Tag Archives: Australia

The future of the monarchy after the King’s coronation

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Charles III has now been formally crowned as King in a ceremony with deep historical roots that reflect the institution’s long history. But what about the monarchy’s future? Craig Prescott discusses whether the UK is willing to consider the major constitutional change of becoming a republic, and concludes that should such a change take place, it will need to coincide with an underlying change in political culture in order to be anything other than symbolic.

The British public, as Brexit underlined, is not necessarily averse to major constitutional change. The start of a new reign provides an opportunity to reappraise the monarchy. Such a reappraisal is already taking place in many of the 14 Commonwealth realms.

In June 2022, Australia appointed an Assistant Minister for the Republic, with the intention that Australia will move towards becoming a republic after the next election, due in 2025. Over the next few years, referendums on whether to become a republic are likely in Antigua and Barbuda and Jamaica. Belize has formed a People’s Constitutional Commission to review its constitution, including the question of whether to become a republic. There is no reason, in principle, why such a reappraisal should not take place in the UK.

Constitutionally, the core argument for the monarchy was that it could function as a pressure valve in times of political crisis. If necessary, a Prime Minister could be dismissed, or a Parliament dissolved. Especially during the reign of Elizabeth II, that argument diminished almost to vanishing point as the personal prerogative powers of the monarch became increasingly regulated by convention and law. For example, the Cabinet Manual (paragraph 2.12), and events after the 2010 general election made clear that the monarch plays no active role in the formation of government even if an election returns a hung parliament.

Instead, the primary political argument for the monarchy is that it provides a space in public life which is beyond day-to-day party politics. Through their role as Head of Nation, the monarch seeks to ‘represent the nation back to itself’. Most notably, this can be seen on occasions such as Remembrance Sunday, when the monarch leads the nation in an act of remembrance which commands broad and deep, but not total, support across the political spectrum and in the country at large. In this way, there is a separation between the state and the government of the day.

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Must a caretaker government be a zombie government?

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During the recently concluded Conservative leadership contest, the government appeared to be in a holding pattern, taking little or no action of substance until the election of Boris Johnson’s successor. But did the government, which had a substantial parliamentary majority and an electoral mandate, need to act as if it was merely a ‘caretaker’? Robert Hazell explains that the rules around a ‘lame duck’ PM remain fuzzy, and argues that steps must be taken to clarify the position as soon as possible.

Something very strange happened at Westminster over the summer: a government which enjoyed a comfortable working majority of 71 seats was declared to be a caretaker which could not take any major decisions. It was variously accused of being a ‘zombie government’ ‘asleep at the wheel’, and incapable of taking urgent decisions required by the energy crisis. In its defence the government might have responded that as a caretaker it was precluded from taking such decisions. But the Whitehall rules on this are far from clear. So, what are the Whitehall rules about caretaker governments, and the principles underlying them? And given the confusion this summer, do the rules need clarifying or updating?

‘Caretaker government’ is not a term to be found in any UK government guidance. The Cabinet Manual talks instead about ‘restrictions on government activity’. A leadership election in the governing party is not one of the circumstances when the Cabinet Manual says government activity must be restricted. It envisages just three such circumstances when governments are restricted:

…governments are expected by convention to observe discretion in initiating any new action of a continuing or long-term character in the period immediately preceding an election, immediately afterwards if the result is unclear, and following the loss of a vote of confidence.

Paragraph 2.27.
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As the House of Commons begins to look at a new employment model for MPs’ staff, we should look to other legislatures to see what we can learn from them

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A Speaker’s Conference has been established to determine if changes need to be made to the employment arrangements for MPs’ staff. How the UK’s other legislatures manage and recruit their staff can help inform that process. As part of a long-term project on MPs’ staff, Rebecca McKee analyses how three of the UK’s legislatures recruit, employ and pay members’ staff.   

While their precise roles vary, legislators almost everywhere require support staff in order to do their job effectively. In the UK, these staff and their employment arrangements have become the focus both of public attention and internal scrutiny, through a series of reviews in Westminster and the devolved parliaments of Scotland and Wales. Later this year, in the House of Commons, the Speaker’s Conference on the employment of Members’ staff will consider other options for staffing arrangements as those currently in place in are only one of a range of possibilities.

This post outlines the current staffing arrangements in three of the UK’s parliaments – the House of Commons, Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru – and the key similarities and differences in their employment arrangements. The post covers the key areas of governance, division of roles and salaries and recruitment in each area. It also briefly highlights other possible options from legislatures elsewhere.

Devolved parliaments

Referendums in 1997 paved the way for the creation of the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales, the latter being renamed the Senedd Cyrmu in 2020 following the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020. 

Both of these bodies adopted staffing arrangements similar to those of Westminster, whereby each member employs their own staff within a statutory regulatory framework covering some, but not all, terms and conditions. Each has a designated body responsible for determining the structure and rules on staffing and administering payrolls. The material they produce is a combination of guidance to members – as office holders who employ their staff, there is a balance to be struck between setting rules for best practice and encroaching on the autonomy of the member as the employer – and mandatory policies, such as the rules to be followed when members claim money for staff salaries.

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The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee: what does the future hold for the monarchy? 

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The Platinum Jubilee was a time for celebration, but it also provoked many questions about the future of the monarchy, and what it might look like under the next monarch. In this post, Robert Hazell and Bob Morris attempt to answer those questions, relying on their detailed knowledge of modern European monarchies.

The Platinum Jubilee was an occasion for celebration and relaxation rather than profound reflection about the monarchy and its future. But for Robert Hazell and Bob Morris it was an exceptionally busy weekend, as they responded to a deluge of media requests from around the world. These clustered around the same set of questions:

  • How can a hereditary monarchy be part of a modern democracy?
  • Will public support for the monarchy outlive support for the Queen?
  • What kind of King will Prince Charles be? What changes might he want to introduce?
  • What is the future of the monarchy in the realms, the 14 other countries around the world where the Queen is also head of state?

This post offers more detailed answers to these questions than allowed by brief media interviews. It does so through a comparative and constitutional law lens, based upon our co-edited book, The Role of Monarchy in Modern Democracy: European Monarchy

How can a hereditary monarchy be part of a modern democracy?

The first question is easily answered: there is no contradiction between monarchy and democracy, with some of the most advanced democracies in the world also being monarchies. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands and New Zealand are countries which regularly feature at the top of the annual Democracy Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit: all are monarchies. They have survived as monarchies because the monarch no longer has any political power; the monarch reigns, but does not rule. Constitutional monarchs act on the advice of the elected government; if they fail to do that or otherwise step out of line, they risk losing their thrones. That was the lesson brutally learned by Edward VIII in the abdication crisis of 1936, but he was not the only European monarch forced to abdicate. The same fate befell King Leopold III of the Belgians in 1950, Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde of Luxembourg in 1919, and King Juan Carlos of Spain in 2014, when opinion polls showed that two-thirds of Spaniards felt he should abdicate.

Will public support for the monarchy outlive support for the Queen?

Monarchy as a system of government depends on the consent of the people as well as the government. If the people withdraw their support from monarchy as an institution, it is finished. That is how monarchy came to an end in referendums in Italy after the Second World War and in Greece in 1973-74. In all, there were 18 referendums held on the future of the monarchy in 10 different European countries during the last century. Not all led to the country becoming a republic: referendums have reaffirmed continuation of the monarchy in Denmark and Norway, and restoration of the monarchy in Spain.

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