Abolitionists won a question about trimming the monarchy’s constitutional role, but the debate repeatedly overshot the wording on the ballot. Yes prevailed by 149 votes to 119, with its most forceful voices treating ceremonial monarchy as a halfway house to abolition rather than an end point.
The floor’s most-respected Yes case rejected inherited privilege outright: “There is no place in modern world for a monarchy.” Other Yes voters turned the argument towards money, equality and influence, calling the institution “Completely pointless now” and objecting to a family’s “extreme privalage just because that person happened to pop out of the right womb”. The constitutional question became, for many, a broader verdict on wealth and status.
No answered with continuity and restraint. Its highest-respected voice said the monarchy was “a huge part of our British culture”, while another insisted that “It’s already ceremonial” and not a strategic priority; a more distrustful defender nevertheless saw reserve powers as “a check on corrupt dissembling politicians”. The two sides were often answering different questions: whether the crown still has a useful constitutional function, and whether inherited monarchy can be justified at all.
The room’s temperature was less measured than the subject’s constitutional language. No voters reached for tradition, tourism, pomp and the fear of giving politicians too much room; Yes voters replied with talk of a “parasitic monarchy”, royal privilege and a family that should be “rendered entirely impotent”. Even the jokes — “A little pomp and circumstance keeps the peasants entertained” and “Only an issue for people who have seen Les Miserables too often” — made the divide feel cultural as much as institutional.
The result was a narrow mandate for ceremonial monarchy, but the arguments suggest a deeper appetite among Yes voters to make the institution politically and socially irrelevant. The crown survived the ballot’s immediate question; its defenders did not make the room sound especially confident about its future.
16 Opinions
There is a role for the Monarchy. I don’t like the King - I don’t trust him, but as King he has reserve powers he can use. He’s very weak so he allows Fabian Communists to trash the Kingdom and promote Islam & he ignores his Coronation oath. Constitutional Monarchy is not a single bad apple. It’s a check on corrupt dissembling politicians. Blair tried to remove Constitutional safeguards to ‘modernise’ - destroy - our settlement. We need to reverse, may involve removing King
The monarchy died with Lizzie. Charlie and Willie seen a pair of bitter, bullying blokes, supported by the ferocious royal household staff and sycophantic royal correspondents - can’t publish any objective work without threat of exclusion from future briefings. Willie seems exceptionally volatile and vindictive. King Harry and Queen Meg might offer a new way forward though! 😉
YES Not only that we need to get rid of the whole royal family & all the hangers on. Give them two options, guillotine or give back the cash & land your ancestors stole from the people & get a proper job Without doubt there's no place in the modern world for a family to get extreme privalage just because that person happened to pop out of the right womb. #VivalaRepublique
There is no place in modern world for a monarchy. It breaks the most basic rule: all citizens are equal before the law. The closer to abolishing the monarchy, the better.
There's a great deal of fear about all the immigrants supposedly flooding into the UK. Fear that we will be taken over by other religions, like Islam, fear that our culture will completely change, we will no longer be, Great Britain. Yet, it appears these same people want to remove the Monarchy. The Monarchy is a huge part of our British culture, it draws in tourists, the King is the head of the C of E. It's what the UK is famous for. Removing them doesn't compute.
They have no real political power as it stands anyway. They are effectively figureheads. The PR wing of Britain PLC (and some of them don't do a very good job of it). They are never going to try and override Government or democracy, they know it would be the end of the monarchy.
the UK is a constitutional monarchy. That is our tradition. Dont like it? Re-locate.
Of course. A family who uses the tradition to hold on to their wealth and privilege is as ridiculous as it is anachronistic.
It's already ceremonial. Not a strategic priority in my view. Only an issue for people who have seen Les Miserables too often.
Imho the king has converted he's no longer church of England , he's forever meddling in politics, infact I'd go as far as to say get rid of the parasitic monarchy !