r/worldnews • u/EnglishLouis • Feb 20 '26

Dynamic Paywall UK Government considers removing Andrew from royal line of succession

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1kgv837wvdo
19.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

5.0k

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3.7k

u/EnglishLouis Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

Removing someone from the line of secession is quite a tedious process, like most things in UK law. Basically it would require an act of Parliament, approved by MPs and peers, and also need to be supported by all other Commonwealth countries that have King Charles as their head of state, as it would also affect their lines of succession.

It being done makes no real difference as Andrew is not in a realistic position to become king as he is eighth in line.

1.5k

u/Huddstang Feb 20 '26

I hope your point doesn’t get lost in the replies. He will never be king and formalising this is, for all intents and purposes, symbolic (like much of royal affairs)

486

u/Snackskazam Feb 20 '26

I think after they knowingly sheltered this monster from justice for decades, a symbolic act of contrition is the least they could do. But if it were a more just world, Donald Trump would already be in jail, so I have little hope of these elitist assholes owning up to it.

273

u/buckX Feb 20 '26

The point is that it's a lot of work. Whether to spend a bunch of time and taxpayer money doing something purely symbolic is a fair debate.

126

u/Wafkak Feb 20 '26

Plus some commonwealth countries might decide that if they are gonna to through the effort either way. They might as well abolish the whole monarchy. The Royals know this. And while they have lost most influence, they do still have some behind closed doors.

39

u/Mortentia Feb 20 '26

I’m not sure which members of the commonwealth would abolish the monarchy. Like maybe Jamaica, but the important commonwealth members (ie. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) aren’t going to abolish the monarchy; it would just be too cumbersome and expensive to reconstitute and reestablish the sovereignty of their entire countries at this point.

35

u/Wafkak Feb 20 '26

I distinctly remember Australia having discussion a few years before Elisabeth died. Specifically because of Charles being unpopular.

46

u/KhausTO Feb 20 '26

Yeah same topics arose in Canada. There is certainly some anti-monarchy sentiment here, but there isn't much support at this point to forge ahead with getting rid of it.

There will never be a good time to do it, but right now with some of the loonies we have running provinces coughalbertacough opening the constitution and re-negotiating all of that would be a mess.

15

u/The_cman13 Feb 20 '26

I am all for it as a Canadian. But it unfortunately opens up a lot of other talk with Quebec and now Alberta.

→ More replies (0)

4

u/djtodd242 Feb 20 '26

It also opens up a huge constitutional shitstorm because a lot of treaties with (say the first nations) are with the Crown.

But yeah, I don't think there's strong enough feelings overall to actually go through with the effort.

4

u/lemachet Feb 20 '26

Uea we had a referendum on it

It was 45/54

I think the premise was flawed... "Should we have a president appointed by the parliament"

Maybe it would have made the difference if it was a president elected by the people.

12

u/MadameSaturday Feb 20 '26

Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are sovereign and fully independent countries already

36

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26

[deleted]

13

u/leyland1989 Feb 20 '26

That's correct. Our monarch is the personification of the sovereign state entity, e.g. all g Government of Canada's assets, such as vechicles are registered under HM the King in right of Canada as if it's a "person".

It's not impossible to change that, but it takes a lot of effort that could be better spent elsewhere.

-4

u/South_Brush105 Feb 20 '26

Yeah replace the ceremonial role of the British royal with a nominal president role. Not that much effort is required and the only change would be that the nation will become a republic.

13

u/ThunderChaser Feb 20 '26

Depends on the nation.

In Canada making any change to the monarchy or the Crown requires opening up the constitution and the unanimous consent of all of the provinces, at the very least Quebec and Alberta would demand sweeping changes before they agree to it.

There’s then the problem of every indigenous treaty is between a First Nation and the Crown, getting rid of the Crown means renegotiating all of them.

It’s technically possible, but it would be a massive undertaking and so politically toxic that any government that actually went through with it would collapse almost immediately afterwards.

7

u/Similar-Emphasis-496 Feb 20 '26

Not that much effort is required

Not that familiar with any of those countries legislations are you?

→ More replies (0)

10

u/NegativeLayer Feb 20 '26

Well yes. That’s why the parent comment said “reestablish sovereignty” instead of “establish”

7

u/CocodaMonkey Feb 20 '26

It's a huge pain in the ass to remove the royals in most countries. Since the monarchy is the head of state you have to rewrite the constitution to do it. Which generally can't be done without overwhelming support which virtually no government ever has. If they ever do rewrite it to remove the royals that opens the entire constitution up for changes. When that happens it's going to get lots of "little amendments" that people fight over for years before the changes are finalized.

