The self-funding argument concedes the financial problem but leaves the political one entirely intact

The monarchy's deeper issue isn't what it costs - it's what it is: an unelected constitutional actor with real, non-ceremonial power. The royal prerogative allows the monarch to appoint and dismiss prime ministers, dissolve parliament, and ratify treaties - powers exercised through convention but never voted on by anyone. The Privy Council, which includes senior royals, operates almost entirely in secret. None of that changes if the Windsors start paying corporation tax. Beyond formal power, the monarchy functions as the ideological anchor of a class system - it normalises inherited privilege and hierarchy at the very summit of public life. A self-funded monarchy that pays taxes is still an institution that tells every working-class person in Britain that some people are born to rule and some are born to serve.