SNP MP Tommy Sheppard said the appointment was emblematic of the monarchy’s “obsession with feudal patronage”.
“The fact that these titles and positions are determined by accident of birth and forever the preserve of just one family is completely at odds with modern democratic values,” he said. “In Scandinavian countries, monarchies have gone out of their way to slim down by stripping lesser royals of their hereditary titles. Not here. In the UK, there seems no end to their obsession with feudal patronage.”
Tristan Gray, the convener of Our Republic – a campaign group calling for an end to the monarchy in Scotland – told The National that the appointment of Prince Edward as Duke of Edinburgh was “an insult” to the residents of the capital city. He said: “I think it’s an insult to the people who call Edinburgh home that their city can be passed around as a trinket to be given to people as a birthday present, just so Edward can put it up on his wall in his Surrey mansion, as if he has any connection to the city whatsoever.
“The people of Edinburgh have legitimate democratic representation. They vote for it in their council elections, we had a by-election this week. They’ve got parliamentary representation, both in the Scottish Parliament and at Westminster. Those people are elected by and accountable to the people of Edinburgh. They are the legitimate representatives of the people who call the city home. And to have them undermined by the granting of this title – and the gifting of it as a birthday present – to distant aristocrats is an insult both to the people of Edinburgh themselves and to the very concept of the legitimate representation of those people.”