Sorry I'm posting this here as having a separate thread to debate the need for a monarchy assuming this isn't pulled too. BM shouldn't be an echo chamber and we should at least tolerate differences of opinion.
This is entirely the right time to start a genuine debate on the monarchy.
QEII was a great head of state and a touchstone for the entirety of my life. She represented UK well and was held in I think universal high regard. We'll literally never have anyone like her.
I really don't want a President Blair or Johnson god forbid. But equally look at the size of the royal family. The Queen, Charles, Anne and William do fulfill many engagements, do charity work. What about all the others? Also it incenses me that they wish to add Mountbatten to their name, will's youngest is named after him. Read what Mountbatten did during Partition he was and always will be a cowardly dishonest piece of shit with plenty of blood on his hands. My grandfathers fought in Burma for the empire. They didn't have their own country to go back to and legacy of Mountbatten is poisonous to this day.
Sorry for the rant but some things can't be forgotten. What about the utter corruption of the honours system? Saville, Smith, Johnson and the cronies he's created, not great adverts. At work we can nominate people for honours, surprisingly it's the good and great at the top of the organisation who get peerages.
It's wrong, the monarchy should be scaled back with the intention of being eventually abolished. Do we need a ceremonial head of state or a properly elected democratic leader, through proportional representation.