Republicanism in the United Kingdom
British republicans seek to replace the United Kingdom's monarchy with a republic led by an elected head of state. Monarchy has been the form of government used in the United Kingdom and its predecessor domains almost exclusively since the Middle Ages, except for a brief interruption from 1649–1660, during which a nominally republican government did exist under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell.
After Cromwell's Protectorate fell and the monarchy was restored, governing duties were increasingly handed to Parliament, especially as a result of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The adoption of the constitutional monarchy system made the argument for full republicanism less urgent. It was once again a topic of discussion during the late 18th century with the American Revolution, and grew more important with the French Revolution, when the concern was how to deal with the French Republic on their doorstep. This led to a widespread anti-republican movement in Britain, and the issue was dormant for a time.
Dissatisfaction with British rule led to a longer period of agitation in the early 19th century, with failed republican revolutions in Canada in the late 1830s and Ireland in 1848. This led to the Treason Felony Act in 1848, which made it illegal to advocate for republicanism. Another "significant incarnation" of republicanism broke out in the late 19th century, when Queen Victoria went into mourning and largely disappeared from public view after the death of her husband, Prince Albert. This led to questions about whether or not the institution should continue, with politicians speaking in support of abolition. This ended when Victoria returned to public duties later in the century, and regained significant public support.
More recently, in the early 21st century, increasing dissatisfaction with the House of Windsor, especially after the death of Elizabeth II in 2022, has led to public support for the monarchy reaching historic lows.
Context
Definition
In Great Britain, republican sentiment has largely focused on the abolition of the British monarchy, rather than the dissolution of the British Union or independence for its constituent countries. In Northern Ireland however, the term "republican" is usually used in the sense of Irish republicanism. While also opposed to monarchy, Irish republicans reject the presence of the British state in any form on the island of Ireland and advocate creating a united Ireland, an all-island state comprising the whole of Ireland. Though the opposite stance of unionism is compatible with support for a UK republic in theory, in practice it correlates strongly with monarchism.Legal context
Advocacy of the replacement of the monarchy with a republic has long been an imprisonable offence in law. The Treason Felony Act 1848 prohibits the advocacy of a republic in print. The penalty for such advocacy, even if the republic is to be set up by peaceful means, is lifetime imprisonment. This Act remains in force in the United Kingdom. However, under the Human Rights Act 1998, the Law Lords have held that although the Treason Felony Act remains on the statute books it must be interpreted so as to be compatible with the Human Rights Act, and therefore no longer prohibits peaceful republican activity.History
Since the 1650s, early modern English republicanism has been extensively studied by historians. James Harrington is generally considered to be the most representative republican writer of the era, though John Milton also wrote, among other things, a defence of the right of the people to execute an unjust ruler titled The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates.Commonwealth of England
The divine right of kings to rule unchallenged was established as a political theory during the reign of James I, and remained predominant until the reign of Charles I, whose poor rule and Catholic leanings called his right to rule into question. These sentiments culminated in the English Civil War, and after the king's subsequent execution in 1649, Parliament was the only source of power in the newly-renamed Commonwealth of England, though the form of this power changed somewhat in the following years.During Pride's Purge, many members of Parliament who disagreed with the New Model Army were barred from the House of Commons, meaning the resulting Rump Parliament and Council of State were solely made up of loyalist members. Accordingly, Oliver Cromwell did not have to contend with much opposition to his plans as Charles I did, making the chamber mostly a rubber-stamping organisation. However, not all of his executive decisions were permitted, especially in the ending of the rule of the regional major generals he appointed.
In 1657, Parliament offered Cromwell the Crown, which would mean reinstating the monarchy. After two months of deliberation, he rejected the offer and was instead ceremonially re-instated as Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, with greater powers than he had previously held. The Protectorate was far more autocratic than the Rump Parliament and much like previous monarchical rule.
It is often suggested that offering Cromwell the crown was an effort to curb his power. As a king, he would be obliged to honour agreements such as Magna Carta, but as Lord Protector he had no such restraints. The office of Lord Protector was not formally hereditary, although Cromwell was able to nominate his own son, Richard, as his successor.
