Liberties and rights

The only means by which any nation has ever managed to secure and protect its liberties has been by limiting the powers of their governments and parliaments. This is something we have never done in this country - the power of the monarch has passed down, unchecked, through parliament and into Downing Street.

The liberty debate

We don't believe it is a coincidence that so many human rights lawyers, such as Louise Christian, Imran Khan, Geoffrey Robertson, Anthony Scrivener and Michael Mansfield, support Republic. It is because a republic is the only credible answer to the liberty debate.

There has been a lot of talk in the media lately about a concerted attack on our liberties by the current government. Similar complaints were made against the previous Tory administration too. While many question the individual measures which are seen as limiting our rights, whether it is ID cards, CCTV, 42 day detention or excessive police powers, the big question that remains to be answers is this: why does the government have the unlimited power to do as it sees fit, to change or reduce our liberties at will, tempered only by the faint prospect of losing power?

This power exists not because we, as a nation, have deemed it to be the best way to run this country, but because our constitution has simply evolved from one based on the rule of despots. The British constitution is based not on popular sovereignty, not on the rights of the citizen or the principles of democracy. It is based on enabling the state to rule and control.

If we are to genuinely protect our liberties against the instincts of government, there is only one solution. We believe that a republican constitution, one based on the sovereignty of the people, is the only genuine means by which to limit the power of government, and therefore provide some safeguard against attacks on our rights and liberties.

The importance of monarchy

For as long as the British constitution is based on the Crown our liberties will always be vulnerable to the whims of the government of the day.

Some people argue that the monarchy is just a harmless decoration, that there are more important constitutional issues to tackle first. We believe this is fundamentally wrong - the monarchy is our constitution. It is the source of the unlimited power wielded by the government and it is the means by which our politicians resist calls for change.

The power of the government is derived from the Crown. Get rid of the Crown, write a new constitution based on the sovereignty of the people, and we treat ourselves to a unique opportunity to protect our liberties and rights by limiting the powers of those we choose to govern us.

Levers of power

The flow of power is simple, it flows into Downing Street. Virtually all executive power has now been handed by the monarch to the cabinet, which is controlled by the prime minister. 'Sovereignty' lies in parliament through the convention of the "Crown in parliament". Thanks to our worthless and unwritten constitution, parliament is now also controlled by the prime minister (at least, for most of the time). The courts are unable to stop parliament from doing anything - if a court rules, for example, that a government decision or an Act of parliament is incompatible with the Human Rights Act, parliament can simply change the law so it isn't.

Power in a democracy

Democracy is about 'the people' being the boss - an idea they understand in the US and elsewhere only too well. In the UK all we get is the chance, every four or five years, to influence who will be our boss. Lord Hailsham (not a typical republican radical) put it succinctly back in his 1976 Richard Dimbleby lecture:

Hailsham famously added: "We live in an elective dictatorship, absolute in theory, if hitherto thought tolerable in practice."

The source of this situation is the monarchy. Parliament gets its 'absolute and unlimited' power from the Crown. It is our status as subjects of the Crown (subjects still, despite various 'citizenship' Acts) which makes parliament our master, not our servant. It is our unwritten constitution and the government's relationship with the Crown (the Cabinet is a sub-committee of the Privy Council) which has allowed the government to control parliament.

It is in this context that our rights are being eroded while so many are willing to sit in silence, often applauding the attack on their own liberties.

Those in power will always seek to control and to manipulate those they govern. It is as inevitable as death and taxes. This is why written constitutions, based on sound democratic principles and containing strong defences against authoritarianism, are essential in any modern society.

There is no room for the Crown or for a sovereign parliament in such a constitution, only for the sovereignty of the people and the rights of the citizen.