during WW2 (before being queen) won her a lot of respect. It has been expected from the 70s that Charles would be the start of a Republic.