Talk:Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927

message: This article has been quite absolute that "Constitutional theorists" unanimously credit this Act with changing the relationship between Crown and Dominions. All the British and Canadian constitutional theory I've read refer to the Statute of Westminster, 1931 or the Balfour Declaration, 1926... I've never seen this Act referred to at all. Can someone name the constitutional theorists who refer to it as crucial? It's a bit shocking to imply constitutional theorists are unanimous on this point (it would be one of the few they are unanimous on) without anyone actually being referenced. AndyL 11:50, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that AndyL raises this point, he may well be right.  I seem to recall the Act being mentioned as influential in conjunction with the Statute of Westminster, but not as the sole cause of the modern "many crowns in one crown" status. It is certainly the Statute of Westminster which is usually more focused on. --gbambino 13:20, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Theorists" 

message: I've removed the following given the lack of a citation (which constitutional scholars?)
:According to some constitutional theorists, a second, and more important function, was to modify the King's title, proclaiming that George V was not king of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions but rather of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions. The change in the wording of the King's title is subtle, but has the effect of creating a list of nations of which he is king rather than grouping those nations all together as if under one government.  In so doing, this replaced the concept of a single Imperial British Crown over the Empire with one Crown operating seperately but equally in each Realm.  In this way, by means of the act, each of the Empire's Dominions became a separate kingdom. The Act was thus an important step in the evolution of the Dominions towards full independence. The full title of the Act was An Act to provide for the alteration of the Royal Style and Titles and of the Style of Parliament and for purposes incidental thereto. This change was likely a product of an agreement at the Imperial Conference of 1926 changing the relationship between Britain and the dominions as outlined in the Balfour Declaration of 1926. It was the Balfour Declaration in which it was agreed that the United Kingdom and the dominions were "equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations".
AndyL02:00, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that AndyL raises this point, he may well be right. I seem to recall the Act being mentioned as influential in conjunction with the Statute of Westminster, but not as the sole cause of the modern "many crowns in one crown" status. It is certainly the Statute of Westminster which is usually more focused on. --gbambino 13:20, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  original research 

message: A lot of this material seems, well, exaggerated, and maybe a little confused.  (Kind of like AndyL's "theory" about Canada accidentally turning itself into a colony.)
*One direct consequence of the change in the royal title was that the British government lost... It made an important political statement, but the only consequence in law was a change in the King's formal title.
*shattered the previous concept of the shared monarch, replacing it with... one monarch Huh?
*The government of the Irish Free State put the changes introduced by the Act into immediate effect This is unconvincing; I'm pretty sure the actions of the Irish Free State were based on the Irish Free State Act and the Statute of Westminster.
*Most Dominions were slower than the Irish Free State to respond to the constitutional changes of 1927 and 1931... Highly biased - it implies a response was needed, which mostly the dominions did not consider to be the case before India in 1947.
*An interesting consequence of the 1927 Act was that Edward VIII's abdication That can't be right - this was based on the Statute of Westminster, presumably unrelated to the royal title.
*In that year the practice was begun... In 1953 the Dominion governments agreed that the practice ... should continue Did the practice begin, or did it continue?
The act made a statement about how the British Empire was evolving, and that is noteworthy.  But the other consequences seem questionable. Peter Grey 02:47, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Even before 1927, the Irish Free State was a special case, so it's not obvious how much can be generalized to the other Dominions.  (In Canada independance was opposed so politicians hid the fact as long as possible.) Peter Grey 18:08, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Back in 1927 

