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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9550749" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Oh, absolutely not. If that were true, we'd still have suffrage limited to property-owning white men.And my argument is that the books are wrong. "The books disagree!" is not a useful rebuttal to "The books are wrong."It literally is, as in it actually is true that, legally, the monarch is not required to give royal assent and, legally, cannot be compelled to do so. Just because they choose not to use the power--due to knowing that the consequences would be dire--does not mean the power doesn't exist.What you mean is not "literally". It is "practically." Because in practice a veto by denial of royal assent would be political suicide for the monarch. It is still--literally, meaning here the letter of the law--the case that the monarch can deny royal assent for any reason they like, and doing so functionally vetoes a bill that has been approved by Parliament. This prerogative of the Crown remains in existence. As an example, the Governors-General of various Commonwealth countries, such as Australia, also feature this quirk of law, because each Governor-General acts on behalf of the Crown, and thus--legally, literally, per the letter of the law in those countries--retains the right to absolute veto. A Governor-General using this power would be somewhat less scandalous, but still would very likely have negative consequences.Same thing goes for Parliament itself with its "absolute sovereignty" concept. Parliament's sovereignty in the UK is truly absolute. It can write whatever laws it wants, even laws that are impossible to enforce or impossible to comply with. If Parliament wished to, it could abolish elections tomorrow and rule as an oligarchy. If Parliament wished to, it could declare that all persons must wear pants with legs that are shorter than one foot long and longer than two feet long, even though it is logically (and physically) impossible for any pair of pants to meet that requirement. Nothing--not even Parliament itself--can limit the scope of Parliament's legislation, and UK courts functionally cannot declare any Parliamentary law unconstitutional. (Note that I did not say literally cannot; there are contexts where it is possible, but they're exceedingly narrow.) Per the rulings of Lord James Reid in 1965:"It is often said that it would be unconstitutional for the United Kingdom Parliament to do certain things, meaning that the moral, political and other reasons against doing them are so strong that most people would regard it as highly improper if Parliament did these things. But that does not mean that it is beyond the power of Parliament to do such things. If Parliament chose to do any of them, the courts would not hold the Act of Parliament invalid."And this is precisely the distinction between mere convention--"meaning that the moral, political and other reasons against doing [something] are so strong that most people would regard it as highly improper"--and actual, literal law.Yes: in practice. But what is in practice is not what is literally true of the law. Practices are rarely written down. Laws, and rules, are written down or rehearsed or otherwise formally established. That's part of what makes them laws or rules.I appreciate your effort to provide advice, but it is unlikely that I will apply it.</blockquote>

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