Challenge: Abolish the British Monarchy after Diana's Death

Inspired by an idea I had in the excellent 'Alternate Obituaries' thread:

Neil Kinnock (28 March 1942 – 15 September 2015) died yesterday, it has been announced. The former President passed away peacefully in his sleep after a two year struggle with cancer.

Assured his place in the history books as the man who made 'New Labour' possible, Kinnock seemed ready to retire from public life after the surprise victory of John Major in 1992. But it was in 1998 that, in the wake of the abolition of the monarchy triggered by the Diana Crisis, he was approached by Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair (then Prime Minister) and offered the Labour candidacy for the first ever British Presidential Elections in 1999. His Tory opponent Chris Patten was convincingly defeated thanks to Labour's huge popularity at the time, and Kinnock soon settled into the highly ceremonial role that what had been termed 'the Irish-model Presidency' became. It was he who led Britain's tributes to the victims of the September 2001 terrorist attacks and he who Britons rallied around after our own brush with terrorism in 2005. After serving two immensely successful five-year-terms, Kinnock stepped down in 2009, with his endorsement doing little good for the flagging Labour candidate, Margaret Beckett, defeated as she was by none other than John Major.

The man credited with the first steps towards New Labour will also, ironically, enter the history books as the man who undermined its golden boy. Tony Blair's personal popularity took a number of hits on controversial policies over the years - not least the Iraq War - and in matters where he would have sought to claim personal credit on behalf of the nation, the ever-present Kinnock would often steal the show. Pushed from office less than a year after the 2005 election, Blair gave way to Gordon Brown, who in turn lost the 2010 election to David Cameron and ended 13 years of Labour politicians in either constitutional high office of our Republic.

President Cable led tributes to Kinnock yesterday from the steps of Britain House, calling him 'a pioneer to a whole generation, and one of the most resilient politicians of our time'. President-elect Farage joined the tributes, saying that while he and Kinnock had disagreed on 'the Europe question', he had always found him a 'thoroughly decent, committed and respectable politician whose first thought was always the people of this great country'. From abroad, former Vice President Biden led American tributes to 'one of my finest speechwriters' - a joking throwback to the controversy that surrounded Biden's plagiarism from Kinnock's own speeches.

He leaves behind his wife, Glenys, his daughter, Rachel and his son, Stephen, who is married to the Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. He will be missed most of all, said Glenys yesterday, by his four grandchildren.

Now that was, as is probably evident, just a quick play around with the idea. In this thread, can anyone come up with a plausible way of the Queen and her advisers dramatically getting the Diana situation even more wrong than they did in OTL and force the removal of the British monarchy, potentially replacing it with an Irish-model presidency (I think that's what Britons would be most comfortable with)? If so, who would get the Presidency? Old party figures, as above? An independent candidate like Richard Branson?

My 'example' is described in my quotation above.
 
Without alien space bats involved I don't see how it can happen. Not that the Royal Family can react worse than it did in OTL, but that it could react so badly that the government decides to abolish it. The Royal Family earns too much for the government (5x more than what it gives to the Royal Family) for it to want to break an extremely old agreement over something like Diana's death.

The best I can see it going is for the Royal Family to become even less of an institute - all matters of government it has, even the ones which are purely symbolic, are removed, but still keep the royal family itself.

I think it would take something more serious for the Royal Family to be abolished. It would take more than the papers to kick up a fuss about the wrong flag being flown at Diana's death etc, for there to be any serious threat to the Windsor family. Maybe the Queen dying and Charles becoming King and appearing to be a threat to the status quo?
 
If the Queen died prior to the whole fiasco, say a year before, and Charles was in Buckingham Palace when Diana was killed (and she still was killed, obviously) perhaps things could go worse. The whole "uncaring monarch" thing would look even worse for Charles than HM I feel.

So, say Charles is King, and the Diana thingummy goes more or less the same (or something equivalent) but the media is even more hostile to Charles personally, leading to Blair being a tad more republican in his rhetoric ("she embodied the spirit of the British people"), rather wrecking Charles' image.

Then say that Charles wades into the middle of a controversial issue, say Blair pushes HoL reform more, and Charles gets caught on mic vehemently disagreeing with the policy. With his image a wreck, he is advised to abdicate, but William does not accept the throne, and is instead named as a regent. Blair organises a public referendum on the monarchy, and it narrowly loses, leading to a constitutional convention.

Also, h'llo 'vryone! Please don't bite.....
 
Welcome, Cranleigh! Great start. I don't consider the Queen dying to be too ASB - she's been oldish for the last 15 or so years so could have gone at any time, really.

