It is being asked though; does he have the power to do this ?
According to the web site
of the Royal Family, "The monarch is Head of the Armed Forces and it is the
monarch alone who can declare war and peace".
The ability of a monarch to personally declare war has been reined in by the
requirement to only do so with Ministerial consent, and the issue of
the Royal Prerogative is a complex one.
Royal Prerogative is a poorly defined term, and it is not at all clear if it
refers to the powers which the monarchy still retain, or to those powers which
have been delegated to Ministers or others.
I believe that Royal Prerogative allows the delegation of decision making
to Ministers while retaining a veto on those decisions, but it is hard to find
any hard evidence to confirm this ( having a properly defined constitution
would have certainly helped ). It is however clear that Royal Prerogative allows
decisions to be made without the need to consult parliament beforehand.
While the Royal Prerogative has been used in the recent past ( when Edward
Heath took us into the EEC, back in 1972, parliament was not consulted
beforehand ), the ability of a Prime Minister to declare war without
having parliamentary approval first has not been recently tested.
Although it is widely reported that Margaret Thatcher used Royal Prerogative
to go to war in the Falklands in 1982, no actual war on Argentina was declared.
The matter was simply the taking of steps to resolve a "conflict".
Whether military action is seen as a war or something less is extremely
subjective, and what you, I, and the press call a war may be no such thing in
international, legal terms.
The issue as to whether or not any forthcoming action against Iraq will be a
war or not is most likely be resolved by treating this as a "conflict", in the
same way that Thatcher's War was, and the United Nation's sponsored
operation of Dessert Storm was.
Even if military action against another sovereign state can be started without
consulting parliament; does the monarch actually have any overriding veto, or
has the power to invade, attack and even destroy a foreign country been
devolved to the Prime Minister ?
If it has, we have not avoided the risk of placing incredible power in the hands
of one individual, but have handed those dangerous powers straight over to
another. If we have done that, Tony Blair is indeed more powerful than the
Queen.
If there is no veto available to the monarch, what of the oaths and affirmations
of allegiance which all members of the Armed Forces make to the monarch ?
Does the Queen have the power to decide how the Armed Forces should behave even
if that is in direct contradiction to their orders from a Prime Minister issued
through the Department of Defence ?
If not, what else, other than mutiny, rebellion, and civil war can be used to
stop an errant Prime Minister ordering the Armed Forces to overthrow the
monarch ?
If the Queen does have a veto over decisions taken under Royal Prerogative, it
is not surprising that we hear nothing of it when it is used, or not. It is
expected now that the monarch exists outside of the political arena, and they
are not to be seen interfering with political decisions. The Royal Prerogative
may well be a convenient, "Yes, I agree, but don't mention my name",
rubber-stamping of a political decision, to achieve this impression.
If the monarch does have a power of veto over any Royal Prerogative decision,
it would make them culpable in any acts carried out as a consequence of that
decision having been taken; perhaps one of the reasons they are so concerned
to not be associated with such decisions being made ?
Having agreed to military action, a monarch may well find themselves being
considered as culpable for the activities which occur as part of that action,
and could find themselves hauled up before a War Crimes Tribunal or
International Criminal Court later.
If the power of veto exists, then it is not only Tony Blair who we need to
convince that action against Iraq is wrong, but Mrs Queen as well.
Undertaking military action will not just be a matter of Tony Blair making the
decision, but one which the Queen will have to be complicit in.
Perhaps we should forget about marching on Trafalgar Square and Downing Street,
attempting to have our voices of reason heard, and instead take our 'war
against war' straight to the railings of Buckingham Palace ?
Or are we happy for Her Majesty to permit military action against another
sovereign state, and then hide behind the smiling, waving facade of
Blair and claim, "It was nothing to do with me Guv" ?
If there is a veto to hand, what happens if the Queen decides that Tony Blair
has completely lost the plot, and refuses to accept that military action must
be taken against Iraq ?
Applying the rhetoric of George Bush, "If you are not with us, you are against
us", I guess that would make Her Majesty the Queen a terrorist sympathiser.
