Abolish the Monarchy: Why we should and how we will

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He does not resort to caustic insult, and what barbed remarks there are have a good reason for being there. Nevertheless, nobody should be arrested for advocating what should really be common sense in this day and age.

Graham Smith eloquently sets out the irrefutable logic for abolishing the monarchy and paints a picture of a better, more democratic future for our country. Smith, understandably, stays silent on the cases of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate, involving as they did regicide, military dictatorship and ultimately the kind of dynasticism that republicanism is meant to impede. Smith diagnoses this extraordinary episode, which culminated in the Supreme Court resorting to a legal fiction to annul Boris Johnson’s six-week suspension of Parliament, as a failure of monarchy. Smith's writing style is often condescending and he makes a number of personal attacks on the royal family. He described a country of thousands of villages, where each village had it’s own unique belief systems, festivals and micro-cultures.

And Harry and Meghan continue to show that monarchy isn't just bad for Britain, it's bad for the royals too.

With accurate statistics, primary source material and interviews where he and his team have faced up to the relevant authorities and gleaned the truth out of them, Smith demonstrates how all the classic excuses for keeping the monarchy are not just mistaken - they're plain wrong. Too often we Republicans get stuck hit with the usual freak examples of presidencies, usually from the US, Russia and occasionally France. Whether you're in favour of abolition or a more slimmed-down monarchy in keeping with modern Britain, Graham Smith puts the case for reform eloquently and forcefully.Rather than the monarchy defending the constitution and, by implication, the British people, it has been the responsbility of subjects to defend the monarch not from injustice or tyranny, but from embarrassment. Smith’s sixteen hours in police custody has generated more publicity for his organisation than the eighteen years he’s toiled away campaigning to replace the monarch with an elected head of state.

Plus, there were always the arguments that the monarchy bring in huge revenues in tourism and that the British public overwhelmingly loved the royal family.I'd encourage everyone to read this book and then to get involved with the movement to abolish the monarchy. Most importantly it is very thought provoking and the contents has actually changed my perception and opinions on many issues raised in this book. Prince Harry, seemingly on the run from his own family, and Andrew on the run from serious allegations of sexual assault. But what is new is a public less tolerant and more critical of that behaviour and the family's loss of their trump card, the Queen.

One could be forgiven, after reading this book, for thinking that no greater intellects than Alan Titchmarsh and Stephen Fry have turned their minds to the subject. Thomas Paine does get a mention, though one is left with the suspicion that Smith’s acquaintance with him comes via The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations rather than Rights of Man, since he is invoked merely to make the point that the appearance of something being correct doesn’t make it so.If ever you thought tradition, tourism, or political stability were good arguments for the Crown, this razor-sharp book knocks that nonsense into a top hat. The basic structure of the author’s book starts with addressing some usual defence arguments put out in favour of the British Monarchy, but then moves on to discuss what a republican model could potentially offer the UK.