Thanks for pointing me to well sourced wiki article, as it mostly confirms the c...

charlesdm · on June 22, 2018

I'm not particularly pro or against a monarchy, however, even IF the annual cost is £300m, I don't even get why it matters in the case of the UK? The Crown Estate owns £12bn worth of assets and returned £328m in 2016/17.

As these assets (while held in trust and managed professionally) belong to the sovereign, they are self sustainable and have covered all expenses. If there would be no monarchy, it's not unlikely these assets would return to the royal family.

Then look at the value a monarchy brings. In many parts of the world, a king or queen carries more respect than a president. They can help facilitate trade and form relationships that might otherwise not exist, because they're around for a long time as opposed to shorter term presidential thinking.

_mul0 · on June 23, 2018

If they are self-sustaining, why do they need handouts from the UK government? Especially in a time of austerity?

charlesdm · on June 23, 2018

"In 1760, George III reached an agreement with the Government over the estate. The Crown Lands would be managed on behalf of the Government and the surplus revenue would go to the Treasury. In return the King would receive a fixed annual payment - what later became known as the Civil List." From http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/en-gb/resources/faqs/

It seems the handout you are talking about are essentially part of the dividends that flow back from the yield generated by the assets of the Crown Estate. Austerity or not, these assets are worth a lot of money.

If you have a billion dollars worth of assets (or in this case, 12 billion), even during economic crisis you'll likely still be making ends meet without issues.

_mul0 · on June 23, 2018

It seems that you do not know how the Civil List works, and why there was controversy about it in the last decade, and why it finally got tweaked into the "Sovereign Grant". Furthermore, it seems to me that you do not know about the issues with the Sovereign Grant, or the recent controversy around the Royal Family's overspending. Lastly, it seems that you do not understand that the Sovereign Grant (previously, the Civil List) only represents a small portion of the money actually doled out to the Royal Family.

I do not mean to say this in a judgemental tone, as much as: "I'm glad you're participating, but...if you don't know the basics, why are you? I'm not an educator, so I don't know how much patience I'll have to bring you up to date. What's your stake in this?"

My stake in this is pretty clear: I'm a republican. I think that FOIA requests have allowed republicans to build a strong case around the issues surrounding the Royal Family's finances.

I can appreciate that there might be "spiritual" benefits to having a monarchy, as it is representative of a historical tradition, but frankly, what traditions does the British Monarchy stand for? It has a history of trying to either maintain or reinforce the status quo (i.e. the distribution of power and wealth), including economically (e.g. through protectionist laws, or Royal support of monopolies). In other words, a history of stifling innovation, if it threatens tradition. There's a reason Tories (royalists) are typically conservative (and not in a good way). Let's also put aside issues surrounding colonialism, mistreatment of labour during the industrial revolution, etc.. Also, it's not the case that the Royal Family is powerless today. To pretend otherwise is to be naive, as they remain well connected to politicians and corporations. Thus, they continue to be a family-centric (rather than nation-centric), non-transparent (key issue!) powerbase.

If we're looking for tradition, we ought to be willing to look at it without sugar coating it, otherwise we should be willing to form new traditions. If we're looking for a figurehead above party politics, who is around on a longer time scale than a prime minister, there are non-monarchist ways of providing such a figurehead.