It is a look of bewilderment as if to say how could this happen to me? For the British monarchy, the image of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, slumped in the back seat of a car after his release from custody, is a new level of indignity. Walter Bagehot, the author of The English Constitution, averred that “we must not let daylight in upon the magic”; now the curtains will be flung open.
Mountbatten-Windsor might already have been stripped of his titles and moved out of the Royal Lodge but he remains, inescapably, the royals’ problem. As eighth in line to the throne, he is a non-trivial distance away from becoming our head of state. This, regardless of Mountbatten-Windsor’s eventual fate, is unsustainable (he denies any wrongdoing).
Jonathan Dimbleby, a confidant of King Charles, last night affirmed that parliament could act before adding that it was “straining at a gnat” to suggest this “somehow threatens the constitution”. Well, yes and no. The monarchy has long embodied the Burkean principle of change in order to conserve: male primogeniture and the bar on Catholic marriage were ended in 2013; the Queen began to pay tax after the annus horribilis of 1992. King Charles’s swift and unsentimental statement on his brother’s arrest (“the law must take its course”) showed he understands this survival strategy.
But the removal of Mountbatten-Windsor’s right to ascend the throne would be seismic. There would be no clearer demonstration of the democratic principle trumping the hereditary one. Republicans would cry that parliament should simply finish the job – and they enjoy their most receptive audience yet. To maintain consent, the monarchy will need to change again, accelerating the transition to a smaller and more accountable continental-style model.
Britain’s constitution hasn’t yet collapsed but it is fracturing. Only weeks ago the government vowed to introduce emergency legislation to strip Peter Mandelson of his peerage, now it will be required to act again to banish the spectre of King Andrew. Meanwhile, the traditional Westminster duopoly is breaking as Reform and the Greens ascend. The royals should fear this more populist age and the rise of parties that lack any historic allegiance to king and country (it was Clement Attlee who praised the monarchy as a bulwark against elected demagogues). We are not yet witnessing the end of the Windsors, but we are seeing how they could meet their end.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[Further reading: The questions the royals can no longer ignore]
Content from our partners
Related
Join the debate
Subscribe here to commentThe myth persists! The UK lacks a constitution unless it is accepted that the will of parliament expressed in statuary law is the sole constitutional principle! The monarchy plays a role in the legislative process by approval. However, it doe not limit itself to that role. The late queen intervened to resist and change legal proposal which challenged her ‘family business’, Charles ‘s spider notes are well known, Andrew as trade envoy was the result of palace pressure. Let us not overlook the fact that UK military takes an oath of loyalty to the Monarch, how would that work out in a fragmenting republican state?
It is time that the UK established a constitutional assembly and produced a constitution relevant to the reality which is now the UK. I prefer the idea of a Federal Republic!
Wake up! The UK does not have a constitution other than a combination of Parliamentary dictatorship, gentlemen’s agreements and conventions linked to an active monarchy. The later pursues the ‘family business’ behind a screen of myth and nonsense shielding it from public gaze and accountability! All of this is sustained by a cooperating host of UK media who always avoid posing substantive questions to the monarch and the accompany cast of courtiers.This has been compounded by a quasi -supreme court which cannot act to correct parliament when a government legislates that a totalitarian government is a peaceful, participatory democracy!
We would benefit from a written constitution establishing a Federated Republic !and put an end to this absurd myth and with it Parliamentary dictatorship.