Monarchy is incompatible with democracy. It is time Britain elected its head of state.
PG340 The Green Party believes that the hereditary principle should have no place in government.
Living in Windsor Forest and having been a parliamentary candidate in Windsor constituency you can bet I will be celebrating Republic Day today.
I rarely go into Windsor because it is simply very very dangerous to cycle down the hill into town, there is space for a cycle path but Prince Charles is obviously worried about giving me easy access to his town, so one has never been built.
Well one is tempted to cry off with their heads but the Green Party is a non violent party, unlike Labour and the Tories we don't glory in the killing power of Trident or the value of kid killing as a means of generating export revenue, let alone support military occupation.
Britain suffers from a constitutional mal formation, unlike France we only had half a revolution, the 'Glorious' tory revolution of 1688, which removed a Catholic King merely to replace him with new Monarchs.
The whole principle of hierarchy of some one individual ordained by god to rule us is an obscenity.
Peter Tatchell has a great comment is free article on this today, pointing out amongst other things that we are a theocracy:
Non-Protestants are banned as our head of state. No Judaists, no Muslims, no Hindus and no Catholics can inherit the British throne. Specifically, anyone who has at any time proclaimed adherence to the Catholic faith, or has ever married a Catholic, is disbarred from royal succession.
Perhaps like Peter and myself you would like to sign the petition to make Britain a republic, click here.
Here are some relevent points for our manifesto
Hereditary principle in government
PG340 The Green Party believes that the hereditary principle should have no place in government. Therefore the Green Party advocates that:
a)No person shall acquire the right to any office of government by inheritance.
b)An hereditary peerage shall confer no right to sit in Parliament.
c)The monarchy shall cease to be an office of government. The legislative, executive and judicial roles of the monarch shall cease.
d)Peers and members of the royal family shall have the same civil rights and fiscal obligations as other citizens.
e)A settlement of property held by the current royal family shall be made, to divide it between that required for the private life of current members of the family and that to be public property.
PB442 The Green Party does not believe there is an automatic moral obligation on all people to obey their governments. It seeks to maximise the extent to which obedience to laws is based on consent and minimise the need for conformity through deterrence. We believe there are occasions when individuals and groups in society may openly, and peacefully, protest at an unjust law or practice through civil disobedience.
PB443 We seek a society in which people are empowered and involved in making the decisions which affect them. We reject the hierarchical structure of leaders and followers, and, instead advocate participatory politics. For this reason the Green Party itself does not have an individual leader.
2 comments:
And what an about-turn in this week's issue: "a carbon tax would be preferable... but businesspeople and politicians are both strangely averse to the word 'tax'"
"Monarchy is incompatible with democracy. It is time Britain elected its head of state." What utter rubbish if you look at Europe in the 20th century the most stable democracies have been monarchies, UK, Holland, Sweden etc Sorry to interrupt your socialist drivel with a historic fact.
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