This is what happens when people ignore the lessons of history. QE II had no power to mandate policy but she did act as figurehead over the transiton from Empire to Commonwealth, culturally speaking anyway. Any Commonwealth nation can choose to leave the body. The Empire would never have tolerated that, so there's progress for you.

People in general let ego get the better of them. No one wants to consider themselves irrelevant, as most of us actually are in grand terms, so we conjure whatever we can to bolster a sense of active agency in the world. What's more, we let the algorithms lead us around by our nethers, telling us where we should apply our manufactured agency.

If we want real power, we need to conquer the exploitationist tendencies in the species. And we do that by rejecting the social media model of engagement, of being manipulated into outrage and division. Maybe then we'll be able to forge a more sedate, more reasonable world.