Buckingham Palace - The people's new presidential seat
(with the forbidding parade ground turned into a landscaped front garden)
There are basically two types of Modern Republic – a presidential republic and a parliamentary republic. With a presidential republic there is a clear separation of power between the Legislature and the Executive. With a parliamentary system the Executive, or Head of State, is compounded with the Legislature. The legislature chooses the Executive – as here parliament chooses the Prime Minister.
Why have most republics always favoured a presidential system with a separation of powers? Because republicans see that the main problem of any state is the accumulation of excessive executive power - dictatorship. By separating the power, dictatorship can be avoided.
Under a parliamentary system, such as we already have, there is no separation of power, and so more and more power accumulates with the executive.
Currently we have an office of Prime Minister which has far more power than the leader of any other liberal democracy. Amazingly the Prime Minister can even make changes to the constitution as easily as they pass statutes. This situation would be preserved in a parliamentary republic
But why are some present republics parliamentary republics?
Of the republics comparable in size to Britain in the developed world there are only two such– Germany and Italy.
Germany and Italy after the Second World War both adopted a parliamentary system for the same reason. Both had a recent history of fascist dictatorship and they did not want an office of President as it might - within their very special circumstances - come to resemble another dictator
Anti-monarchist republicans often entertain a parliamentary republic with a purely ceremonial president? But, for one thing, you simply will not get good quality candidates coming forward to take up such a meaningless post. It would not command respect.
And the dangers of a second restoration would be real. For look at what happened before with our first republic in the seventeenth century. Parliament initially took all power onto itself. Following that all power went to the executive (Protector). There was never a proper separation of power. The stage was set for a restoration
Existing parliamentary republics like Ireland and Germany do not have this problem as they do not have a recent monarch waiting in the wings to return as Britain would have.
Only with a democratically elected president with full powers and installed in Buckingham Palace as the Presidential Seat can the republic be guaranteed
Currently we do not elect our leader, The party machines do that for us.
It should be our democratic right, our republican right, to directly elect our leader - separate from parliament
And we must elect a president with full powers.
