Andrew and the line of succession

[RFamilyQuestion]

I’ve just finished reading Entitled. Not an enjoyable read but I am glad I got through it.

It’s left me feeling really angry that Andrew isn’t really being held to account other than losing his titles which doesn’t go far enough. It seems unlikely he’ll be convicted for his crimes.

He is still 8th in line to the throne. As unlikely as it is that he would ever be King, I think he should officially be removed from the line of succession. Yes it needs an act of parliament from what I’ve read and apparently involves complexities due to the commonwealth, but I don’t think these things should stop it being done. Whilst he is still 8th in the line of succession, he still has some sort of status which he loves but doesn’t deserve.

Is it really worth the waste of taxpayers' money to go through the act of parliament process to remove him from the line of succession?

There is in practical terms, no chance of him ever becoming king - can you imagine any scenario that would wipe out William, his children, Harry, his children, but leave Andrew standing?

If anything did happen to make it a significant possibility, fair enough, but it would just seem like a colossal waste of money and resources to do it now.

The fact he hasn’t been convicted of anything (or even charged) is an argument against removing him not for.

Plus there’s almost no chance he would become monarch. And to remove him from the line in all realms means passing laws in many parliaments (it’s not just the line of succession of England). A huge waste of time.

A statement explaining why it is deemed not necessary or appropriate to remove him from the line of succession would be welcome along with a clear indication that, line of succession notwithstanding, this country would never countenanced him taking the throne in any circumstances. That would cost nothing in time or money.

I cannot see him coming anywhere near the throne. Also as a parliamentary monarchy I can’t see it happening…

Succession laws were change not long ago to allow daughters of monarchs to have equal right to the throne as sons. The commonwealth countries all had to agree. They managed that without saying it was too complicated so I’m sure they could do this if they wanted to. They don’t want to bring more attention to it but I strongly agree it should be done OP.

I would like to see him removed. I think it’s important that we show we will not tolerate this behaviour from anyone. The problem is that it isn’t true. Rich people, usually men, get away with bad behaviour all the time because where there is wealth and power there is corruption. If it was seen as important, no amount of ‘complexities’ would stop it happening. It’s not seen as important by because it was (still is) wealthy, powerful men doing this mainly to poor, vulnerable women. They are simply not important enough.

Excellent point.

They didn't apply that rule retrospectively, that's why it was relatively straightforward. Removing Andrew would involve unpicking legislation of very longstanding.

If they felt it was important and were willing to make a stand against this they would do it. Instead we leave this disgusting man (who has links to convicted sex traffickers, who has paid off his victim who he raped when she was a minor, which he only hasn’t been charged and convicted with because of so much corruption and cover ups amongst other wealthy, powerful men, who abused his position as trade envoy etc) eight in line to the thrown.

Are we really going to pretend that it’s just to complicated and expensive for our government, with access to the best lawyers, who find money for what suits them? What a joke,

It would be our money that paid for it. Enough of my tax is already spunked on utterly pointless things that benefit me not one iota, without adding this to the bill.

It would make no practical difference to anything. If the Waleses were all to die in a freak accident or something then perhaps there might be a point to it, given that it's questionable whether the Sussexes would want the throne. But at the moment we have four Waleses lined up in front of AMB, and it's possible that before AMB dies, at least one of the Waleses will have had children who will also go ahead of him.

I agree that money is wasted on other things and those should be addressed, but for me and others, removing Andrew from the LoS would be money we would see as well spent. I accept you disagree, I’m still glad it’s being discussed here.

We'll have to agree to differ. I'd support it only if there was a realistic prospect of him becoming king.

I’m in 100% agreement on this. He should be removed. What does it say to all the children and adults who have been abused by bad people, when a member of the Royal Family who has behaved so badly is left in line to the thrown. I keep seeing people talking about ‘the optics’, well the optics really matter here and it looks fucking terrible!

