LONDON — Nigel Farage thinks there’s no need to give Prince Andrew a further kicking. His voters disagree.
Asked if parliament should intervene in the Andrew saga, the leader of Britain’s populist party, Reform UK, on Monday suggested King Charles’ brother is already “down, and on the way out,” adding there was “no particular need” to give him “a kicking on the way.”
Under growing pressure over his links with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and other scandals, Andrew announced earlier this month that he would be giving up his titles, including as duke of York. He will, however, remain a prince.
Reform voters, however, think Andrew should lose that title too due to his alleged behavior. Two-thirds of Reform voters (68 percent), Green voters (69 percent) and Liberal Democrat voters (63 percent) reckon he should have the honorific title of prince “officially removed,” according to a survey by the More in Common think tank. That compares with just 51 percent of mainstream Conservative and Labour Party voters.
Officially removing Andrew’s prince title would require either an act of parliament, or could be done using the legal powers of the royal prerogative, but that would likely need to be done on the advice of a minister, according to a House of Commons briefing note.
“It perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that those voters who most want to see the Prince stripped of his title are those who are now voting for populist parties on the right or left,” Luke Tryl, executive director of More in Common, said.
“For Green voters, who tend to be among the least supportive of the monarchy, the desire to see the Prince stripped of his title shouldn’t be surprising.
“But support is almost as high among Reform voters, a timely reminder that many Reform voters are particularly exasperated by what they see as a rigged system with ‘one rule for the rich and powerful and another for anyone else,’” he said.
There are growing calls for Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson to move out of the 30-room Royal Lodge following the publication of the posthumous memoir of Virginia Giuffre, the woman who accused him of sexual assault, which he strenuously denies, and after it emerged he pays a “peppercorn rent” – a quirk of British law that reduces the ground rent paid on a property by a leaseholder to a small, nominal fee, or “peppercorn” – to live in the vast property on the Windsor Estate.
The Green Party’s four MPs have signed a parliamentary motion calling for the government to take legislative steps to remove the dukedom granted to Prince Andrew. A total of 27 MPs, including Scottish and Welsh nationalists, have signed it.
Speaking at a press conference in London on Monday, Farage attacked the “nice liberals” he claimed would like to hound Andrew physically out of the country, never to be seen again, warning parliament should only interfere in a “real extreme situation,” such as if Andrew refused to leave Royal Lodge, or he started reusing his duke title.
“[Andrew] has renounced the dukedom. He undoubtedly will be looking for a new home very soon, probably somewhere where it’s a lot warmer and sunnier than it is here. I think for somebody who is down, and on the way out, there’s no particular need to give them a kicking on the way,” Farage said.
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