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The Guardian view on Queen's consent: the crown does more than it seems

<span>Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP</span>
Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

In Britain the Queen is supposed to act on the advice of her government. The monarch, it is said, merely signs the laws that ministers bring her. The charade is conducted in the manner of a magician, with pomp and ceremony shielding the public so they fail to realise what is going on. The Guardian this week pulled back the curtain and let the daylight in. The truth is that the government often acts on the advice of the Queen.

Under our unwritten constitution, the monarch does have the power to withhold royal assent to a bill. It’s never been used. The Queen, wrote the Victorian thinker Walter Bagehot, “must sign her own death-warrant” if parliament sends her a law to that effect. Yet documents in the National Archives reveal that Her Majesty managed, in secret, to get laws changed – in favour of her personal interest – before they were introduced. The Guardian found four instances between 1968 and 1982 where the palace had lobbied to get the law altered. In 1973 the Queen’s lawyers intervened to allow her to hide her private wealth from the public.

The royal family clearly has significant power to influence the government behind closed doors before final decisions in parliament are made. The device used to do this is Queen’s consent. The historian Paul Seaward describes it as “one of the most recherche little pieces of parliamentary flummery”. He says a version of the convention first appeared in the 1537 confession obtained from the lawyer Robert Aske, who had led the Pilgrimage of Grace uprising against Henry VIII.

Today it permits bills which have a direct impact on the Queen’s remaining prerogative powers or private interests to be submitted for her formal consent. Without this, laws cannot be made. In practice the Queen does not need to reject the formal advice of her ministers because she has adjusted her counsel, through secret negotiations, before it is formally given. Anne Twomey of the University of Sydney points out that this applies to the former colonies too.

An apparently innocuous device conceals an iceberg-sized amount of royal meddling. The Guardian found more than 1,000 laws had been vetted by the Queen. In 2014, a British parliamentary committee found no evidence to suggest that legislation had been altered as part of the consent process. This goes to show how effective clandestine measures have been in keeping the country in the dark about how the constitution works.

Who is the head of state does matter. Inheritance is not the right way to choose one. We understand the appeal of the Queen in an age of political populism. But the medicine for this affliction is for meaningful checks on, and proper accountability of, the government. The ravens won’t leave the Tower of London if Queen’s consent is abolished. Paul Evans, a former Commons clerk, says that the bigger prize would be to subject the prerogative powers of the crown – such as waging war and dissolving parliament - to the democratically elected legislature. He’s right.

It is clear that an archaic and mysterious convention affords a level of protection to the personal financial interests of the sovereign that no private citizen could dream of. This gives rise to a significant conflict of interest and ultimately damages the standing of the monarchy. Britain, at a minimum, should constitutionally operate with a higher degree of transparency. The monarch could then lobby ministers openly and her dealings be subject to freedom of information laws. Locking away royal correspondence for beyond the lifetime of the monarch – and relying on Whitehall caprice to record Palace interference – does not inspire confidence in how Britain works.