Nick Hart, Socialist Party national committee
That’ll be plain old Andrew then! With allegations mounting against the now Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, few will be sorry to see the former prince stripped of his titles and evicted from his mansion.
This includes true blue royalists. Royal biographer Andrew Lownie stated in a recent Daily Mail podcast: “Andrew is clearly bringing disrepute upon the whole institution… let him if necessary, go to prison… I speak as a monarchist who wants the monarchy to survive.”
The reason the King made his younger brother an ex-royal wasn’t because he suddenly had to rid himself of one bad apple. But because the attention created by Andrew’s reputed conduct further undermined the institution of the monarchy, which sits at the heart of rotten British capitalism.
The King has reportedly agreed to give Mountbatten Windsor a six-figure sum to help with moving costs. Will this encourage him not to go running to the tabloids with other stories that might cause embarrassment to the royal firm and their associates?
Representing British capitalism
It’s no coincidence that Mountbatten Windsor’s relationship with the paedophile banker Jeffrey Epstein first came under scrutiny in 2011. The banking crisis and revelations about how powerful abusers such as Jimmy Saville were protected by the institutions they fronted angered many at what it revealed about the nature of the establishment. No wonder the once second in line to the throne reportedly felt entitled to ask police officers to ‘dig up dirt’ on Virginia Giuffre.
The two of them became fast friends not due to an ‘error of judgement’ on the part of Mountbatten Windsor, as he has said in his strenuous denials of sexual assaulting Guiffre, but through his job as UK trade ambassador. His role was to suck up to all manner of wealthy individuals on behalf of the UK government and businesses, including the war criminal son of Colonel Gaddafi and Kazakhstani despot Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Even with Andrew stood down as a working royal, less than two months ago the King was happy to host another Epstein associate and alleged sex offender, Donald Trump. The hobnobbing banquet at Windsor Castle also featured executives from leading US tech firms, given a direct chance to lobby the president of the world’s largest economy and his poodle Keir Starmer.
Why, in spite of all this, do large sections of the establishment want to see the monarchy survive?
There is the role it plays in providing a (sometimes) more dignified front for Great Britain plc than unpopular politicians such as Starmer, wheeled out at times of national celebration and tragedy alike.
But the monarch is not some neutral and dispassionate figure sitting above society. Before any new laws are presented to parliament for debate, which could impact on the royal family as landowners or employers, the sitting monarch has the chance to review the legislation and lobby for changes. Though the specifics of this process of ‘king’s consent’ is kept secret from the public, you can bet that Charles and Liz never asked for laws to give a better deal to workers and tenants on their estates! The monarchy is an extra tool in the box to defend the interests of the capitalists
In times of extreme crisis for the ruling elite, the monarch can dismiss a democratically elected government in the UK and other countries where they are head of state. Just as they did when Queen Elizabeth’s Governor General dissolved the radical Labour government of Gough Whitlam in Australia in 1975.
Or if the capitalist class feels really under threat, why resort to constitutional niceties when they can simply prepare to do away with democracy altogether? Rumours continue to circulate about the role of the King’s great uncle Lord Mountbatten in plotting a military coup in the 1970s during a rising tide of worker militancy and the rank and file of the Labour Party moving sharply to the left. Imagine the role the Queen could have usefully played for the ruling class if a Corbyn-led Labour government had challenged their wealth.
The impact of decades of capitalism in crisis and the attacks that have rained down on the working class has damaged the standing of all aspects of capitalist rule. Workers have seen politicians embroiled in scandal, police forces institutionally biased and unfair courts enforcing laws for the bosses. The crisis in the monarchy is part of this process, as weak and rotten British capitalism attempts to maintain the profits of a few and deflect the mass anger of the working class and young people at their system. All the more reason for us to get organised and fight to get rid of the capitalist system and its outgrowths, and replace it with a democratic socialist society without obscene privileges – whether from wealth or right of birth.
