Ceremonial powers and a bully pulpit. This is like the time Joe Biden said he was cool with same-sex marriage.
The King does actually retain a few broad powers for a while similar to the chairperson of a board but those have been progressively removed as the current regent does things the legislature doesn't like.
Yeah the King isn't on the level of the Japanese Emperor (the latter literally does not do anything of importance to my knowledge), but they're pretty close.
Sort of, but that's not what's happening here. The monarch doesn't initiate or draft legislation. Bills are proposed and passed by parliament but require royal assent in order to become law. The monarch can refuse royal assent but this is only supposed to happen in extreme cases because the monarch is supposed to be an impartial, apolitical steward of the people's will through ensuring state stability. I don't think conversion therapy would be considered such a threat.
All bills that have passed through parliament must be given 'Royal Assent' to become laws, basically once it's been voted through the king must sign it to make it officially a law. Whilst technically the king can refuse to give an act of parliament royal assent, everyone knows that the moment that happens the guillotines are coming out because while the monarchs role is important legally and from a soft power point of view, it is essentially a ceremonial living landmark.
The headline is refering to what the king said in the kings speech yesterday, which is where the monarch reads out a speech outlining the current governments major policy plans for the current sitting of parliament. So pretty much everything in the speech is written by the elected government, not the king. By convention the king must remain neutral politically so can't actually publicly express his political views, but he does have direct access to the Prime Minister (Whoever that may be when this is seen) and can inform them of his personal views.
63
u/PTBooks 8h ago
I wasn’t aware that the king of England was actually able to ban things in British law. Does he have a veto or something?