Republic campaigns for the monarchy to be abolished and the Queen to be replaced with an elected, democratic head of state. Graham Smith, the organisation’s CEO, told Express.co.uk that the Queen has technical authority but that everything has to go through Boris Johnson.
Mr Smith said: “The Queen has a lot of technical authority, but it almost always has to be acted on according to the wishes of the Prime Minister.
“It is quite vague and confusing as to exactly what the constitution is these days as we saw with the prorogation of Parliament.
“That is one of the problems, we ought to have a head of state who is independent, who can have some limited power reserved for when there is a crisis or a stalemate.
“They have this in places like Ireland.”
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Republic’s CEO also told Express.co.uk that the monarch is self-serving and has no real authority.
Mr Smith said: “The monarch does nothing other than protect the monarchy.
“We saw last year prorogation of parliament that the Queen will only ever do what she is told by the Prime Minister.
“So she has no real authority to do anything or stop anything.
Mr Smith also told Express.co.uk that the Royal Family is not value for money and the cost of the monarchy to the UK taxpayer would be better spent on employing thousands more staff in education.
“So £345 million could pay for 15,000 nurses or teachers.
“So that would be money better spent than spending it on one family.”
The cost of the Royal Family to the UK taxpayer has doubled within the last decade.
In 2012 the average cost to the UK taxpayer was £32.40 but in 2019 the average cost was £67.00.
