The government is considering introducing legislation to remove Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from the line of royal succession.
Defence Minister Luke Pollard told the BBC the move - which would prevent Andrew from ever becoming King - was the “right thing to do,” regardless of the outcome of the police investigation.
Currently Andrew, the King’s brother, remains eighth in line to the throne despite being stripped of his titles, including “prince”, last October amid pressure over his ties to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
On Thursday evening, Andrew was released under investigation 11 hours after his arrest on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He has consistently and strenuously denied any wrongdoing.
The real question is how that didn’t happen automatically when he was stripped of his title.
Because the laws that give titles are different than the laws that include someone from the line of succession.
If I remember correctly, there are around 5,000 people in the line of succession, and most of them don’t even know they’re on it.
There’s a fantastic movie called Kind Hearts and Coronets from the 1940s. A guy discovers he’s tenth in line to be a duke, but his mother was disowned by her family for marrying a commoner.
Naturally, he decides to kill his relatives to avenge mom and grab the dukedom. Oh, and all nine of his relatives, male and female, are played by Alec Guinness.
See also: A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder
Yeah that seems pretty dumb, but these processes are hardly robust. More like Byzantine.
Won’t that require changes on every single commonwealth monarchy? (The joys of of an archaic political system tied with the zombified remnants of a collapsed empire)
That could be a tricky legal question. The current law is that changes in the line of succession must be approved by all 15 Commonwealth realms. But this law was itself a regular statute passed by the Westminster parliament.
The principle of parliamentary supremacy demands that no parliament may bind the will of a future parliament. That is, could Westminster just override the 1931 statute when they pass this special “cut out Andrew” bill? There might not be a whole lot that says they can’t.
The problem is diplomatic ramifications.
Parliament can always do what it wants, but if it’s unilaterally removing rights from another country they’re going to be pissed off.
Too bad though
Would have bren nice to keep the possibility of some extreme chain of events leaving this one on the throne…
