Andrew Windsor and How the Greens Can Push for Real Reform: Turning Symbolism into Action

A Counsellor of State is not a ceremonial title. It is a formal constitutional role, established under the Regency Acts, allowing certain senior royals — the monarch’s spouse and the next four adults in the line of succession — to carry out the King’s official duties when he is abroad or incapacitated. Counsellors can sign official documents, receive ambassadors, and give royal assent to laws. In short, they can act in the monarch’s name.

That Andrew, who has been stripped of public duties and military patronages, still holds this authority is indefensible. It highlights how Parliament continues to defer to royal privilege rather than uphold democratic principles.

For the Green Party, this is an opportunity — not just to criticise the monarchy, but to show that democratic reform is practical, possible, and overdue.

A Proven Power: Parliament Can Act

We’ve seen it before. During the Cameron-Clegg coalition, Nick Clegg made it a moral crusade to amend the Succession to the Crown Act 2013, ensuring that Charlotte Windsor would not be leapfrogged by her younger brother Louis in the line of succession. That single act overturned centuries of male-preference primogeniture — and proved that Parliament can legislate on royal matters when it chooses to.

If MPs could modernise succession laws for one family’s benefit, they can certainly act again to remove Andrew as a Counsellor of State. Doing so would not just tidy up royal embarrassment — it would show that Parliament can and should use its power to hold privilege to account.

The Greens should be front and centre in calling for that. Not because it’s about one individual, but because it strikes at the heart of what needs reform: the assumption that the monarchy is beyond democratic reach.

A Small Reform With Big Implications

A campaign to amend the Acts of Succession to exclude Andrew would do two important things.

First, it would demonstrate that Parliament is not powerless to act on royal issues — that MPs have the authority to legislate for accountability.

Second, it would open the door to the bigger question: why stop there?

If Parliament can change the succession laws for Andrew, it can change them for William — or abolish them altogether. There is nothing inevitable about hereditary monarchy. It persists not because the constitution demands it, but because politicians lack the courage to change it. That’s where the Greens can lead.

Democratic Renewal Starts With Honesty

For years, establishment parties have treated the monarchy as untouchable. But the Green Party’s politics are about honesty — about saying that democracy means accountability, and accountability means no one, not even a monarch, should inherit public office.

It’s time to say it plainly:

“It is not inevitable that one family should inherit public office. Parliament can act — and it should.”

This isn’t about personalities or grudges. It’s about principle. The Windsors may try to purge themselves of scandal by sidelining Andrew, but reformers should see a bigger opportunity: to challenge the very notion that one unelected family sits above scrutiny while the rest of us live under the laws they symbolically approve.

Building the Green Case for a Democratic Future

Real reform takes time — but it starts with movement. The Andrew question is a chance for the Greens to put democratic renewal at the heart of British politics.

By showing that Parliament can act on the monarchy, the Greens can begin the wider campaign for:

• A written, democratic constitution;

• The replacement of the monarchy with an accountable head of state;

• A politics that serves citizens, not symbols.

So let’s start the drumbeat:
• Amend the Acts of Succession to remove Prince Andrew.
• Prove that Parliament has the power to act.
• Make it clear that William inheriting the throne is not inevitable.

The legislative machine exists. The power is there. The only question is whether our elected representatives — especially those who claim to stand for reform and democracy — are prepared to use it.