England Should Not Remain A Monarchy

Thanks to Pro for his quick response. I'll address each of the three major points of contention separately. - (1) Power Abuse Pro claims that if the monarchy is allowed to persist, the UK may eventually come to be governed by a "bad" King or Queen who will abuse his/her power. However, as he himself admits, the monarch barely has any power. The monarch can NOT dissolve parliament -- that ability was taken away by Fixed-Term Parliaments Act of 2011. The monarch also cannot simply appoint any Prime Minister they like -- their choice must be supported by the majority of the House of Commons. "In practice, prerogative powers are exercised only on the Prime Minister's advice -- the Prime Minister, and not the Sovereign, has control... The monarch may express his or her views, but, as a constitutional ruler, must ultimately accept the decisions of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet (providing they command the support of the House)... the Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy ... three rights -- the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn'" [1]. The British monarch simply doesn't have enough power to engage in "abuse" of it, and therefore, a "bad" monarch poses no threat. (2) Economics I would like to clarify that this is the source I meant to cite under my last round's second argument [2]. Firstly, let's note that even if there are no economic benefits at all, the monarchy costs each individual Briton less than $5 per year, which is completely negligible -- especially considering the immense symbolic significance that the monarchy has. For the cause of maintaining Britain's most long-lived secular institution, $5 is easily worth it. Economics is basically a non-issue. But anyways, Pro is mistaken in his claims that "monarchy-related tourism" would survive sans the monarchy. It is true that some tourism would continue, since the monarchy's historical sites would still exist, but much of the revenue comes directly from the royal family's fan-base: William & Kate's wedding generated $165 million (from accommodation travel, nightlife, etc), and the birth of Baby Cambridge was directly responsible for a $383 million boost in consumer spending [2]. Given that, it is clear that a substantial portion of "monarchy-related tourism" is contingent upon the continued existence of the monarchy. Olga Khazan writes: "I'm skeptical that England's attractions could still draw the same numbers of tourists without the physical monarchs in place. Sure, people would still visit African savannas if they didn't have elephants, but probably not as many, or as often. Similarly, the royal family acts as a sort of charismatic megafauna for the entire royalty-tourism ecosystem" [2]. (3) Symbolism Pro pretty much concedes this point, instead arguing that the monarchy's pragmatic harms outweigh its symbolic value. However, as I've shown, there ARE no harms -- abuse is literally impossible, and the monarchy's presence actually generates a *surplus* of hundreds of millions of dollars. Even if we agree with Pro's tourism logic, a cost of $5 per citizen is not *nearly* enough to outweigh. There is no world in which abolishing the monarchy results in more good than bad. The resolution is negated. - 1. https://en.wikipedia.org... 2. http://www.theatlantic.com...