Actually, she can't. < The Queen of England can sign a piece of paper, and it is binding on her citizens. > That idea ended umpteen centuries ago. What she signs is what We the People present to her to sign. Any time we choose, we can ask her to sign another piece of paper saying the opposite and she will sign it. We do that regularly. That would include a piece of paper removing her power to sign pieces of paper.
In a similar way, the king of England could sign pieces of paper to order around all of the people in India and Pakistan, until there was sufficient disagreement from people in India that, following the depredations of World War II and the major geopolitical shifts around the world, it became untenable for England to rule such a vast empire with hordes of people having the right as British Subjects to swarm into England.
It was presented as a victory for India, but it was the Indians, and Kiwis, who lost out by being separated from England. Now Indians and my descendants can't just swarm into London and set up shop. Neither can the English just swarm into India and New Zealand and set up shop but there are so few of them that that was never going to be a problem anyway. If everyone in England moved to India, you would barely notice the difference. Well, you would notice 1 in 20 being quite different looking, but that's not many.
When I go through Peckham, the birthplace of one my grandparents, I'm the only one who looks out of place. It has been taken over by foreigners.
When I was younger and more ignorant, I swallowed the idea that we didn't need a hereditary royal family. Having subsequently experienced the depredations of various politicians such as Helen Clark, I far prefer Queen Elizabeth II to Helen Clark. She is probably a lot cheaper to hire too than Helen's self-dealing vanity and venality.
The Privy Council too was a last bulwark of individual freedom against the uncircumscribed power of the state and their legal lackeys.
Being a British Subject had a certain je ne sais quoi.
The idea that political bosses can sign pieces of paper and rule over their state chattel serfs needs to be ditched with Tradable Citizenship constituted to further limit the megalomaniacs and kleptocratic bludgers and spivs. When citizens have an actual measurable value of their state holding reported constantly, they will not allow the politicians to so lightly send it down the gurgler.
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