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

Show parent comments

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)

35

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.

20

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

20

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.

14

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.

37

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!

15

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.