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.
Too bad though
Would have bren nice to keep the possibility of some extreme chain of events leaving this one on the throne…
The real question is how that didn’t happen automatically when he was stripped of his title.
Yeah that seems pretty dumb, but these processes are hardly robust. More like Byzantine.
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
The fact that they think making andrew a simple peasent like the rest of us, is an appropriate punishment for raping children, either tells us a lot about how they see us regular people, or a lot about how much they care about children being raped.
Everything I’ve read about this says that the misconduct in question was sharing state secrets with Epstein.
The child raping doesn’t appear to be concerning them.
I read an article that said that he hasn’t actually broken any UK laws to do with rape that we know of.
From memory the main points were:
- Virginia Giuffre was 17 when they met which is above the age of consent in the UK so he can’t get done for having sex with a minor.
- Had he done what he did now, he’d have broken laws to do with sex trafficking but the laws weren’t strong enough back then so they don’t apply either.
Obviously, what he did was wrong but that doesn’t mean that he can be prosecuted for it.
I’m hoping that there’s stuff that we don’t know about that they’re preparing to prosecute him for.
I’m assuming that the reason he shared state secrets with Epstein is because Epstein had something on him.
Al Capone didn’t go to prison for murder, he went to prison for tax evasion. Do you think it was because Elliot Ness just didn’t care about murder?
Well, it certainly wasn’t because he couldn’t implicate the billionaires.
Nevertheless, whistleblowers spend their whole life being hunted down by goverments for exposing state secrets that reveal crimes.
Perhaps that’s the state secret he’s being punished for revealing: all the child rape among the rich and powerful.
Yeah that must really have been a big surprise for Epstein
I would like to have that much faith in humanity but given that it has only happened now despite this going on for more than a decade, I doubt it. If you witness such a thing and don’t reveal it, it is either that you are the victim and afraid, or they have dirt on you, or you are an average individual who realizes that this would be a battle against a network of some of the most powerful individuals in the world and you don’t have an epsilon chance. I think he only fits in the second group.
I’m not from the UK or living there. So grain of salt and all… But I read this not so much as a punishment, but closing a loophole so he can never ever be in a position of royal power or benefits. And it would hold even if he wins in court.
If we in the US had closed some loopholes 2021-24, we would be at least 50% less fucked.
And maybe 90% less if we’d done it after Nixon.
It’s not enough. But it’s not nothing.
Thank you for bringing reason to that moronic comment above yours. “This is the whole punishment! WAH!” I’m so sick of reflexive cynicism in ignorance of the facts. It’s like people have forgotten how to put anything in context and want the shortest path to despair no matter what the news is.
If an angry mob had closed a loophole around Richard Nixon’s neck after he received his pardon, we probably wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today.
In the UK and I largely agree.
We’ve seen powerful people can get away with things so there will need to be a bulletproof case against him for anything to hold. Building in mitigations for that is a good thing, even if I think it should be targeting the wider systemic issues not just one loser.
Different parts of the government. Charles has all but kicked him out of the royals themselves. This would just be finishing the job.
Neither group has any real say in prosecution etc. This is just an additional ceremonial “Fuck you for making us look bad!”
“They expect one of us in the wreckage, brother”
You know that the government doesn’t conduct criminal investigations?
God damn. Comment hit hard. No notes. I just wish the people in the US realized that even the monarchs of Britain are being “punished” more than the equivalent rulers of our similar class structures that exist in modern day with just different names. Our “Epstein class” (capitalist class) have less punishment than modern day monarchs.
The punishment of the monarchs is to become a rich capitalist with no titles. The punishment of the capitalist is nothing.
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.
