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Queen Elizabeth II died ..no need for a link...the story is everywhere, as you would expect. One of the longest reigning monarchs ever ,beginning shortly after the Second World War, in 1952, during what was the pinnacle of the British Empire. In the 70 years that followed saw Britain go from being a superlative world superpower to losing most of its colonies, save for some tiny islands. [Although Britain lost India in 1947, so it was already well into decline.] Economically, after the war it was easily surpassed by the US , and even more ironically, by Germany and Japan. I think it shows the power of capitalism and innovation. Just having a lot of territory or having a big military is not enough if you lose the technological or capitalism arm's race. Britain is having so many problems now, such as inflation and gas shortages..it goes to show how bad things are elsewhere compared to here.
I would expect support for the monarchy to plummet. Queen Elizabeth was beloved, omni-temporal, and most-importantly, non-threatening. Charles III is none of those things. I am surprised he accepted the crown. It would have been much more prudent for him to step aside and let his more popular and less likely to die in the next 10 years son William take the throne.
I have heard it suggested that there may be personal feelings for Charles here. His mother's responsibilities as monarch limited the time she was able to dedicate to her children. Charles may wish for his son to be able to spend more time with his children than Charles's parents were able to spend with him.
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The key argument in favour of monarchy remaining as part of the British constitutional architecture is that it abides by a fixed set of rules that are so old as to almost transcend human influence. Of course, this isn't actually true, but the impression that it is true needs to be safeguarded if the monarchy is to keep its credibility. Popular or unpopular, wise or foolish, bright or dull, handsome or ugly - it matters not; the King becomes the King by the ancient system of hereditary transfer upon death of the previous monarch. It's true that such things have happened before, but public support for the monarchy is no longer as unanimous as it was at the time of Edward VIII, and I doubt people would tolerate such happenings again. I can imagine many people thinking: "if they're not going to do it properly and play by the rules of monarchy, what's the point of having them at all?".
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As I said somewhere else, there is no reason why monarchy would collapse. There are other european monarchies: Belgium ; Denmark, Spain, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, Netherlands, and Sweden. None of them has a monarch as "beloved and omni-temporal" as Elisabeth, yet the monarchy survives. It survives because no one has any interest in killing it. You would get a lot of trouble, a constitution to change, and more importantly a president that could be a competitor to the prime minister. It is threatening for the parliamentary nature of the regime, as the personification of politics strengthens the power of presidents everywhere.
The idea of monarchy is based on a popularity contest is as anti-monarchist as you can get. A political regime where the head of state is chosen according to his popularity is called a Republic. In a monarchy, it's the continuity of the institution and the tradition that give the monarch legitimacy. If Charles abdicate, it means that he, or his family, or even worse the people, can actually choose who the monarch will be. Then, just end the monarchy and elect a president, because that is what you are asking for.
No one of these monarchies have the same challenges the British one has.
Apart from the absence of separatism and ethnic grudges and diversity and ex-empire going around, the United Kingdom have the ever threatening cultural americanization of the local culture
I would not be surprised to see American-style republicanism growing on the left as one of the next issues of culture war, especially knowing that Charles III have a lot of sympathies for conservatives environment (Blair forbid him to meet Hitchens when he published one of his first book, because he was scared of the Prince meeting a "reactionary")
They have huge problems too. Spain has Catalunya and Belgium has the partition risk of the country. Anyway, the monarchy won't go away if it is just useless, it has to become a part of the problem to be challenge. I do not know how it could create more separatism or more ethnic grudges.
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You don't accept the crown in Britain. He was next in line, he got it automatically the moment Queen Elizabeth died. They're never without a monarch. If he wants to give it to his son, he'll have to abdicate.
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