I’m not sure we disagree then. I’ve been a republican my whole life, I would remove the monarchy tomorrow and think it’s stupid. But I’ve never been concerned that the royal family would try and affect UK politics via their constitutional ‘powers’, and don’t think she had anything to do with what happened today. Other UK folk can call me naive here if they want.
I also think that different constitutional bodies trying to go to the limits of their powers to get their way, and in doing so impeding other parts’ ‘normal’ functioning, is in no way unique to the UK or to monarchical systems.
The pound is the worst-performing major currency today, Bloomberg reports.
And things could get worse. A recent Bloomberg survey forecast that the pound could fall to $1.10, from $1.22 today, after a no-deal Brexit.
Petr Krpata, a currency strategist at ING Groep NV, says:
“It just underscores the veil of uncertainty the pound is facing, the still non-negligible risk of no-deal Brexit and the vulnerability of the currency to negative headline news.”
RBC: No-deal Brexit more likely than ever
Analysts at Royal Bank of Canada have warned that the probability of a no-deal Brexit has risen to 44%, based on today’s market moves.
RBC’s chief currency strategist, Adam Cole, says this is a new high, and a move that is matched by the euro’s rally against the pound today.
He explains:
Using our usual proxy markets as a barometer, the net effect of this morning’s UK news has been to push the probability of no deal exit to a new high of 44% (blue line) and we note that (focusing on daily changes rather than levels), GBP price action still closely mirrors shifts in this probability.
Boris Johnson has placed the Queen “in the firing line” over Brexit, according to the anti-monarchy campaign group Republic. It floated the possibility that a parliamentary crisis could become a royal crisis.
Republic’s spokesman, Graham Smith, said Johnson had thrown British politics into a deep crisis “and has shone a spotlight on the impotence of the Queen and the role of the monarch’s powers”.
“Already people are petitioning the Queen to intervene, but she won’t. Not because she can’t, but because the Queen’s first priority is always the preservation of the monarchy.
“But Johnson’s decision to prorogue parliament has created a unique crisis for the Queen. The convention is that the Queen does as she’s told by the PM. But in normal times the PM has the full support of a majority in the Commons.”
GTFO with this neo-Nazi racist overlord Trump is better nonsense.
You fail to grasp the nature of the struggle between Parliament and government.
You’d be a lot better off if you had a way that your democratically elected reps could appeal to a higher authority than your neo-Nazi sympathising king for 5 or 10 years, Trump.
The former Tory deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine has just put out a statement after hearing about the news of what’s happening in the UK while on holiday in the Balkans. Like a range of others, he says it’s a constitutional outrage.
“On hearing the news whilst on holiday in Montenegro, I am appalled by the government’s announcement,” he said. “The government’s decision is a constitutional outrage. A government which is frightened of parliament is frightened of democracy. I hope that every member of parliament, in feeling this humiliation, will use every legal and constitutional weapon to obstruct a government proposing to force on the British people a historic change for which they have long since lost any mandate.”
I suppose Queenie didn’t have much choice really - they’ve been no more than tourist-attracting rubber stampers for centuries after all - and would be fearful of asserting Parliamentary sovereignty over the expressed wishes of the electorate in the referendum - 1789 and all that.
The Lib Dem leader, Jo Swinson, has written to the Queen to ask for a meeting in light of the prime minister “stifling the voices of both the people and their representatives”.
I’ve been of the mind that I would become more interested in the future of our head of state when the Queen dies but unfortunately it seems I’m being forced to change my priorities. No point in having a HoS if all they do is what they are told.
Here is the document with the orders approved at the privy council at Balmoral today. And this is the key text:
It is this day ordered by Her Majesty in Council that the Parliament be prorogued on a day no earlier than Monday the 9th day of September and no later than Thursday the 12th day of September 2019 to Monday the 14th day of October 2019, to be then holden for the despatch of divers urgent and important affairs, and that the Right Honourable the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain do cause a Commission to be prepared and issued in the usual manner for proroguing the Parliament accordingly.
Nicola Sturgeon hopes the Brexit crisis will boost the Scottish National party’s chances of a shock Holyrood byelection victory in the Liberal Democrat stronghold of Shetland tomorrow.
Pundits believe the SNP is on the brink of winning the seat, which the Lib Dems have held comfortably since by Lib Dem Tavish Scott since the first Scottish parliament elections in 1999. Scott, previously a Scottish party leader, won in 2016 with 67% of the vote, a majority of 4,865 over the SNP, who came second.
