Brits Should Reject Monarchy and Embrace Rights
Britain has been a monarchy for almost its entire history. But this system is fundamentally antithetical to the principles of liberty and individual rights.
On May 6, 2023, Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor will be crowned king of the United Kingdom. The coronation of Charles, a much more controversial figure than his widely admired mother, Elizabeth II, has reinvigorated the public debate in Britain over the continued existence of the monarchy.
Britain has been a monarchy for almost its entire history. Aside from the 1649–1660 Commonwealth, dictatorially ruled by “Lord Protector” Oliver Cromwell, all various nations that have existed on the island of Britain since the end of Roman rule in 410 have been monarchies.
Many of Britain’s monarchs were unabashed tyrants and readily squandered the lives of ordinary Brits in pursuit of power. More than one hundred thousand people died in the War of the Roses, a battle for the English throne between Richard of York and Henry of Lancaster. Henry’s son Henry VIII seized control of Britain’s Catholic churches and appointed himself “Supreme Head of the Church of England,” which he created. Five hundred years after his reign, British monarchs still serve as head of that church. Although Elizabeth I oversaw a period of growth and stability following Henry VIII’s turbulent reign, she is remembered for her penchant for executing her opponents, including 750 Catholic rebels who opposed her rule. George III is justly reviled in the United States for his efforts to control and extract wealth from the American colonies, and he’s remembered in Britain for his descent into outright madness.
Despite (or perhaps thanks to) this bloody legacy of despotism at the hands of hereditary ruling families, Britain was also the birthplace of the modern ideas of liberty, limited government, and inalienable individual rights. The Magna Carta, forced on King John by noblemen who were fed up with his abuse of power, established the principle of legal limits on the monarch’s power and pioneered constitutional government in the modern world. The British Bill of Rights established the first legal protections for citizens’ rights in Britain and was a major influence on the American Bill of Rights that followed a century later. Some of the greatest minds that inspired the American Revolution, such as John Locke and Thomas Paine, came from Britain—and British colonies, on rebelling, decided to found the world’s first (and, to date, only) nation based on the principle of inalienable individual rights. This principle is essential to defending freedom. Without it, kings, governments, and every form of despot imaginable can trample anyone’s life and liberty.
Unfortunately, the “mother country” never followed its rebellious offspring in enshrining that principle in law. Britain did continue its tradition of establishing precedents in individual liberty—for example, by outlawing slavery half a century before the United States. But its lack of clear, constitutional protection for individual rights has enabled the government to violate them by doing such things as limiting free expression through “hate speech” laws, abridging citizens’ right to defend themselves and their property, and maintaining a taxpayer-funded monarchy. Unlike the United States, where government is instituted “for the people, by the people,” Britain’s democratic government is formed by the invitation of the monarch, in whom power still is formally vested, though that power is exercised by Parliament.
Yet many freedom-loving Brits credit the monarchy with preserving and securing British liberty. They claim the monarchy prevents politicians from becoming too powerful and retaining control. According to the pro-monarchy Telegraph, “the Crown can help secure smooth and peaceful handovers of political power and restrain abuses of authority.”1 The Royal Family’s website claims that the monarchy provides “a focus for national identity, unity and pride,” and “gives a sense of stability and continuity.”2
Perhaps part of the reason that many take this view is that most British people alive today have only known the reign of the relatively hands-off and pro-liberty Elizabeth II. But, as history has shown, the fact that one monarch can be a benign or well-intentioned leader is not an argument for the system. Charles’s track record suggests that he is likely to be far more interventionist than his mother. During his time as Prince of Wales, he frequently commented on various areas of culture and politics (something Elizabeth II notably avoided) and even directly intervened at times—for example, to oppose the use of genetically modified crops in Britain. He has used his position to influence policy on issues ranging from manufacturing and farming to environmental protectionism, and he has repeatedly intervened in construction projects to impose his classicist views on architecture and urban design, even overseeing the construction of an entire new town planned according to his preferences.3 He was able to do these things only because he inherited a royal title and the power and resources that came with it.
Although Britain is officially a “constitutional monarchy”—meaning that the power of the monarch is limited by the constitution, both in the still-effective elements of the Magna Carta and Bill of Rights, and in an “unwritten constitution” of legal tradition—the British crown is not subservient to Parliament. The reverse is true. Charles, and any future monarch, has the constitutional authority to advocate and/or block legislation.
This system is fundamentally antithetical to the principles of liberty and individual rights. Rights derive from the nature of human beings as thinking, valuing beings who live by the use of their rational minds. The right to live freely derives from that fact. To live by the use of one’s mind, one must have the freedom to think for oneself, choose how to live, and keep the product of one’s work. Unlike the “divine right of kings” historically used to justify monarchy, individual rights are based on observable facts, not on unprovable, supposedly divine origin.
A system that awards some individuals the “right” to rule over others, to support themselves through taxes seized from others, and to establish themselves as the head of a national religion repudiates the principle of individual rights and violates every British citizen’s right to life, liberty, and property. In the words of philosopher Ayn Rand, “Any alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.”4 In short, there can be no right to rule over others or violate their rights.
Recent polling indicates that Elizabeth II’s passing and the prospect of Charles III’s reign have significantly decreased support for the monarchy in Britain; it has dropped from around 65 percent to near 50 percent.5 Yet a clear majority of Brits still support it. If freedom-loving Brits are serious about the moral principles on which liberty depends, they must oppose the monarchy and advance a vision of a free British republic. It was, after all, resistance to the monarchy and its privations that led to the founding of the freest country the world has ever seen. Perhaps new resistance to this rights-violating system could lead to the founding of an even freer one.