The Monarchist 1.0
Defending the British Crown Commonwealth and the English-Speaking Peoples
[+] HONOURING OUR PATRON, SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL, VICTOR OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
[+] HONOURING OUR QUEEN, ELIZABETH THE SECOND, ON THE 80TH YEAR OF HER BIRTH (1926 - 2006)
[+] HONOURING OUR KING, SAINT EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, ON THE 1000TH YEAR OF HIS BIRTH (1005 - 2005)
[+] HONOURING OUR HERO, LORD NELSON, ON THE BICENTENNIAL OF THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR (1805 - 2005)
[+] HONOURING OUR SONS, THE QUEEN'S COMMONWEALTH SOLDIERS KILLED IN THE 'WAR ON TERROR'
Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard, 46, Royal Canadian Regiment, Nov 27, 2006 (Afstan)
Staff Sergeant Sharron Elliott, 34, Intelligence Corps, Nov 12, 2006 (Iraq)
Private Jacob B. Kovco, 25, Royal Australian Regiment, April 21, 2006
[+] HONOURING OUR VETS ON THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE VICTORIA CROSS (1856 - 2006)
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Preserve the Personal Union
You know republicanism is weak in Canada when the republicans start talking about “patriating the monarchy”. Ever since the Queen’s 80th, the Globe and Mail has been all the rage. They do this because they know that changing Canada into a Republic is constitutionally impossible. A referendum win alone is not enough to remove the maple Crown from the Canadian Constitution: in this country, you need complete federal unanimity, meaning the consent of the House and Senate, as well as the binding approval of the legislatures of each of the ten provinces, not to mention the Queen herself. The Premier of tiny Prince Edward Island need only give Ottawa the bird, and the game is up. Trust me when I say that the constitutional amending formula has been a gift to loyalists ever since the Constitution was patriated from the United Kingdom in 1982. Only the politically ignorant, and the most radically demented nationalist republicans, would think they actually have a winning shot.
The talk of patriating the monarchy should relieve us of a prevailing myth - one we commonly hear and say – that the countries of the Crown Commonwealth are each, in their own right, in relation to one another, totally sovereign independent nation-states. This is inaccurate because no matter how you parse our independence, we still owe mutual allegiance to the same constitutional monarch. Clearly, each of us cannot be uniquely independent if we are represented by the same sovereign – one cannot be separately independent if one is also collectively joined. In the long evolution from British colony to self-governing dominion to constitutionally independent nation-state, our full independence and sovereignty is still happily stymied by the fact that under Queen Elizabeth II, the Commonwealth Realms are in “personal union” with the United Kingdom.
Wikipedia defines a personal union as a “political union of two or more entities that, internationally, are considered separate states, but through established law, share the same head of state”. What this says is that our situation today is notionally no different than what occurred in 1603, when James VI of Scotland also became James I of England. At that defining moment in British history, two separate kingdoms lost their singular independence vis-à-vis each other, as a result of being politically joined under a single monarch; a merger that became further cemented over time until finally, both kingdoms were abolished and combined into the United Kingdom under the Union Act of 1707. The “only” difference between 1603 and now is the evolved nature and limited power of Her Majesty, compared to that of her 400 year-old predecessor, one that leads us to erroneously believe that we are somehow absolutely independent, even though we share the same sovereign.
Because of this, because our countries are in personal union with the UK and the UK with us, it would not be incorrect to refer to this sovereign amalgamation as the “United Kingdoms of the Commonwealth”. One merely need give it a name. For most, the mutual allegiance of the nations of the British Commonwealth may be of little or merely of symbolic and sentimental importance, but at this pivotal moment in our history, at a time when the men and women of our Commonwealth military forces are engaged throughout the world in difficult and dangerous tasks in our collective security and defense, would it be so much to consciously embrace the ties that bind, to deliberately play up our fundamental adherence to a shared set of evolved core beliefs and principles? Beyond these mutually held values, would it be so much to engage each other more closely, such as endorsing a Commonwealth Free Trade Agreement? Would it be too much to open our minds, our skies and our markets? Would it be too much to enhance the mobility rights of our peoples, to reciprocate joint citizenship and recognize joint loyalty to a common sovereign? Would it be so much to have a vision, to pool our sovereignty in a few select areas? Or must national independence in the 21st century be forever hidebound, insular, parochial and uninspiring?
