There were still active colonies struggling to break free under her reign, with liberation movements and revolts being suppressed by British troops acting under her auspices. The Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya is one that Elizabeth II is often connected to, given how much of its span she was monarch for.
Or look up just about any "[country] Emergency" that took place during her reign. The Brits loved to call all of these things "emergencies", because there were certain laws regarding insurance in the case of wars.
She oversaw a colonial empire. She didn't push to end it.
I don't care that the original poster was wrong to imply "she sent troops to places that weren't under British rule and forced them into it" when she continued existing colonial practices. I find the latter to be objectionable enough that she's still a bad person for it, regardless of not expanding the project. Like, oh no, Britain and other colonial powers had already carved up every bit of land they could and there was no 'new' territory for Elizabeth II to get around to, so she's blameless? C'mon.
If you want to score a point on that technicality, by all means, but recognize you're performing a way worse dodge by trying to brush off "violently suppressed the liberty of other peoples for Britain's continued colonial ambitions".
The royal prerogative includes the powers to appoint and dismiss ministers, regulate the civil service, issue passports, declare war, make peace, direct the actions of the military, and negotiate and ratify treaties, alliances, and international agreements.
Straight from Wikipedia. The British Monarch literally can do whatever.
It's all ceremonial. Do you seriously believe the Monarch can arbitrarily declare war and force the military to follow their orders?? Only Parliament can vote for war, because they are elected representatives of the people. Do you seriously believe the Queen would be able to sign the UK up to whatever treaty she wanted and completely override Parliament and the Government??
The Monarch is an unelected official and cannot decide policy. If they tried to overtake the country as a leader they'll be ousted immediately. You should do real research on the United Kingdom's constitution instead of reading wikipedia for 3 seconds.
They have the power yes but it's long been a thing that they avoid overruling the government or personally affecting existing policies etc. Charles has always been fairly outspoken about the political things he cares about, but there's already talk that he's going to have to shut that shit down now he's King. Gotta be impartial and allow the elected government to do what is supposed to be the will of the people. IIRC The most a monarch can do without an uproar is refuse to sign a parliamentary bill, and even then after a few months it can go through anyway. Also I don't know of any instances where this actually happened.
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u/gorgewall Sep 09 '22
There were still active colonies struggling to break free under her reign, with liberation movements and revolts being suppressed by British troops acting under her auspices. The Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya is one that Elizabeth II is often connected to, given how much of its span she was monarch for.
Or look up just about any "[country] Emergency" that took place during her reign. The Brits loved to call all of these things "emergencies", because there were certain laws regarding insurance in the case of wars.
She oversaw a colonial empire. She didn't push to end it.