What amazes me most, is that they still have a queen/king thing going. I am completely unable to wrap my head around how that can happen, in a developed country, in 2019.
Britain's democracy evolved gradually from feudalism, without much in the way of violent uprisings or outright revolution. The entire system is based upon incremental changes to give us the democracy we have today with various checks and balances. The monarchy is a vestigial part of that system. Look at stuff like the Privy Council which continues today, and Magna Carta, which was one of the starting points for it all. Technically, the monarch still has a huge amount of power, but in practice they are required not to exercise it. They have to sign everything into law; in a very real sense the law still is what the monarch signs their name to, as is the freehold system of property rights. All the land is owned by the monarchy; you get a freehold on it.
Like the enlightenment and the industrial revolution, democracy wasn't imposed, it came into being here for the first time, and while it's not perfect, there's a lot of factors, including sentimentality and inertia, keeping the status quo going. You could argue that a clean start with a proper written constitution and federal government (with separate state governments for the different countries) would be a good move. But like for any working system, it's painful to disturb entrenched structures, and there's always the risk of breaking something important. The US was able to do a better job; it's easier when you can start from a clean slate with the knowledge of hindsight.
Also, the monarchy has for the most part been a net positive. Compared with what elected MPs have done to the country, I see it as a rather more benign institution in comparison, in recent centuries anyway.
"All the land is owned by the monarchy; you get a freehold on it."
I know I'll get downvoted, but I am genuinely amazed by how a small minority of people can gain so much control, and absolutely no one complains. I know there are historical reasons, but it is fascinating nevertheless.
All the land is "owned" by the monarchy, but in reality, that theoretical control would be removed in the blink of an eye if they ever made a claim on it.
As far as checks and balances go, the irony is that most of them were introduced on the power of the monarch, and it was done by giving power to the Parliament. This makes sense in this evolutionary approach, because when you start with an absolute monarchy, of course an elected body is preferable.
But now, you have a problem in that your Parliament is essentially unchecked, and e.g. all your human rights protections are mere laws that are within Parliament's authority to repeal (well, and ECHR, for now - but even there UK got a special exemption for this exact reason).
We look at the elected heads of state that some nations have and think "no thanks".
You know that the Queen is still the head of state for most of the commonwealth countries? And half of Europe still have Kings and Queens, and quite a few countries in Asia. I wouldn't be surprised if over half the nations of the world still had a monarch.
Plus it didn't happen in 2019, it evolved over more than a 1000 years. Things get a little warty over that period of time.
> You know that the Queen is still the head of state for most of the commonwealth countries?
The Commonwealth has 53 member states, only 16 of which have the Queen as the head of state. And those 16 contain only 6% of the Commonwealth's population (144 million out of 2.4 billion).
You're right, I'm rustier than I thought, the only exception that sprang to mind was India. I thought plenty of African states had her as head, which is completely wrong!
It's partly because it is difficult to change. All power flows from the Crown, and the democratic system has been bolted on to that, so it's difficult to change in a way that doesn't leave it open to legal challenge or require wiping the whole system clean and starting over.
If you make a new constitution under the current system, it can always be undone-they _can't_ abandon that power. Furthermore, Parliament doesn't have the power to get rid of the Queen, but Parliament requires the Queen in order to have power so she can't remove herself. If you change it on a standalone basis, and completely abandon the old ways, what legal authority do they have to do that, and will it be recognised? I imagine the Courts especially would be sceptical about such a big divergence from the constitution (without an intervening event, which seems unlikely given the Queen polls well).
Realistically, the Queen only have has power on paper (she can never exercise it, except as required theoretically to give power to democratic decisions), so it'd be a big upheaval for little gain.
It's easy to be in support of an organisation whose chief activity consists of ceremony, platitudes, and waving, rather than actually governing a country.
