Queen's Remembrancer - Criticism

Criticism

In an opinion piece in The Guardian Newspaper, George Monbiot made the following criticism. The Remembrancer is in nature an unelected and unaccountable superior imposition upon the citizens of the UK:

"The City of London is the only part of Britain over which parliament has no authority. In one respect at least the Corporation acts as the superior body: it imposes on the House of Commons a figure called the remembrancer: an official lobbyist who sits behind the Speaker’s chair and ensures that, whatever our elected representatives might think, the City’s rights and privileges are protected."

This criticism is from an article where the wider context is the medieval and unreformed nature of The Corporation of The City of London, where the remembrancer is implied to be included as another of its anachronisms.

The article continues:

"Several governments have tried to democratise the City of London but all, threatened by its financial might, have failed. As Clement Attlee lamented, "over and over again we have seen that there is in this country another power than that which has its seat at Westminster." "

However Monbiot fails to provide any instances of the Remembrancer overruling parliament and fails to explain why, if parliament has no authority there, the City requested a private Act of Parliament in 2002 to modernise its system of local elections; an Act which inter alia notes that "The objects of this Act cannot be attained without the authority of Parliament".