Brits: What percentage of Brits REALLY support the monarchy?

I should think it is somewhere in the region of 99.9% dear boy according to an unbiased poll conducted outside the gates of Buckingham Palace amongst the British tourists congregated there.

I believe the .1% was a disaffected ex-employee of the Palace who had just been given his cards for kicking one of the Queen's corgis.

Shawn's statistic is correct. 72% of Britons support the monarchy while 18% want a republic. The BBC ran an article on it a while ago which contained that statistic. I can't seem to find it though...

Interestingly, only 60% of Welshmen support the Prince of Wales and apparently only 16% think he's actually done anything for Wales.

Her Majesty is also the de jure head of state in all the countries of the Commonwealth as well. You can read about how some of the Commonwealth countries view Her Majesty in this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4922394.stm

I (even though I'm not exactly British...) certainly admire Her Majesty. She stands for so much-- over 1000 years of British tradition. I would be disappointed if the UK ever were to abolish the monarchy.

Every poll I have seen shows support above 70%. The highest I've seen was in the recent golden jubilee year around the time that the Queen mother died, that was 82%. It goes up and down, but tends to stay above 70% and support is different for every member of the RF, with the Queen obviously having the highest support.

The break down in Britain:

Loyalists in Northern Ireland will obviously be strong supporters. In certain areas of Norther Ireland you can actually see where people have painted giant murals of the Queen on the side of buildings, however NI also has a large republican community that is also very vocal (sometimes violently so).

Northern Wales is more loyal than southern Wales. You'll find a lot of republicans in the south, but the farther North you get their numbers will dwindle.

Scotland tends to have a lot of republicanism, but I think it's probably stronger in the cities and then eases up in the country.

England has its pockets of republicanism, particularly in the North and in the cities, but the country side tends to run loyal.

I'd say two thirds of republicans are simply stupid and just don't understand how the government works or what the head of state does, you can find some examples of this in these answers. Many people don't seem to understand that if the monarchy were abolished we would still need a head of state, but that they would be a politician who would still need money to pay for head of state expenditures. The money the Queen gets wouldn't all of sudden go to hospitals if she quit, it would just now go to a politician. The other non-ignorant republicans are those that want to be able to vote for their head of state, which while I disagree with is at least valid reasoning.

Fact - this country leads the world in financial management re city of westminster square mile so i would chalenge those figures 60-70p

probably refers to personal allowances not the real cost I saw royality visit a large city for the day the cost must have been £100, 000 in security and planning 18 outriders 6 marked cars 3 unmarked +secret police all taken from other duties

if asked in a pole i would say i supported the royality whereas the opposite is true

locals are kept in ignorance of their true heritage through the education system

peoples heritage is being systematically erased at a local level .

so it depends how far the support goes and what is meant by really

It is important to note that the United States presidential election of 1964

Lyndon B. Johnson and Hubert Humphrey won 61.1% of the national popular vote, which remains the highest popular-vote percentage over a race with actual opponents.

In the United States presidential election of 1820 President James Monroe and Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins ran effectively unopposed and were re-elected at 80.6%.

So in light of those numbers the support of the monarchy is actually a very high percentage.

The 18% of republicans are probably balanced out by an equal percentage of rabid royalists.

For every true republican, there are probably a half a dozen "grumblers".

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Heads of state cost money. Three points

1) The cost of every presidential election is now much higher than the cost of the monarchy for four years.

2) The cost of presidential travel is now annually more than the cost of the monarchy- (civil list, payroll, palace maintenance, and royal travel). Presidential travel is a huge massive logistics operation. The air-force one is just the tip of the iceberg, and that costs $100K per hour.

3) The cost of the executive office of the president is about $1.20 per person per year. Compares with the 60-70 pence of the monarchy.

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The British monarchy costs less per person than most monarchies around the world, like Sweden, Denmark, Japan, etc.

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Third world presidencies are often extremely expensive, often costing as much or more than first world presidencies.

I personally would love to see England under monarch rule again, we seem to have lost all sense of patriotic pride in ourselves.

At least the Royal family had a select amount of members, there weren't a few hundred claiming expenses for gardening and mortgages for 3 houses, like our crooked MPs.

All this when most people in the country are being ripped off, paying bills they can't afford and are getting no help at the same time.

Then again, I also believe in harsher punishments for criminals. Hanging for murderers, and castration for paedophiles.

Most Brits don't really know what republicanism is all about. Many supporters of the monarchy do so without really considering what having a monarchy really means, which is that British citizens are denied the right to become, or choose who becomes, our head of state.

Bring on the downward thumbs, but I can't help being right.

I know its been roughly 80% for the whole of the Queens reign.

To be honest with you I think that the only reason that the monarchy survived and will continue to survive for many years to come is that us Brits are to pessimistic to ever have enough faith in a politician to become a republic.

Long Live the Queen! She'll always at least have the support of England!

You can't seriously ask this on yahoo though mate.

Mikhail wrote: "Her Majesty is also the de jure head of state in all the countries of the Commonwealth as well.". This is untrue. India is a Commonwealth country, but is a republic and not a monarchy. There are about 50 members of the Commonwealth and fewer than half are monarchies with the Queen as head of state (whether de jure or not!).

both answers above are correct, however the tax mentioned is costing the uk taxpayer only about 60/70 pence per week, and of course english people will support the monarchy more than us from Scotland, or Wales and the Northern Ireland or Ulsterman are staunch supporters of the monarchy, hence the reason for defying the ira terrorist as the Ulsterman wants to remain a part of the UK , and NOT become part of the irish free state.