Of Royal Assent and reality

Christopher Booker, right, in his column in The Sunday Telegraph yesterday stated:

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''Finally the Queen gave Royal Assent to the MoD's scrapping of our last county-based infantry regiments, to be merged into new large regiment to fit the British Army to the needs of the 'European Rapid Reaction Force'.

This gave rise to Peter Lindsay's comment on an internet discussion forum:

There comes a time when it has to be said, but I am going to say it now. The Queen is not doing her job of upholding the constitution and is effectively doing nothing to save Britain from oblivion.

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If she was going to do anything, she should have called a halt by now, by refusing to sign EU Treaties and associated bills and thus precipitating a constitutional crisis in which she would receive the overwhelming backing of the people.

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The Monarchy has become completely toothless and has thus betrayed Britain to a foreign bureaucracy and their quislings at Westminster and in the Media. As things are going, she will go down in infamy as the only British monarch in history to sit back and let the country lose its independence without lifting a finger. The British people are now on their own and must find new power-structures to organise for survival and to protect themselves from an elite which has abandoned them.

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Well the editor of this blog was not going to sit around and allow unreasonable criticism of Her Majesty, especially when prompted by the sub-editor to 'wade in' because the fundemental issue was being missed. I commented:

Hang on here - lets look at the issue of 'Royal Assent' in detail.

Royal assent is the final stage during the passage of legislation through Parliament. A bill which has been given Royal assent becomes an Act of Parliament and is then law following due parliamentary process. It is a purely formal stage in which the Royal Seal of approval is given to the legislation. In reality the monarch does not have the power to refuse to give consent. Queen Anne was the last monarch to do so in 1707. George V was keen to withdraw Royal Assent to the Parliament Act of 1911 (which restricted the powers of the House of Lords) shortly after he became King and was advised that if he did so he would unlikely to be crowned later that year.

House of Lords.

The monarch does not give assent in person - the last time this was done was in 1854 - instead it is given by the Speaker in the Commons and the Lord Chancellor in the Lords. By ancient tradition the royal assent is given in Norman French in the words `La Reyne le veult', which roughly translates as `the Queen wills it'.

The real issue here that Peter Lindsay raises is not about Her Majesty neglecting her duty but about the political will of her subjects. When there is the will in Parliament to halt the drive for political integration on all fronts with the EU, then and only then can all the key leavers of government be repatriated back to UK control. This of course is what the UK Independance Party is about, our only internal debate is, or should be, how this is achieved. By means of political pressure (ie votes) UKIPs core aim is to repeal the European Communities Act (ECA) of 1972 and, importantly, all subsequent Acts thus consequently leave the EU - preferably before it implodes.

Going off at tangents about withdrawing Royal Assent and the such like may sound impressive and may appear to be good emotive fun but it will in actuality not help our cause.

The response on the discussion forum, silence. Have I spoilt the fun or what ?