Stardate 20030527.1624

(Captain's log): Karen writes:

I am no longer sure what the status of Canada and Australia are with respect to the Crown, let alone any of the other British Possessions..Protectorates?.....some islands, I believe, in the Caribbean....etc.

If Mr. Blair managed to enjoin Britain to the European community by an act of parliament, without the consensus of the citizenry (which I understand from your article he can) and they disagreed, I assume it would be 'hard cheese' for the former British citizens. In that case what happens to the 'possessions', to Canada and Australia? Does Chirac get the whole lot? Do the English perforce lose Queen, flag, language and economy to some other county's benefit?

I'm by no means an expert, but here's the way I understand it:

Canada and Australia are part of the Commonwealth. They are independent nations but swear loyalty to the British monarchy, at least symbolically. In theory, the Queen has at least a modicum of influence over them, though in practice she has none.

You can see it in how ships are referred in the respective navies. American warships are "USS" which stands for United States Ship. (That's not very romantic, but it works.) Ships in the Royal Navy are "HMS" for His/Her Majesty's Ship. (It's convenient that the first letter doesn't have to be repainted on all the ships when a Queen is succeeded by a King or vice versa.)

Canadian ships are "HMCS", His/Her Majesty's Canadian Ship and Australian ships are "HMAS", His/Her Majesty's Australian Ship.

In theory, back in the day, the monarch was actually the owner of the nation, and that meant that the Navy was actually the personal property of the crown. And those letters used for ships of the Australian Navy, and the Canadian Navy (what there is left of it) also demonstrate the theory that the Commonwealth, as the descendant of the British Empire, is nominally the possession of the British Monarchy. All of which is symbolic.

For that matter, the last time I was in Canada, all the currency carried pictures of the Queen in her younger years.

On the other hand, the elected government of the UK, in the form of Parliament and the Prime Minister, have no power over Canada or Australia either in theory or in fact. The theory is that the monarch has delegated her power of rule over the home islands to that government, but that's all they get.

Given the general British tendency to deal with these kinds of issues on the basis of consensus and tradition rather than for them to be based on any kind of specific charter, a lot of this is really quite fuzzy.

It is not, for instance, clear just what would happen if the Queen bestirred herself and actually made some sort of substantive proclamation. She makes speeches in front of Parliament occasionally, but they're written for her by the PM and she doesn't change her lines. One of the big question marks about this whole process regarding the European Constitution is what will happen if the Queen actually came out against it; no one really knows what the result would be, because there's nothing anywhere which says just how much actual power the Monarch actually retains (which the Monarchy has not attempted to use for the last 170 years).

I believe that de jure the British Parliament actually did some power over Canada before the Canadians actually wrote and ratified a constitution about 30 years ago. Until that point, the actual charter for government in Canada was a grant of power from the British Parliament called the "British North America Act". But de facto the British Parliament had none and I don't recall hearing of any attempt by the British Parliament to try to exercise any such influence in the latter half of the 20th Century. (Not that it would have done them any good to try.)

If the UK gives up its independence and becomes part of a United Europe, as a result of ratifying this proposed constitution, the Commonwealth is going to have a problem trying to decide just what it should become. But as a practical political matter, ratification won't give Brussels any power at all over Canada or Australia because the UK has none now.

Under this constitution, the nations of Europe would continue to exist, at least symbolically. There'd still be governments there, and monarchs would continue to reign (as much as they do now, anyway), and it might well be that the United Kingdom would still be thought of as "existing" at least enough to still participate in the Commonwealth. Frankly, that's the least of my worries regarding this whole business.

Anyway, I believe that there actually is one real and tangible connection between the Queen and the governments of Canada and Australia.

In the Parliamentary system, there are actually two heads of state. One of them is the Prime Minister, and the PM is the one who has most of the normal power. The other one's title and selection process varies enormously depending on the nation. (There's a lot of other variation, too, of course.) In a lot of cases it's a monarch, such as in the UK or the Netherlands; in other cases that person is known as "The President", which is the case in Germany and Israel.

In theory, this person actually is the "head of state" and the Prime Minister works for this person.

In Israel, the Prime Minister is chosen by the majority coalition in the Knesset, and there's never really any way of knowing when the PM and gove