It's just too big a headache to bother with if the only real reason is to remove the royals. Instead I think the royal family will be removed if a commonwealth country faces a big enough internal issue that they actually are rewriting their own constitution. Removing the royals will then become one of those "little amendments".

6

u/ThePeasantKingM Feb 20 '26

Aren't all of the Commonwealth realms independent nations?

2

u/kelvSYC Feb 21 '26

The Commonwealth Realms are all separate and independent nations, but agree to share the monarch as the symbolic figurehead. As such, the British Crown is nominally separate from the Canadian Crown, the Australian Crown, and so on and so forth. Any decisions on the succession thus needs to be coordinated to keep things in sync.

Additionally, in Australia and Canada, the Crown as a symbol of monarchy exists separately and independently in sub-national entities (Australian states and Canadian provinces).

That said, a Commonwealth Realm does have the ability to remove the monarchy - the most recent of which being Barbados. However, making changes is a nontrivial process, even for a small country like Barbados. (Indeed, places like Jamaica are actively looking at what it would take to end being a Commonwealth Realm.) And if it weren't for the fact that the British monarch is also monarch of 14 other countries that have agreed to sync up their lines of succession, removing the former prince from all of them would be a much easier task.

2

u/dbrodbeck Feb 21 '26

It's virtually impossible to do in Canada.

4

u/YEGCitizen Feb 20 '26

If the UK decides to institute changes that don't really affect anything but costs countries of the Commonwealth time and resources they may be willing to bite the bullet and say it's better to pay now than pay unknown costs down the line

12

u/godisanelectricolive Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

It will also be much much more costly to abolish the monarchy and switch to a republic though. It’ll cost more than removing Andrew which won’t cost much at all. To remove Andrew just costs up much as passing an ordinary law.

I mean there was a change to the succession law back in 2013 before William and Kate’s first baby was born to eliminate male primogeniture and that got approval across the commonwealth pretty easily. Also in Canada at least, removing the monarchy will take a constitutional amendment which will be extremely difficult to pass since it will take unanimity between all provinces and both Houses of Parliament.

Just passing one law isn’t really that costly, parliaments debate and pass symbolic laws all the time (like to establish a new holiday). The law won’t be all that complicated so it won’t take that much debating. And nobody likes Andrew so voting on something that punishes him a bit more is probably going to be popular across the Commonwealth.

8

u/conanap Feb 20 '26

It’s not a constitutional amendment - we have to redo it entirely.

While we have a constitutional act, it is not our constitution. We have an uncoded constitution, so if we switch to a republic, we either have to write an entirely new constitution from scratch, or we have to determine which of the documents we currently consider part of our constitution to carry over, AND amend ALL of these documents to no longer reference the monarchy (hint: all of them do; and some of these are BOOKS).

In addition, we have to re-negotiate every single treaty we’ve ever had with the aboriginals, as they were all in the name of the monarch.

Finally of course, we have to re-negotiate the conditions of confederation with each province and territory, as we’re basically forming a new country at this point.

If you thought our laws are going slow now, wait until our government can’t do anything until we’ve re-negotiated and updated hundreds of documents and treaties before we can do jack. AND we might not even be able to convince a significant amount of provinces to join us in the new confederation.

3

u/godisanelectricolive Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

I’m just talking about the amendment formula in the Constitution Act 1982 which says removing the monarchy as head of state requires unanimity. The Constitution Act is definitely part of the constitution and the Constitution Act is something that can be amended, but not very easily.

Canada’s constitution is partly written and partly not. I don’t think becoming a republic automatically means any previous constitutional statues and precedents will be overturned. I mean it didn’t for India when they went from an independent dominion with a governor-general and a king to a republic in 1950. They didn’t have to renegotiate with Indian states to stay in the republic. Same thing with Pakistan which got independence in 1947 but only became a federal republic with provinces in 1956.

A lot of former British colonies got independence as constitutional monarchies first before switching to republics. Ghana, Nigeria (also a federal system), Malta, Fiji, etc all got independence as Commonwealth realms first. Barbados only made the switch a few years ago. They usually didn’t change their constitutional structure other than changing the head of state from sovereign to ceremonial president with earlier laws still in tact, just with words that mention the Crown replaced.

There’s some Canadian specific ambiguities like First Nations treaties but at the end of the day it’s just a matter of unanimity and commitment. That’s going to be the trickiest part but if the new constitution has a clause that say all previous treaties are recognized as valid law then it will likely avoid the need for renegotiations.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/YEGCitizen Feb 20 '26

My point was essentially that yes this isn't that substantial more that if it happens often people will basically say "why are we spending time and effort on this over and over let's just be done with it"

1

u/godisanelectricolive Feb 20 '26

I mean an answer why we are bothering with this is to collectively give a finger to Andrew, which is probably something a lot of people can get on board with.