I like your idea of Charles buggering it all up and taking us forward to a referendum which gets us... a president? Who do you think would be put up for the post? I stand by my original post, where men like Kinnock and Patten are put up by the major parties, but given the pervading mood of 'change' that we've created here, I wouldn't be surprised if a popular Ross Perot-style candidate (Branson? Sugar?) put him or herself up for the role and won.
 
... given the pervading mood of 'change' that we've created here, I wouldn't be surprised if a popular Ross Perot-style candidate (Branson? Sugar?) put him or herself up for the role and won.

Jade Goody. :eek:

I couldn't help myself. Apologies all around.
 
Jade Goody. :eek:

I couldn't help myself. Apologies all around.

(to try and drag this sorry situation out of the mud, I'm going to answer this suggestion as if it were straight ;))

I'm calling ASB. Jade Goody was a nobody in 1998-99, the time when this election would be taking place. Perhaps she could run for the BNP in 2004?
 
Personally, I wonder whether a directly elected president would be in the British style. What platform could a mainly ceremonial role stand on? Sooner or later, it would become politicised, and there would be a blurring of platform (even if not actual power) between the President and Parliament.

Perhaps it would be better for an indirectly elected "President of the Commonwealth", rather like in Germany. So, every (say) six years we convene a body - let's be German and call it the General Assembly - consisting of all MPs, all former Cabinet Ministers, Opposition Leaders, First Ministers, House Speakers, City Mayors, et cetera, plus maybe some members elected by university alumni or something. The General Assembly then elects (secret ballot?) the President of the Commonwealth for a six-year term. No point having a VP; let's make the Speaker of the House be Acting President should the worst befall them.

So, where do these candidates come from? Since we've eliminated direct election, populist candidates are unlikely to emerge - thank Sky - so no President Goody. Obviously, there's the "elder statesman" option. Though I suspect former PMs might struggle to be seen as uniting figures - Westminster politics does that to you, but people like Patten - those who had a promising future that somehow never quite materialised - could do well.

So, in our hypothetical 1999 Assembly, the candidates might be:

Conservatives:
Chris Patten
Ken Clarke
Margaret Thatcher (I'm sure some Conservative MGA would suggest it, but it would likely be killed on the first ballot)

Labour:
Neil Kinnock
Roy Hattersley

Liberal Democrats:
Paddy Ashdown

I think Kinnock would struggle with the public image necessary - he was a partisan figure for too long, so let's say Ashdown gets it. Six years later, just after the general election, 2005...

One cheeky thought might be that Blair "moves up" to Commonwealth President, leaving Brown in No. 10, but I'm not sure....

On the other hand, we could go the direct election model, in which case, I think its only a matter of time before "elder statesmen" get squeezed out in favour of popular figures - I fully expect Stephen Fry to be appointing ambassadors by 2010.
 
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Personally, I wonder whether a directly elected president would be in the British style. What platform could a mainly ceremonial role stand on? Sooner or later, it would become politicised, and there would be a blurring of platform (even if not actual power) between the President and Parliament.

Perhaps it would be better for an indirectly elected "President of the Commonwealth", rather like in Germany. So, every (say) six years we convene a body - let's be German and call it the General Assembly - consisting of all MPs, all former Cabinet Ministers, Opposition Leaders, First Ministers, House Speakers, City Mayors, et cetera, plus maybe some members elected by university alumni or something. The General Assembly then elects (secret ballot?) the President of the Commonwealth for a six-year term. No point having a VP; let's make the Speaker of the House be Acting President should the worst befall them.

So, where do these candidates come from? Since we've eliminated direct election, populist candidates are unlikely to emerge - thank Sky - so no President Goody. Obviously, there's the "elder statesman" option. Though I suspect former PMs might struggle to be seen as uniting figures - Westminster politics does that to you, but people like Patten - those who had a promising future that somehow never quite materialised - could do well.

So, in our hypothetical 1999 Assembly, the candidates might be:

Conservatives:
Chris Patten
Ken Clarke
Margaret Thatcher (I'm sure some Conservative MGA would suggest it, but it would likely be killed on the first ballot)

Labour:
Neil Kinnock
Roy Hattersley

Liberal Democrats:
Paddy Ashdown

I think Kinnock would struggle with the public image necessary - he was a partisan figure for too long, so let's say Ashdown gets it. Six years later, just after the general election, 2005...

One cheeky thought might be that Blair "moves up" to Commonwealth President, leaving Brown in No. 10, but I'm not sure....

On the other hand, we could go the direct election model, in which case, I think its only a matter of time before "elder statesmen" get squeezed out in favour of popular figures - I fully expect Stephen Fry to be appointing ambassadors by 2010.

