Why No 10 won’t want to remove Andrew from line of successionpublished at 14:35 GMT 31 October
Kate Whannel
Political reporter
As we’ve reported in the post below, the government has confirmed it has no plans to pass a law to formally remove Andrew from the line of succession.
It means that while he no longer has the titles of a royal, he will still technically be eighth in line to the throne.
Passing a law to change that would be complex, as it would require consent from the 14 Commonwealth realms, including Australia and Canada.
Craig Prescott, constitutional expert at Royal Holloway University, says that “might not be a box the Palace want to open” as it could fan the flames of the republican movements in some of those countries.
Robert Hazell, professor of government and the constitution at University College London, says the last time the government made changes to the succession laws it took “two years of protracted negotiations”. That was to remove the rule that male children would take precedence over female children.
Hazell says the UK government will not want to invest that sort of time and effort into making the change, and also ask Commonwealth governments to do the same.
There is another complication: laws going through Parliament can be amended. For example, one MP could try to amend the bill to remove Prince Harry from the line of succession.
“The government won’t want to go there,” Hazell says. “To quote a colleague of mine, ‘you can’t half open a can of worms’.”