Furious row erupts on Sky News as anti-monarchist clashes with royalist
Graham Smith, the CEO of the anti-monarchy group Republic, has hit out at claims made by royal author and commentator Rafe Heydel-Mankoo that having a Royal Family is democratic.
The two were debating ahead of King Charles attending the State Opening of Parliament today at the Palace of Westminster, as the country prepares for its new Labour government.
Mr Heydel-Mankoo claimed that the “idea of monarchy as anti-democratic is risible”, arguing that the royals protect our rights and that many of the most progressive countries in the world are constitutional monarchies.
He cited figures from the University of Würzburg’s Democracy Matrix, which features Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Belgium in its top 10, all of which have monarchies.
The United Kingdom is number 17 on the list, however, Mr Smith interjected and said “that’s not true”, saying it was false to suggest that the Crown protects the rights of its people.
The Republic CEO also pointed out that the UK does not rank so highly on the list of politically stable countries, as according to the World Population Review the UK ranks below Namibia, Mongolia and Oman.
In Britain there is a constitutional monarchy, which means that the Sovereign sits as Head of State while an elected Parliament makes and passes laws and legislation.
The rules of a constitutional monarchy vary slightly from country to country, for instance in Japan the role is mostly ceremonial, but over here the monarch’s power is limited by the government.
However royal assent is still required for a bill in Parliament to become law.
It is unusual for the monarch to not grant royal assent to a bill that has succesfully come through Parliament, although theoretically if they did not did so this could lead to Parliament being dissolved.
