Only Britain has Peerage Privilege

 

Britain is the only nation that continues to revere and believe in a hierarchy with the monarch at the top? In Great Britain, nobility and titles are part of the peerage, which is a social class of titled people who have certain privileges: share in the responsibility of government and can avoid taxes. 

Andrews recent fall from grace,- symptomatic of the entitlement and superiority of royalty, creates serious division and a fake hierarchy with the King or Queen at the top, which only encourages undeserving elites, private school education and a 2-teir system in society that holds many many children back. These elites form networks of privilege who help each other out. 

 

All this therefor holds the country back, as Finland discovered and banned private school education  in – Finland has the best education in the world. How’s that for what some may call a small nation with few resources! So hereditary privilege does matter – it hold Britain back. 

The British House of Lords is the second biggest unelected second chamber in the world, after China! Britain’s archaic constitution of 1690. Britain is an outlier in Europe – the only nation that continues to give nobility privileges such as tax avoidance. Britain urgently needs to move to becoming  a modern state. 

**The five ranks of British nobility, in descending order of precedence, are:

 

·       Duke: The highest and most exclusive rank

·       Marquess: The second most senior rank

·       Earl: The third rank

·       Viscount: The fourth rank

·       Baron: The lowest rank 

 

Titles can be hereditary or granted. Until 1999, peers were exempt from jury duty and entitled to sit in the House of Lords. 

 

Other European countries abolished nobility privileges. First was France in 1789, followed by Holland and Denmark in 1857. And then in 1919 Germany and Austria removed nobility privileges.  

 

 

First was *France – There is no nobility, its legal status was abolished 1789, while there are titles still but with no privileges attached.   

There is no such thing as nobility in France today. French courts have held that the concept of nobility is incompatible with the equality of all citizens before the law proclaimed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, part of the Constitution of 1958. There are titles, which are considered part of the legal name, and entitled to the same protections in French civil and criminal courts, even though they give no privilege or precedence (the way they do in Great Britain). Regulation of titles is carried out by a bureau of the Ministry of Justice. The President has ceased to confer or confirm titles, but the French state still verifies them,  civil courts can protect them, criminal courts can prosecute their abuse.

History - 

1.     the abolition of feudalism and privileges in 1789, which did away with the legal status of nobility,

2.     the restoration of titles in 1808 by Napoleon, and their confirmation by the successive monarchical regimes until 1870

3.     the fact that the successive republican regimes have never passed any laws on the subject of titles.

The French Revolution did away with nobility and titles, titles were restored (not nobility), and the Republic has not done anything about titles. French nobiliary law is mostly based on court cases. At present, titles have not been abolished. The final establishment of a Republic in 1875 left them in a kind of limbo, and it took a succession of court cases to define the jurisprudence, which is now well established. 

(2) * Denmark - The Danish constitution of 1849 stripped the nobility of its privileges, though the titles remained.  History - The Danish nobility was granted social, economic, and political privileges in the 16th century in exchange for their military service to the king. Some of the families still own and reside in castles or country houses. A minority of nobles still belong to the elite and they can be guests at royal events, are objects of media coverage, for example Kanal 4s TV hostess Caroline Fleming née Baroness Luel-Brockdorff. Some of them own and manage companies or have leading positions within business, banking, diplomacy and NGOs.

(3) *Holland – After Constitutional reform 1848 the privileges of the Dutch nobility were abolished and they lost their constitutional roles. The only privileges that were allowed were titles and coats of arms. They became civilians with a noble title. Nobility became a small elite class consisting of families recognized as noble, and with or without a title in the Kingdome of the Netherlands

 

(4) *Germany  - Abolished the legal recognition of nobility in 1919, while titles are still used. The Weimar Constitution of 1919 removed legal privileges and disadvantages of birth or rank. Current status - Titles of nobility are only valid as part of a name and may no longer be conferred.August 1919, at the beginning of Weimer Republic (1918 – 1933) Germany's new constitution abolished royalty and nobility, and the respective legal privileges and immunities appertaining to an individual, a family or any heirs. Today, German nobility is no longer conferred by the Federal Republic of Germany (1949–present), and constitutionally the descendants of German noble families do not enjoy legal privileges. The Nobility of the German Empire was similar to nobility of the Austrian empire developed during the Holy Roman Empire and both ended in 1919 when they were abolished, and legal status and privileges were revoked.

(5) *Austria - In 1919, Austrian nobility was abolished under the First Austrian Republic (1919–1934) and the and legal recognition of hereditary titles and aristocratic particles and use as part of surnames was banned. Today, Austrian nobility is no longer conferred by the Republic of Austria(1945–present), and the official use of noble titles, is a minor offence under Austrian law for Austrian citizens