Today when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge revealed their child to the world for the very first time, they were presenting the heir to the throne of the United Kingdom but also the heir to the throne of 16 other Commonwealth nations.
Lawmakers have been working all year to change succession laws so that the crown will pass to this child regardless of his or her gender. Getting this law passed has proven more difficult than anticipated. The political process in some of the Commonwealth states are complicating the process. If the changes don’t go though, the line of royal succession could technically bifurcate, leaving two heirs with competing claims to the throne at some point. Or it could force Australia or Canada to break away from the British crown.
This all began with an old English law, predating the imperial expansion, that gives male heirs preference for the throne. This seeming a bit outdated, the U.K. wants to change the law so that girls have equal succession rights, as many other European monarchies have done. While it seems simple enough, the problems come from the colonies. As the British Empire expanded, it imposed not just its monarchy on far-flung colonies and possessions, but it also ingrained the rules of royal succession into the colonial constitutions. After the empire collapsed, a number of those colonies kept the British monarch but now they have their own independent governments and constitutions. And if the British royal family wants to guarantee that this baby can inherit the throne regardless of gender, it will need to convince all 16 countries in the British Commonwealth to change their constitutions, so that every one has the same succession laws and it is a lot tougher than you might think. There is no guarantee that every country will follow through, and it’s looking very possible that two of the commonwealth’s biggest countries, Canada and Australia, will refuse to change their laws.
It’s not that Canada and Australia think male succession is a great idea and oppose granting royal women equal access to the throne. The issue is actually that a number of Canadians and Australians want nothing to do with the British royals and think their countries should formally break away from the throne. For them – they’re called republicans, as in they want to have a purely representative government with no trace of monarchy – obstructing what would otherwise be a routine constitutional amendment is a way to force a wider debate on whether Australia and Canada should remain jewels in the British crown.
The Australian and Canadian movements to break from the monarchy are very real. Currently, the Australian Labor Party is in power and it's members generally favor dissolving its ties to the monarchy. In Canada, polling found only a small majority of 51 percent support keeping the monarchy. Much of the opposition in Canada comes from Quebec due to it's cultural links to France. If Canada and Australia refuse to change their laws it will eventually divide the line of succession and establish two different monarchs. The line of succession split once before in 1838 when Queen Victoria was crowned. Since England and Hanover, Germany had different succession laws Victoria was queen of all other Common Wealth nations but her brother became the King of Hanover. It is more likely that if the new succession laws do not pass, these countries will just quit the British monarchy altogether.
The history and formality of the British Royal family are important. In today's society, we have lost the formality, pomp and circumstance that makes us appreciate special events. The royals teach us how to be more polite, refined, classy and mannerly. I believe the Royal Family plays an important role in history and the economy of the United Kingdom. The birth of the royal baby had a $400 million dollar impact on the British Economy.
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