No, it seems you were not reading my post closely enough. I explained that the risk would not be present if the Sovereign officially handed down their duties by either abdicating or having a regency instated; that is a very different scenario than the one we are seeing now in which there is no new Sovereign nor a Regent but these things are decided on a case-by-case basis and the whole family is involved in replacing the queen at times.
A risk that would not be present if instead of reducing the role, they would find a way to let the heir take over and fulfill all the normally expected duties - either by becoming the new Sovereign or by taking on a formal Regency.
I read your original post, but wrongly interpreted "fulfill all the normally expected duties" as the key required step, rather than "remove the duties from other family members and transfer them all to the heir", as I now understand you meant. I apologize for misunderstanding. The latter would not have occurred to me as an important distinction when it comes to risk in the court of public opinion (especially as the current heir is less popular than some of the other family members).
Mbruno included 'or for some people religious taboo' from the start. For some reason you keep leaving that out.
You are right that I did not quote Mbruno's full comment in that post (in fact I did not quote it at all, but merely paraphrased one part of it). It didn't seem necessary to quote, I did not dishonestly depict his comments, and it seems to be acceptable on TRF not to always quote others' comments or not quote them in their entirety (you and others have not always quoted my full posts, either, which is fine with me). I am not clear on what the issue is.
The phrase you single out was not related to the point I was trying to make, namely that we were discussing the views of the culture (general public), not of Elizabeth herself.
The exact words were "a cultural (or, for some people,
even religious) taboo" (bolding added).
To me that [religious taboo] seems the most important for those that truly matter (the queen in particular - but probably a part of the Anglican community as well).
Polling demonstrates that devout Anglicans are very much in the minority in Britain today. Even if abdication were a religious taboo to the Church of England (and I have not seen evidence that it is), it would not necessarily become a British cultural taboo as a result.
And based on how many people are defending the current situation, there seems to be somewhat of a 'cultural taboo' as well -
Many people are defending the prospect of abdication; following the same logic there would be somewhat of a cultural taboo on not abdicating; however, that would not really be the definition of "taboo".
Moreover, it has lastly been done as a disgrace, so, culturally, it seems abdicating is a dishonorable thing to do in the UK.
Respecfully, I don't think that conclusion holds. Edward VIII also left the country in disgrace, but that does not mean the public today automatically judges any royal move abroad as dishonorable (see the Duke of Sussex or Princess Eugenie).