👏 👏 👏

According the a research paper published by the House of Commons library in December, this is the process to follow:

"A member of the royal family can also be removed from the line of succession to the throne by legislation, although under a convention enshrined in the preamble to the Statue of Westminster 1931 this would require the consent of every other Commonwealth Realm (independent states where the King is also head of state).

The Duke of Windsor (the former King Edward VIII) and his descendants were removed by section 1 of His Majesty's Declaration of Abdication Act 1936. Section 2 of the Succession to the Crown Act 2013, meanwhile, restored to the line of succession individuals previously excluded “as a result of marrying a person of the Roman Catholic faith”.

Any change to the line of succession would impact those members of the royal family eligible to serve as Counsellors of State under section 6 of the Regency Act 1937. This currently includes Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor."

I would seriously begrudge both parliamentary time and taxpayers money being spent on this. I am not in any way trying to say that what he has allegedly done isn't awful but I hate the thought of spending a penny of tax payers money on any of it.

Not worth the effort OP.

On the plus side, if somehow got to be King there’d be a revolution and the end of our corrupt and unnecessary monarchy.

I agree with this. Those changes were brought about with the minimum of fuss.

Writing to the Commonwealth countries in the first instance isn't going to cost much, and if one disagrees it's not going to go any further.

All sorts of things get discussed in Parliament and I think the argument about this in particular wasting their precious time only shows an ignorance about the drivel that oftimes happens there!

@BoxingHare it may well be drivel, but at least it is drivel that has relevance to all the ordinary mortals that parliamentarians represent! How many days of debate in the Commons and the Lords would you allocate to the passing of this particular piece of legislation? What would you consider dropping from the legislative timetable to accommodate it?

Well said.

Some of what is said in the House of Commons is just plain rambly nonsense with no relevance to anyone other than the ego of the person speaking.

(And some is incredibly important but many MPs can't be bothered to listen and hang out in the bar instead.)

Not every last second of time in the Commons is spent wisely and relevantly.

How much time generally was spent dealing with Johnson's prorogueing? He did it for ego and that's what I call a waste of everyone's time, in and out of the House, not removing AMW from the line of succession.

How much time? How much was spent when the rights of succession was last debated?

@BoxingHare I'm not disagreeing with you. Of course debates in the Commons and the Lords are hijaked by egos and ramblers etc! However, I'm not really sure how saying that time is wasted generally in parliament on parliamentary business is relevant to specifically requesting parliamentary time and tax payers money be wasted on removing Andrew from the line of succession, when he is already in 8th position.

You can have a look here at when succession bills were last debated and I imagine if you wanted to drill down, you could plough through Hansard to see how long was spent on each debate: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_succession_bills_and_acts

As it’s very unlikely to happen, changing legislation seems like a massive waste of time and taxpayers money.

he has been completely humiliated on the worlds stage and he’ll never take part in public life again. Id like to see him stand trial, but I doubt that’s going to happen.

Not to mention the primogeniture one was "worth doing" because it would make things fair (as fair as a hereditary monarchy can be!) for generations to come - it addressed something that isnt just a (very low) possibility but would definitely affect every single subsequent monarch.

What OP wants is a lot of work and huge amount of money for a one-off - to bar one specific individual from not doing something he has an incredibly low chance of ever being in the position to do anyway.

Or... as a country of laws and with the Royal Family's public service mantra - having Andrew on a list of people who could be King is untenable.

Have you actually reviewed all the proposed acts/votes planned for this parliment and decided that everything planned is more important than actively showing the behaviours of our leaders matter.

It also wasn’t a trivial task, which is why it happened so late. Six countries had to pass legislation, with nine more agreeing that their constitutions meant they didn’t need to. Every state in Australia had to pass a law separately, and Canada ended up going through the courts on a constitutional point.

i just don’t see what possible pressing urgency the UK could point to this time to get them to do it all over again. What does, say, the Western Austalia state legislature care about the hypothetical blushes of the UK in some never-going-to-happen scenario.

So you risk the prospect of splitting the line of succession. Now that’s unlikely to ever matter in practice, but it’s a pretty constitutionally significant thing to do, for what benefit?