I would be completely comfortable with President Fry. :D

I like your logic about not having a directly elected one. You can, of course, expect the Lib Dems to shout and scream about how it's undemocratic and archaic and the Old Politics, but they'd probably stop the moment Paddy got selected.

Glad you agree about Patten. He was sufficiently not attached to the failing Major government thanks to Hong Kong and came out of that post very well. He'd've probably been in a prime position to lead the Tories in opposition if he'd been an MP at the time. Then again there was that young age heart attack that called into question his health, wasn't there? Still, I think he would be on the cards as you do too. He probably wouldn't do badly even under direct election on a platform of 'balance' (Labour in Parliament, Tory in Presidency). Wouldn't win, though.

Say we have 5 year terms (1999-2004, 2004-2009, 2009-2014), and we do end up with this direct election thing, here's my picks for the rise of populist candidates and who would end up on the ballot for the parties, and who would win:

1999
Neil Kinnock (Labour) - elected
Chris Patten (Conservative)
Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrats) [resigns as leader a little earlier, Kennedy takes over]
Jean Lambert (Green)
Robert Kilroy-Silk (Referendum)
Nick Griffin (BNP)

2004
Neil Kinnock (Labour) - re-elected
Michael Portillo (Conservative)
Ming Campbell (Liberal Democrats)
Richard Branson (Independent)
Caroline Lucas (Green)
Roger Knapman (UKIP)
Nick Griffin (BNP)

2009
Margaret Beckett (Labour)
Michael Portillo (Conservative)
Paddy Ashdown (Liberal Democrats)
Richard Branson (Independent) - elected
Caroline Lucas (Green)
Nigel Farage (UKIP)
Richard Barnbrook (BNP)

2014
Jack Straw (Labour)
Boris Johnson (Conservative) - elected
Vince Cable (Liberal Democrats)
Richard Branson (Independent)
Caroline Lucas (Green)
Nigel Farage (UKIP)
Nick Griffin (BNP)

2019
Tony Blair (Labour)
Boris Johnson (Conservative)
Vince Cable (Liberal Democrats)
Stephen Fry (Independent) - elected
Caroline Lucas (Green)
Nigel Farage (UKIP)
Joan Collins (BNP) [!]
 

Teleology

Banned
Instead of a ceremonial president, they could always just make the Prime Minister head of state as well as government; with a Deputy Prime Minister in case of death and to handle any ceremonial functions that are not important enough for the PM's time but too important for a lesser functionary.

Maybe I'm biased, but in my opinion semi-functional deputies are less embarrassing than ceremonial heads of state.
 
Instead of a ceremonial president, they could always just make the Prime Minister head of state as well as government; with a Deputy Prime Minister in case of death and to handle any ceremonial functions that are not important enough for the PM's time but too important for a lesser functionary.

Maybe I'm biased, but in my opinion semi-functional deputies are less embarrassing than ceremonial heads of state.

I'm not sure, but there might be some difficulties with the constitution there, since it's (currently) the Head of State that convenes Parliament, having them subsequently dismissed by it seems...odd...also, you'd have to have Parliament directly elect the PM, since there'd be no monarch to appoint them.

I think South Africa is the only nation that springs to mind with a situation like the one you describe - I don't see any reason why it can't work, but it feels awkward somehow.
 
Instead of a ceremonial president, they could always just make the Prime Minister head of state as well as government; with a Deputy Prime Minister in case of death and to handle any ceremonial functions that are not important enough for the PM's time but too important for a lesser functionary.

Maybe I'm biased, but in my opinion semi-functional deputies are less embarrassing than ceremonial heads of state.

The trouble with that is it would require a fundamental reworking of the British constitution. A ceremonial president taking on a slightly more powerful role that the Queen had would simply require a written down version of the current system with a couple more powers for the president added in. Merging the head of state with the head of the executive is not something we've had in the UK for centuries and would be seen as distinctly un-British (mind you, so would getting rid of the monarchy...) and unconstitutional. Therefore I think public opinion would be more in favour of a figurehead president who doesn't require much money to be spent on them, is removable if they become unpopular, and has the gravitas to represent Britain on the world stage as the monarch previously did. Creating a 'super-Prime Minister' would be too much, in my opinion.
 
I wonder whether in the directly elected model there needs to be a "one party, one candidate" system, at least once they get going. Assuming AV is chosen as the system (which would be a good chance for Blair to look reforming without, you know, doing any actual reform) there would be no need for official candidates - people would stand as individuals, members of parties or no.
 
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