Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg
It’s amazing how this article flew so far under the radar. I will never forget a conversation with my dad when I was a little kid in which I asked about the Queen of England. Something in my DNA even at a very young age was disturbed by the concept of royalty. I remember his answer like it was yesterday: “Michael, the Queen is largely just ceremonial, she has no real power.” I was probably nine years old or so when he told me that. I thought it was strange at the time and I never forgot his answer. It wasn’t his fault of course, that is what everyone is very intentionally taught to believe. Well, it turns out that little old lady with a crown on her head running around the bucolic fields of England has some power after all. Who would’ve thought! From the UK’s Guardian:
The extent of the Queen and Prince Charles’s secretive power of veto over new laws has been exposed after Downing Street lost its battle to keep information about its application secret.
Whitehall papers prepared by Cabinet Office lawyers show that overall at least 39 bills have been subject to the most senior royals’ little-known power to consent to or block new laws. They also reveal the power has been used to torpedo proposed legislation relating to decisions about the country going to war.
The internal Whitehall pamphlet was only released following a court order and shows ministers and civil servants are obliged to consult the Queen and Prince Charles in greater detail and over more areas of legislation than was previously understood.
Read the rest here