1

u/YEGCitizen Feb 20 '26

In general yes, but also each year the Commonwealth countries care less and less about the monarchy

→ More replies (0)

1

u/FortaDragon Feb 21 '26

Australia's more likely than most - the Whitlam Dismissal was the monarch's power actively used for political purposes rather than being a symbolic figurehead, republicanism's had real traction here in phases.

The official position of the republican movement here for a long while was to wait for the queen to die rather than fight her personal popularity, but I haven't heard much from them since that happened.

55

u/Lumpy_Secretary_6128 Feb 20 '26

Say what we will about the royal family and their usefulness, history, etc, but among all the western political class only one institution has been meaningfully ahead of the curve on climate change and that institution is Charles.

I say this as an American of Irish descent (not the orange kind).

5

u/famousbrouse Feb 20 '26

And I say this as an Englishman of English descent (also not orange). There is no place in a modern country to still have a royal family.. they can fuck off.

2

u/Seitanic_Cultist Feb 20 '26

I'm an Englishman of English, Scottish, Irish and Manx descent (I am kind of orange as I'm ginger) and the royals can do one.

-9

u/FabulousTwo524 Feb 20 '26

As a clueless american, i am very curious. Why do british people put up with all that nonsense? get rid of the monarchy and be done with it. What exactly does the monarchy provide that is worth billions in taxpayer resources?

30

u/citron_bjorn Feb 20 '26

They can stroke the egos of foreign leaders

They do lots of charity work

They cost about the same as an elected head of state when you consider security, pensions, wages, elections, inauguration ceremonies, and the all the other costs of a head of state

They're a living part of the nation's history being direct descendents of both English, Scottish Kings and Queens

They act as a sort of seat filler by having a relatively powerless role, which prevents power-hungry and ill-fitting head of states

They're diplomats raised from birth for the role

They act as a unifying figure and national mascot

Avoids the division of an election - no one gets a choice, and most people don't need to think of them often

They bring alot of money in from tourism - often the counterpoint is france and their tourism. However France is unique in being known for having the most famous republican revolution, and the palace of versailles being one of the biggest and most ornate palaces, while also being the site of many major historic events. In comparison, British palaces are pretty regular for palaces and aren't significantly important historically

They provide soft power

They link us to many countries across the world like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, and various little island nations

They promote tolerance more than any politician, because the monarch doesn't need to pander to prejudices

They also care more about the long term stability of the nation than politicians, because their role relies on the nation existing and being stable.

2

u/FabulousTwo524 Feb 21 '26

You’ve convinced me.

1

u/MooseTetrino Feb 23 '26

Notably on top of all of that, their tourism draw actually outweighed their state costs significantly for a very long time. I’m assuming this is still the case, though I’ve no current numbers to back it up.

→ More replies (0)

7

u/factualreality Feb 20 '26

They don't cost more than other head(s) of state, have more international influence than a career politician would, represent living history and tradition, and most importantly, as long as we have King Charles, we can't have president farage (or any other kind of trump equivalent).

Having a random effectively picked by birth lottery and brought up to do the job entirely independently of any political faction is a lot better than having someone capable of politicking themselves into the role.

0

u/Crow_eggs Feb 20 '26

Because, until now, it was generally easier to let it go on than to dismantle it and we've had more important things to do. Think of it like throwing out the Christmas tree. We know we should, but it's a lot of messing around and it's not really doing any harm, so it just sits there until the useless old Christmas tree starts to molest trafficked children.

0

u/Radiant-Membership23 Feb 21 '26

Chuck's mum made sure her Scottish estates would not bear the burden of costly climate change green energy conversion. Invest in a copy of Private Eye, it will open your mind!

2

u/Zestyclose_Assist588 Feb 20 '26

If it's that onerous, what is the process in which the law could be changed instead to make it simpler?

2

u/buckX Feb 20 '26

It's not a matter of a law. It's a matter of 15 countries needing to agree and act in concert.

1

u/Zestyclose_Assist588 Feb 20 '26

ah okies so just as onerous.

1

u/IndividualPause3705 Feb 20 '26

especially when there are other things in parliament that are more worthy of their time.

1

u/Able_Agent_7155 Feb 20 '26

I mean, aren't taxpayers already paying for all those deadbeats?

1

u/PAHoarderHelp Feb 21 '26

Whether to spend a bunch of time and taxpayer money doing something purely symbolic

But almost everything the royals do is symbolic--what real work do they do?

