Political Crossfire Forums

[thundertaker]

Any country that becomes a republic is automatically kicked out of the commonwealth, which they were a member of at the time, they have to re-apply. At that time, there was no mechanism for allowing a republic to re-enter the commonwealth, now there is, but the Irish never took up the opportunity.......

[JDnCoke]

thundertaker wrote: thefranzkafkafront wrote: Lord Hargreaves wrote: I simply can't see what we're meant to gain from getting rid of the monarchy. In terms of the vote, I like our national anthem and the national motto, i don't see why we should be asked to pick :wink:

A more accountable goverment and legislatory system prehaps?

The democratically elected House of Commons initiates and produces all legislation (well, so does the EU, but I'll ignore that for now). And the Queen is just a figurehead. She will not go against the will of her fully democratically accountable government......

Interesting to note that John Kerr, Governor-General (the British Monarch's representative in a Dominion with the same powers) of Australia in the mid 1970s used his "ceremonial" powers to dissolve PM Edward Whitlam's government, probably the only left-wing government in Australia's history...

This did lead to the Lascelles Principles which supposedly cleared the issue up, but still... Whitlam's ALP suffered it's single greatest loss after this secondary elected despite being dissolved completely unconstitutionally.

[thundertaker]

Instead of 'government' perhaps I should have said 'parliament'. The Australian Parliament was deadlocked and the government had lost it's confidence. Therefore, Sir John Kerr was well within his right to dissolve parliament and call a general election to break the deadlock. The fact that Whitlam was booted out of Office in favour of Malcolm Fraser in the subsequent elections vindicated his decision.....

[JDnCoke]

thundertaker wrote: Instead of 'government' perhaps I should have said 'parliament'. The Australian Parliament was deadlocked and the government had lost it's confidence. Therefore, Sir John Kerr was well within his right to dissolve parliament and call a general election to break the deadlock. The fact that Whitlam was booted out of Office in favour of Malcolm Fraser in the subsequent elections vindicated his decision.....

Parliament wasn't in deadlock, CIA Boardrooms were. They didn't like the leftist (which in standard edition "how to rule the world" booklets translates to commy-bastards) manouveurs that his government was making, and so they gave him the chop by putting pressure on Kerr, who had been a CIA collaborator for sometime. He most certainly wasn't justified in dissolving parliament, evidenced by the fact that he was reviled after the actions and the nation was stunned by the use of this archaic law.

Anyway, you're not advocating that ONE PERSON, who is not even democratically elected should have even the notion of ability to dissolve a democratically elected house?? Jesus, only a house-wide vote of no confidence should be able to do such a thing.

[thundertaker]

Whitlam's government was in crisis and legislation wasn't getting through parliament. As I said before, the fact Whitlam was told to f**k off by the Australian electorate would seem to vindicate Kerr's decision.
I would also like to know if you have any evidence to suggest Kerr was a CIA agent other than from the mind of some nutty conspiracy theorist.......

[JDnCoke]

thundertaker wrote: Whitlam's government was in crisis and legislation wasn't getting through parliament. As I said before, the fact Whitlam was told to f**k off by the Australian electorate would seem to vindicate Kerr's decision.
I would also like to know if you have any evidence to suggest Kerr was a CIA agent other than from the mind of some nutty conspiracy theorist.......

It was only in crisis because the Liberal opposition party had a majority in the house (yay FPTP), and so abused this majority to prevent the Labor party getting expenditure bills through. However, quite rightly, Whitlam refused to succumb to this cheap pressure and at the whim of the CiA Kerr had the House dismissed and, (not so surprisingly) appointed Fraser as "caretaker PM". I don't think the electorate's descision to vote against Whitlam second time round vindicates Kerr's illegal action.

They were scared of another impasse that probably would be created by the Liberal party, and the scare monger tactics used in the few campaign weeks they had were a major factor. The ALP were far less organised (perhaps because unlike Fraser's Liberals hadn't been warned beforehand) for the campaign than their opponents.

However US involvement is not a crazy conspiricy theory, believe me, the decline of British influence over Australian institutions caused this problem. CiA agents not familiar with the Westminster system tried to apply Federalist measures to the crisis and bang, you get a constitutional one.

Evidence by the relations between Gough Whitlam and the US became tense during 1975, especially after Whitlam publicly declared that Richard Stallings was a CIA operative and that he had been in charge of the Pine Gap satellite tracking and communication base near Alice Springs. According to Tony Douglas,

"A cable from a senior CIA official and Task Force 157 member, Ted Shackley, on November 10 accused Whitlam of being a security risk and asked ASIO to do something about it. The Head of the Defence Department, Arthur Thang, described him as "the greatest risk to our nation's security that there has ever been."

[bob.appleyard]

Jajo wrote: thundertaker wrote: JDnCoke wrote: Keep the main Royal Family and chop the minor aristocrats, they can keep their titles for tradition. All palaces except Buckingham Palace should be open (in part or all) to the public to pay for maintenance costs.

The Royal Family don't need to be maintained. Just return the Crown Estates to their rightful owners, the Queen and the Royal Family and abolish the civil list. That way, the monarchy can maintain itself without taxpayer's money. Then there will be no reason for republicans to moan about the 'cost' of monarchy. Of course, the government won't do this, because they make far too much money from the surplus of the Crown Estate revenues......

The royal family costs around 37 million of tax payers money a year according to the BBC but this shows that they don't truly understand how the Royals money works.