message: I find the Cook Islands an interesting case study when it comes to the question of when the dominions became independent. The Cook Islands are considered to be part of the Realm of New Zealand. The Queen in right of New Zealand is head of state of the Cook Islands. However, the Cook Islands have as much (if not more) legal independence than was granted to the New Zealand by the Statute of Westminster.
The Cooks have their own Parliament, their own Prime Minister, even their own Governor-General (called the Queen's Representative). New Zealand cannot pass laws for the Cook Islands without their permission. The Cooks are empowered to pass "external" laws. The Cooks have diplomatic relations with 18 other countries. There is a Cook Islands High Commissioner in Wellington, and a New Zealand High Commissioner resident in Rarotonga.
The only legal difference between the Cook Islands today and New Zealand in the 1970s is the division of the crown. Yet New Zealand was regarded as a sovereign nation in the 1970s and the Cook Islands is regarded as a dependent territory today. This indicates that division of the throne is a neccessary condition for independence. That begs the question, when did division of the throne occur?
Which is why this article is so interesting to me.
(The reason I say 1970s is that in 1983? a Letters Patent was issued that explicitly established the Realm of New Zealand. In 1987 the Statute of Westminster and New Zealand Constitution Act were repealed, removing the ability for the UK to legislate for New Zealand.)
Ben Arnold 11:49, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Repealed where, the UK or New Zealand? The former seems improbable in the case of the Statute of Westminster; the latter calls into question your claimed consequence. (It was a UK Act that had this effect for Canada in 1982.) G Colyer 22:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Repealed in New Zealand. In 1947 New Zealand gained the right to modify its own constitution without limitation, but the U.K. still retained the power, under the Statute of Westminster, to legislate for New Zealand with the latter's request and consent. The Constitution Act 1987 (NZ) repealed the Statute of Westminster, removing that power. 217.33.200.148 14:26, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Division of the crown: c.f. the Cook Islands 

message: I think it did, by stating "(2) In every Act passed and public document issued after the passing of this Act the expression "United Kingdom" shall, unless the context otherwise requires, mean Great Britain and Northern Ireland."  Pondle (talk) 21:19, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That doesn't prove it wasn't called that before. There often seems to be a time lag in changing official titles. When Ireland became a republic in 1949, nobody seems to have bothered changing the royal title officially to reflect this. That is, there doesn't seem to have been any Act of Parliament or royal proclamation to change it, though most subsequent documents did have the new form. Similarly, in 1952 the Queen was proclaimed with different titles in the various dominions, but this was only officially legalized by the Royal Titles Act 1953. And of course British monarchs usually called themselves King/Queen of Great Britain from 1604 on, though their separate kingdoms continued to give them separate titles until the union of 1707. Peter jackson (talk) 11:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Did the Act change the name of the United Kingdom? 

message: I have completely rewritten this article, mostly to remove quite a hefty chunk of text that made some rather extraordinary assertions regarding the consequences of this very simple Act.
It would appear that the effects of this Act have been confused by one or more past Wikipedia editors with the decisions of the 1926 and 1930 Imperial Conferences, the effects of the Statute of Westminster 1931, and changes made to the royal style and titles in 1953.  The relatively trivial impact of the Act is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that, out of some 1200 pages, the 2nd edition (published in 1928) of Keith's standard work Responsible Government in the Dominions mentions the Act only in one paragraph buried within the preface!
The 1927 Act was passed in consequence of the 1926 Imperial Conference, which had concluded that the royal titles did not correctly reflect the altered constitutional circumstances in Ireland.  Even the removed text shows that this is the only part of the royal titles that was actually changed.  The Conference's conclusions were also explicitly referred to by the Home Secretary when moving the House of Commons' second reading of what would become the Act [HC Deb 09 March 1927 vol 203 cc1251-66]; this was reiterated by the India Secretary when moving the Lords' second reading [HL Deb 23 March 1927 vol 66 cc721-32].
The Act did not affect the unity of the Crown (how could it?) and is not treated by the literature as having done so; that change is dated as a principle to the 1926 Imperial Conference, and as a legal fact to the Statute of Westminster 1931.
The Act also did not affect the basis of appointment of the various Governors-General (how could it?), nor with the relations between a Governor-General, his Government, and with the United Kingdom's Government (how could it?).  Those changes did not in fact require any legislative sanction, and thus never received any.  Unsurprisingly, none of the British parliamentary debates relating to the Act's passage make any reference to these matters.
The removed text also makes various other unsupported assertions that are completely at variance with any of the literature.  The biggest howler is probably: "Many Dominions waited until the accession of Elizabeth II in 1952 to codify their new autonomy into domestic law"!
Andrew Gwilliam (talk) 23:23, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Text rewritten