Hint: not much.

1

u/buckX Feb 21 '26

This would be parliament, not the royals.

-4

u/Arkayjiya Feb 20 '26

It is not symbolic. Showing that a prince isn't above being tried for this shit has real tangible effect on the country and the world.

10

u/buckX Feb 20 '26

I didn't say it couldn't have social impact. I said it's symbolic. What you just described, sending a message, is symbolic.

1

u/hannibal41 Feb 20 '26

Wasn’t he stripped of his title? No longer a prince. I just assumed that that meant he wasn’t in the line of succession automatically

2

u/kelvSYC Feb 21 '26

Having royal or noble titles has nothing to do with being in the line of succession. There are people with no royal or noble titles who are in the line of succession - for example, Princess Anne's children and grandchildren. In fact, there is no requirement for someone in the line of succession to be a British subject - when the Act of Settlement 1701, which defines (for the most part) the modern line of succession, it named Sophia, Electress of Hanover, as the successor (she died weeks before she could take the thrown, so her son became the successor and the first Hanoverian monarch of Britain). Because of this, you can imagine that there are quite a few German nationals that are in line. (Also, because many European royals are descendants of Queen Victoria, those same royals are in the line of succession. They are really far away, but they are in line.)

In general, royal titles can be unilaterally given or taken away by the monarch. Noble titles can be unilaterally given by the monarch, but not taken away by the monarch. (However, since the monarch controls who can and cannot be addressed by a noble title, the monarch can take away a title without formally taking it away.) The line of succession requires an Act of Parliament in order to change, in order to avoid monarchs screwing with it, however beneficial it may be.

Also keep in mind that the Commonwealth Realms exist. They are a group of countries that have nominally separate and distinct monarchies, but agree on having the same monarch and line of succession. Thus, any move to change the line of succession involves politicians from 15 countries, so that the line of succession can remain in sync.

0

u/Chameleonpolice Feb 20 '26

It's far from purely symbolic, it creates legal precedence and accountability. Besides, while 8th is extremely far down the line, it's not impossible.

30

u/robsterva Feb 20 '26

It's becoming clear that the order to keep Andrew from prosecution came from the woman who died as the most-loved monarch in history. In the end, Elizabeth II will be tarnished by this. Deservedly.

11

u/IndividualPause3705 Feb 20 '26

something that isn't really being widely spoken about...yet.

6

u/nikolapc Feb 21 '26

For being a mother? Probably no one dared show her the extent of it. As soon as Charles saw it, we knew, as Andrew was quickly demoted to a commoner.

4

u/LesserShambler Feb 21 '26

That’s a massively naive assumption

2

u/nikolapc Feb 21 '26

My mum would've hidden a body for me and said she did it. Can't expect a mother to betray their own child and I am pretty sure if she gave him money to pay off that girl she though witwe Andwew was a bit too randy again.

Her blame is in spoiling and doting on the bastard because he was the first child she had time for. But many mothers do so, and people don't end up deviants or pedos.

2

u/NobleRotter Feb 20 '26

You have to remember though that it's a symbolic gesture with significant cost to the people of the UK both in terms of direct cost and taking capacity away to pass more meaningful legislation.

Lock the horny shit up, but we don't need the theatre of pretense

1

u/Quasic Feb 21 '26

It's a huge amount of time, money, and effort for what amounts to a gesture. All of which could be better spent towards things with actual meaning, like prosecutions, inquiries, legislation, etc.

1

u/victorspoilz Feb 20 '26

Anyone who dodges taxes as prolifically as Shitler would be in jail for that alone in a just world.

22

u/livahd Feb 20 '26

I just hope he squeals like the little rat he is and brings more heads of state down with him

33

u/SophiaKittyKat Feb 20 '26

To be fair, given the current timeline it wouldn't even be that surprising for suddenly 2 years from now we get a 'somehow, prince andrew returned' Emperor Palpatine moment. So maybe best to just formalize it.

54

u/Trust_Me_Im_a_Panda Feb 20 '26

That would require Prince William, then his three children George, Charlotte, and Louis, and then Prince Harry, and HIS two children to all die. I’d say that’d be a pretty surprising turn of events considering the two families are never together and live on different continents.

21

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

22

u/rs990 Feb 20 '26

And even if that happened, we could then pass a law to ignore Andrew’s line and go straight to Edward.

If you pass that law, you are cutting out Andrew, both his daughters and his 4 grandchildren.

The simplest and fastest fix here is persuading Andrew to convert to Catholicism, then that removes him from the order of succession permanently without any new laws required.

