As someone who is anti-monarch I have to admit that this seems like the logical extension of monarchy and exactly what democracy is meant to help with. Can I ask why someone wouldn't be anti-monarch in 2023?
Let's be clear here, the UK isn't a monarchy, we just have a monarch who has effectively zero power and simply serves as a hereditary head of state.
As for why I support this, I think it makes sense diplomatically to have an apolitical head of state and I also believe the British monarch functions similarly to second amendment in the US. If the UK ever needed to revolt against the government the monarch serves as way in which the public (and armed forces) could side with the state over the government. I cannot express how much I like that our armed forces swear allegiance to a largely powerless Monarch that represents the state rather than Rishi Sunak.
However, getting back on topic here, the fact the UK has a monarch in my opinion has zero relevance to the fact the UK is becoming a place increasingly hostile to protest. Instead, it seems to me to be far more to do with the fact our two major political parties both have authoritarian tendencies, which I suspect stems from the UK having cultural values which lend themselves to certain kinds of authoritarian social policies.
Specifically, laws around limiting "improper" behaviour like rowdy protests, being rude online, and consuming porn that's a little too edgy seem to be ways in which our dislike of improper behaviour manifest politically. In most ways we're quite a liberal society, but there are certain ways that our conformist and overly polite nature seems to work its way into our politics via democracy – protest perhaps being the most clear example of something that people here seem to struggle with since freedom of expression requires an acceptance of impoliteness.
> Let's be clear here, the UK isn't a monarchy, we just have a monarch who has effectively zero power and simply serves as a hereditary head of state.
The article we're commenting on makes it very clear that the UK is a monarchy and that the monarch has the power to disrupt public life at great expense to the public and to have said public arrested for offending them.
> The article we're commenting on makes it very clear that the UK is a monarchy
It absolutely doesn't. The article doesn't even mention the word monarchy.
It was written before the recent arrests at the coronation.
We can talk about what influence the monarchy may try to exert on the government behind the scenes (and I believe there will be some - and there shouldn't be) but back channeling aside, our democratically elected government is the body which runs our country, not the monarchy, and therefore is correctly the target of this article.
Your statement is somewhat contradictory. The monarch has zero power but also controls the military and can violently oppose the government? He’s also powerful enough that people can be arrested for protesting his coronation. Democracy was created precisely because history shows people will be consistently oppressed when they don’t govern themselves.
> Specifically, laws around limiting "improper" behaviour like rowdy protests, being rude online, and consuming porn that's a little too edgy seem to be ways in which our dislike of improper behaviour manifest politically.
Jimmy Saville was way worse than any porn, yet his main enabler just became king. The outrage about the “impolite” seems very unevenly distributed.
> If the UK ever needed to revolt against the government the monarch serves as way in which the public (and armed forces) could side with the state over the government. I cannot express how much I like that our armed forces swear allegiance to a largely powerless Monarch that represents the state rather than Rishi Sunak.
> Can I ask why someone wouldn't be anti-monarch in 2023?
The sibling comment by kypro [0] answers this question much better than I could have. But at the same time, I'm not the British Royal Family's most diehard supporter by any means.