The Levellers were an egalitarian movement which had contributed greatly to Parliament's cause, but sought representation for ordinary citizens. Their point of view was strongly represented in the Putney Debates, held between the various factions of the army in 1647. Cromwell and the grandees were not prepared to permit such a radical democracy and used the debates to play for time while the future of the King was being determined.
Restoration of the monarchy
In 1660, Charles II was crowned king, ending the interregnum and restoring the monarchy. Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the later coronation of George I, power shifted to the monarch's ministers and Robert Walpole. The newly-joined United Kingdom became a constitutional monarchy. There have been movements throughout the last few centuries whose aims were to remove the monarchy and establish a republican system. A notable period was the time in the late 18th century and early 19th century when many Radicals such as the minister Joseph Fawcett were openly republican.American and French Revolutions
The American Revolution had a great impact on political thought in Ireland and Britain. According to Christopher Hitchens, the British–American author, philosopher, politician and activist, Thomas Paine was the "moral author of the American Revolution", who posited in the soon widely read pamphlet Common Sense that the conflict of the Thirteen Colonies with the Hanoverian monarchy in London was best resolved by setting up a separate democratic republic. To him, republicanism was more important than independence. However, the circumstances forced the American revolutionaries to give up any hope of reconciliation with Britain, and reforming its 'corrupt' monarchial government, that so often dragged the American colonies in its European wars, from within. He and other British republican writers saw in the Declaration of Independence a legitimate struggle against the Crown, that violated people's freedom and rights, and denied them representation in politics.When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, debates started in the British Isles on how to respond. Soon a pro-Revolutionary republican and anti-Revolutionary monarchist camp had established themselves among the intelligentsia, who waged a pamphlet war until 1795. Prominent figures of the republican camp were Mary Wollstonecraft, William Godwin and Paine.
Paine would also play an important role inside the revolution in France as an elected member of the National Convention, where he lobbied for an invasion of Britain to establish a republic after the example of the United States, France and its sister republics, but also opposed the execution of Louis XVI, which got him arrested. The First French Republic would indeed stage an expedition to Ireland in December 1796 to help the Society of United Irishmen set up an Irish republic to destabilise the United Kingdom, but this ended in a failure. The subsequent Irish Rebellion of 1798 was suppressed by forces of the British Crown. Napoleon also planned an invasion of Britain since 1798 and more seriously since 1803, but in 1804 he relinquished republicanism by crowning himself Emperor of the French and converting all Sister Republics into client kingdoms of the French Empire, before calling off the invasion of Britain altogether in 1805.
Revolutionary republicanism, 1800–1848
From the start of the French Revolution into the early 19th century, the revolutionary blue-white-red tricolour was used throughout England, Wales and Ireland in defiance of the royal establishment. During the 1816 Spa Fields riots, a green, white and red horizontal flag appeared for the first time, soon followed by a red, white and green horizontal version allegedly in use during the 1817 Pentrich rising and the 1819 Peterloo massacre. The latter is now associated with Hungary, but then it became known as the British Republican Flag. It may have been inspired by the French revolutionary tricolour, but this is unclear. It was however often accompanied by slogans consisting of three words such as "Fraternity – Liberty – Humanity", and adopted by the Chartist movement in the 1830s.Besides these skirmishes in Great Britain itself, separatist republican revolutions against the British monarchy during the Canadian Rebellions of 1837–1838 and the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 failed.
Parliament passed the Treason Felony Act in 1848. This act made advocacy of republicanism punishable by transportation to Australia, which was later amended to life imprisonment. The law is still on the statute books; however in a 2003 case, the Law Lords stated that "It is plain as a pike staff to the respondents and everyone else that no one who advocates the peaceful abolition of the monarchy and its replacement by a republican form of government is at any risk of prosecution", for the reason that the Human Rights Act 1998 would require the 1848 Act to be interpreted in such a way as to render such conduct non-criminal.