All the money from the civil list funds the Royals with the execption of the Queen and her eldest son the. Every year the income from the crown lands is handed over to parlimet an agreement made during during George III reign. The annual income of the crown lands comes to around £170 million which is given to HM treasury in return for £8 million so we the tax payer get 162 million from these lands so handing back the crown lands as thundertaker said would not realy be a popular idea.

The Queen as i said does not get any money from the civil list nor does the Prince of Wales who’s incomes are from the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall respectively. The most recent payment to the Queen or Privy Purse from Lancaster was 8.3 million, which would have otherwise went to the Treasury and the queen now pays tax so in fact some of that income goes to the Treasury. As i am not going to look up the accounts of Cornwall lets assume it is also around 8 million (but it is most likely less considering how Cornwall is a poor area) so adding this together makes 24 and I am assuming the other part of the 37 is policing costs and other things that cost the tax payer indirectly. So over all the royal family gives us 133 million a year and that is not including the money from Tourists.

So all in all Long Live the Queen!

The Duchy of Cornwall is actually a very large property and business portfolio all over thr country. Don't know how much it's worth, but I think it's a lot.

[Irish Gal]

The Redcoat wrote: I guess I was wrong about republics being banned from the Commonwealth, I thought that was why Ireland were kicked out. Oh well nevermind that.

Actually, Ireland choose to leave the commonwealth - it wasnt kicked out.

Although as a non-brit, I think you should keep your monarch, I really dont see that it would make a huge difference.

Youd have a president instead and become a federal republic most likely.
I doubt youd lose tourism as tourists dont come to see the Queen, they come to see Buckinham palace, tower of london etc.

They would still exist, though you could open the palace to the public, likely bringing in more tourism.

I think if you are going to get rid of the monarchy, you should wait until Australia and New Zealand ditch it first (coming pretty soon I would imagine).

But its part of your culture, you should keep it in my opinion - though im not british so it dont matter what i think.

[thundertaker]

Irish Gal wrote: I guess I was wrong about republics being banned from the Commonwealth, I thought that was why Ireland were kicked out. Oh well nevermind that.

Actually, Ireland choose to leave the commonwealth - it wasnt kicked out.
[/quote]

Ireland was forced to leave the commonwealth because they became a republic. At the time, it was impossible to be in the commonwealth and a republic at the same time. They changed the rules for India in 1950. Ireland obviously wasn't considered important enough to warrent changing the rules.......

[maxtsu]

thundertaker wrote: Irish Gal wrote: Quote: I guess I was wrong about republics being banned from the Commonwealth, I thought that was why Ireland were kicked out. Oh well nevermind that.

Actually, Ireland choose to leave the commonwealth - it wasnt kicked out.


Ireland was forced to leave the commonwealth because they became a republic. At the time, it was impossible to be in the commonwealth and a republic at the same time. They changed the rules for India in 1950. Ireland obviously wasn't considered important enough to warrent changing the rules.......
This again...
How do you kick someone out that has already left?
Or was the reason for the republic to leave the commonwealth?

Its really kind of obvious.

[Irish Gal]

thundertaker wrote: Irish Gal wrote: I guess I was wrong about republics being banned from the Commonwealth, I thought that was why Ireland were kicked out. Oh well nevermind that.

Actually, Ireland choose to leave the commonwealth - it wasnt kicked out.


Ireland was forced to leave the commonwealth because they became a republic. At the time, it was impossible to be in the commonwealth and a republic at the same time. They changed the rules for India in 1950. Ireland obviously wasn't considered important enough to warrent changing the rules.......[/quote]


Not True.


http://www.reform.org/TheReformMovement_files/article_files/articles/leavcw.htm




The Reform Movement has done some research on the why the Coalition government decided to take Ireland out of the British Commonwealth in 1948. This research was carried out following a casual remark made by the ex-Irish Ambassador to the USA, Mr Noel Dorr, who said to some Reform members that Ireland did not leave the British Commonwealth, but was asked to leave by the British government. This extraordinary interpretation is not supported by the facts, even though perhaps it is the received wisdom in the Department of Foreign Affairs. The research is based on John B O'Brien's article "Ireland's Departure from the British Commonwealth" in the Round Table 1988 and a chapter from by MacDermott in a study of Clann na Poblachta.

The facts seem to be as follows:

Basically, the Coalition government (Fine Gael and Clann na Poblachta) wanted to leave the Commonwealth FOR GOOD and made this quite clear to the British government in 1948 (Attlee). In fact, Dublin insisted when talking to London at that time, that they had left the Commonwealth in 1936 and they did not attend any meetings between 1936 and 1948. However, they badly bungled the repeal of the External Relations Act (ERA) as they did not think through the implications for Ireland north and south, particularly the enormous legal consequences. The British representative in Dublin, Lord Rugby, had a very low opinion of Costello and thought he handled the repeal of the ERA in "a slapdash and amateur fashion".

When they announced they were going to repeal the ERA, they were told by the British government that there was no alternative but to treat them like any other foreign country, which meant that movement of citizens would be restricted and irreparable damage would be done to Irish trade and business. Incredibly, none of the implications of becoming a republic and leaving the Commonwealth were thought through by Costello, MacBride and the cabinet.

Personally I think losing the benefits of the commonwealth was worth it.
Ireland had to cut its ties from the empire. Were not surrender monkeys.