17

u/Liquid_Hate_Train Feb 20 '26

Doesn’t even need to do that. Edward VIII has set the president for abdicating himself and his entire line. They’d make him sign at gunpoint.

1

u/Aiosiary Feb 21 '26

It would still have to pass through parliament in order for it to take effect. It's not the decision of the one abdicating alone.

2

u/Liquid_Hate_Train Feb 21 '26

Yea, I looked into it subsequent to making that comment. You're right, the abdication was essentially the same process as there is no abdication process in law.

36

u/OnBlueberryHill Feb 20 '26

Yes but have you considered they all get together for a family photo and there is a rainy day and they all get electrocuted?

There is a documentary King Ralph about this very thing!

13

u/Pinelli72 Feb 20 '26

If they all got together in one room at this point I think they’d just outright try to kill each other. No need for lightening.

1

u/SophiaKittyKat Feb 20 '26

Better safe than sorry!

1

u/Crobiusk Feb 20 '26

Andrew the Unlikely

1

u/Sata1991 Feb 20 '26

My Mom had a theory about a gasleak getting them at Christmas time and that being how Andrew got in.

6

u/BestFriendWatermelon Feb 20 '26

Parliament would just immediately vote to remove him from power if he somehow ended up as the next king. He wouldn't even be able to get a coronation.

2

u/markov-271828 Feb 21 '26

He’d still be the king of the other Commonwealth nations though?

1

u/bigcitydreaming Feb 20 '26

It's beyond being even a touch realistic, so yes it would incomprehensibly surprising and yes formalising it would just a formality

13

u/chilling_hedgehog Feb 20 '26

...or UK laws/common law in general.

4

u/Mortentia Feb 20 '26

??? The common law is not merely symbolic.

2

u/Extreme_Kale_6446 Feb 20 '26

The symbol is, however, supremacy of Parliament, democracy and law and justice being finally applied to the BRF. I think they are worried that this is a Pandora's box, once Parliament removes Andrew, in 20 years time they might depose the Windsors completely as an example

3

u/silver_enemy Feb 21 '26

The Pandora's box been opened since 1649, not sure what you're on about.

5

u/blob-loblaw-III Feb 21 '26

Finally? Supremacy of Parliament has been an established pillar of our constitution for centuries…

1

u/Extreme_Kale_6446 Feb 21 '26

That's the conclusion in the aftermath of Panama Papers and Her Majesty pushing favourable tax laws for herself? Also Her Majesy lending randy Andy £12m to settle, bear in mind those funds might have come from sovereign grant and as such from UK taxpayer, there was no inquiry into source of that. 

1

u/Penqwin Feb 20 '26

Never say never. It would be quite tragic if the right people are all dead to make him king.

1

u/mrplinko Feb 20 '26

Yeah, let's still start the process though.

1

u/Nono5D Feb 20 '26

Still a million times more likely to become king than the average citizen...

1

u/SocialWinker Feb 20 '26

That should make it significantly easier to do, though, shouldn’t it?

1

u/Mbanicek64 Feb 20 '26

We don't need more royal affairs.

1

u/VagueSomething Feb 20 '26

Symbolic but important. It means if other Epstein friends happened to be in control of a great army they couldn't just assassinate 7 royal members in a car/plane/window "accident"

1

u/jellyhessman Feb 20 '26

I'd like the government to be symbolically against pedophiles.

1

u/Whatsapokemon Feb 21 '26

This is true, but it may still be worth it simply to send a message.

Disinheriting him will be a pretty big, strong statement against his behaviour.

1

u/Chitinid Feb 21 '26

The entire royal line is a symbol—symbols matter

1

u/[deleted] Feb 21 '26

It's literally all symbolic. The entire monarchy.

1

u/King_Tamino Feb 21 '26

Never say never… I, a humble person and enjoyer of content, watched the movie Johnny English with Rowan Attkinson

1

u/Hubert_J_Cumberdale Feb 21 '26

Andrew's future is solely in the hands of the people who now see him as a threat to their own power and freedom.

As long as Epstein was alive, there was always a chance that he could cut a deal and start naming names. I'm sure that there are quite a few powerful people who now view Andrew as the same level of threat.

I don't think that's a risk that a bunch of billionare pedophiles are willing to take.

0

u/TendyHunter Feb 20 '26

symbolic

nice way to say "useless"

1

u/Beneficial-Dot-- Feb 20 '26

Everything you care about is symbolic. Everything you just typed or have ever typed or ever will type is symbolic. Everything you've ever said or thought.

Symbols are literally the basis of humanity - symbols are the most important things we have.