Next Post: Patriating the Monarchy
POSTED BY: The Monarchist AT 5:43 p.m. | LINKS |
You know republicanism is weak in Canada when the republicans start talking about “patriating the monarchy”. Ever since the Queen’s 80th, the Globe and Mail has been all the rage. They do this because they know that changing Canada into a Republic is constitutionally impossible. A referendum win alone is not enough to remove the maple Crown from the Canadian Constitution: in this country, you need complete federal unanimity, meaning the consent of the House and Senate, as well as the binding approval of the legislatures of each of the ten provinces, not to mention the Queen herself. The Premier of tiny Prince Edward Island need only give Ottawa the bird, and the game is up. Trust me when I say that the constitutional amending formula has been a gift to loyalists ever since the Constitution was patriated from the United Kingdom in 1982. Only the politically ignorant, and the most radically demented nationalist republicans, would think they actually have a winning shot. The talk of patriating the monarchy should relieve us of a prevailing myth - one we commonly hear and say – that the countries of the Crown Commonwealth are each, in their own right, in relation to one another, totally sovereign independent nation-states. This is inaccurate because no matter how you parse our independence, we still owe mutual allegiance to the same constitutional monarch. Clearly, each of us cannot be uniquely independent if we are represented by the same sovereign – one cannot be separately independent if one is also collectively joined. In the long evolution from British colony to self-governing dominion to constitutionally independent nation-state, our full independence and sovereignty is still happily stymied by the fact that under Queen Elizabeth II, the Commonwealth Realms are in “personal union” with the United Kingdom.
Wikipedia defines a personal union as a “political union of two or more entities that, internationally, are considered separate states, but through established law, share the same head of state”. What this says is that our situation today is notionally no different than what occurred in 1603, when James VI of Scotland also became James I of England. At that defining moment in British history, two separate kingdoms lost their singular independence vis-à-vis each other, as a result of being politically joined under a single monarch; a merger that became further cemented over time until finally, both kingdoms were abolished and combined into the United Kingdom under the Union Act of 1707. The “only” difference between 1603 and now is the evolved nature and limited power of Her Majesty, compared to that of her 400 year-old predecessor, one that leads us to erroneously believe that we are somehow absolutely independent, even though we share the same sovereign.
Because of this, because our countries are in personal union with the UK and the UK with us, it would not be incorrect to refer to this sovereign amalgamation as the “United Kingdoms of the Commonwealth”. One merely need give it a name. For most, the mutual allegiance of the nations of the British Commonwealth may be of little or merely of symbolic and sentimental importance, but at this pivotal moment in our history, at a time when the men and women of our Commonwealth military forces are engaged throughout the world in difficult and dangerous tasks in our collective security and defense, would it be so much to consciously embrace the ties that bind, to deliberately play up our fundamental adherence to a shared set of evolved core beliefs and principles? Beyond these mutually held values, would it be so much to engage each other more closely, such as endorsing a Commonwealth Free Trade Agreement? Would it be too much to open our minds, our skies and our markets? Would it be too much to enhance the mobility rights of our peoples, to reciprocate joint citizenship and recognize joint loyalty to a common sovereign? Would it be so much to have a vision, to pool our sovereignty in a few select areas? Or must national independence in the 21st century be forever hidebound, insular, parochial and uninspiring?
Next Post: Patriating the Monarchy
POSTED BY: The Monarchist AT 5:43 p.m. | LINKS |
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