It’s not often that a high-up member of the British royal family gets arrested. You’d have to go back as far as Charles I in 1647 to find another such example – and that didn’t wind up too well for him.
And yet, that is exactly what happened to Mr. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on Thursday 19 February – on his 66th birthday, of all days.
Thames Valley Police arrested and detained the former prince for a total of 11 hours, and released him under investigation, on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The Royal Lodge, Andrew’s old home before he was unceremoniously booted earlier this month, was searched for evidence.
In a stunning admission, Andrew’s very own brother, King Charles III, said the “law must take its course”, and that the police had his “full and wholehearted support and co-operation”.
The scale and importance of such events really cannot be understated. The shit really has hit the fan, as they say.
Pressure of public opinion
Ever since the first revelations of Andrew’s connections with the billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the attitude of ‘The Firm’ was to close ranks to protect their own. Queen Elizabeth went to great lengths to shield her ‘favourite son’ from allegations and attacks on his reputation, including helping him to pay off his accusers.
And then, when that didn’t work – when the stench emanating from the Palace became too overpowering – they tried to wipe their hands clean of him: hiding him from the public view; exiling him from royal life; and eventually stripping him of his titles and decorations altogether.
But none of this was enough. The pressure of public opinion has become unbearable for the powers that be. Something had to be done, before the royal family and the entire establishment ended up tarred with the same brush.
An example had to be made – a scapegoat found – a sacrifice on the altar of the ‘rule of law’ and the fiction of liberal democracy.
Let no one be in any doubt. Andrew has been arrested to save the rest of them. Not because they’ve suddenly developed a conscience. And you can bet they’re not going to give him his just desserts – they’ll do as little as they feel they can get away with.
That’s why, egregiously, he wasn’t even arrested for his litany of disgusting crimes against women and girls – which include alleged torture and murder. No, the ruling class can turn a blind eye to that, for all they care. The way they see it, what are a few lowly, expendable women compared to the outrage of leaking lucrative state secrets?
Nonetheless, this is yet another serious blow to the legitimacy of the monarchy, the entire British state, and – by association – the hated Starmer government.
And so the Epstein files continue to cast their blinding searchlight into the murky depths of ruling-class depravity, mapping out each and every incestuous connection in that spider’s web we call ‘the establishment’.
Each fresh tranche of revelations is heaping more and more inflammable material into the fires of class anger. It’s only a matter of time before that conflagration becomes uncontrollable.
Crisis of the monarchy
It has become something of a cliché to say we are living through unprecedented times: an unprecedented economic crisis, an unprecedented pandemic, an unprecedented collapse of Britain’s two-party system, et cetera.
But the depth of the British monarchy’s crisis truly is without precedent. For over a century, the monarchy has managed to maintain a majority of public support. Throughout all the sleaze and scandals, it has weathered every wave of crisis and class struggle.
Under the Windsors, the royal family carefully carved out a public image of a patriotic, upstanding, duty-driven family, presiding over the sordid world of parliamentary politics with a respectful air of deference and composure. They were the smiling, human face of the British state, with Queen Liz playing the part of the nation’s grandmother.
But this entire regal façade has come crashing down like the Walls of Jericho. Even before this latest saga, public approval of the monarchy came crashing below 50 percent last October for the first time since records began. Amongst young people in particular, support has fallen to a mere 28 percent. Andrew’s arrest will cause this to plummet further still.
Meanwhile, recent polls suggest that four in ten Britons would prefer to scrap the royal family altogether. This number will only continue to grow and grow – potentially in a sharp and sudden manner on the basis of events.
But that’s not the whole picture. The truth is that people don’t view this scandal as a problem of the monarchy alone. The Crown is merely the aristocratic apex of an entire system built on abuse and exploitation; racism and misogyny; hypocrisy and stupidity; privilege and degeneracy.
Whether they consciously think this or not, people detest Andrew because he is the system personified. Cast onto his grotesque visage is a reflection of every creepy boss, every abusive policeman, every debaucherous billionaire, and every lying politician that people have the misfortune of experiencing in their daily lives.
And that’s why the Andrew scandal has focussed public anger so much: because it lays bare all of the vices of capitalism, and connects them together in a singular, visceral, and personal way. Therein lies its explosive potential, and its dangers for the ruling class.
Put the whole system on trial
There have been several comparisons made in the press and online between the Epstein scandal and other historical events.
The Dreyfus affair, for example, electrified French society and shaped political struggles for a whole decade. The Profumo affair, meanwhile, contributed to the downfall of the Harold Macmillan government in 1963.
These examples do certainly demonstrate the decisive impact that accidental and non-economic factors can have on the class struggle.
But one relatively little-known event has mostly escaped comparison is the Dutroux scandal and the subsequent ‘White March’ in Belgium in 1996.
Following the police’s bungled handling of a child murder and sex-trafficking case, which pointed in the direction of an elite network of abuse not unlike Epstein’s, the entirety of Belgian society was shaken up to the core with mass unrest, and spontaneous outpourings of protest.
To this date, the mass response to the Dutroux scandal produced the largest demonstrations in Belgian history, with 3 percent of the population participating in them.
With no programme whatsoever, and nothing guiding them other than white-hot rage, the movement forced a string of high-level resignations in the police and judiciary, and the gendarmerie – a wing of the Belgian police – was abolished as part of a restructuring of the whole police force.
And bear in mind that all of this happened during a period of capitalist upswing and relative class peace, soon after the triumphant victory of the liberal world order, and the crushing defeats of the working class across the West.
Imagine what the White March of 2026 would look like – in a period where all of the establishment parties are hated, all of the wings of the state are distrusted, and workers have been pushed to their limits by an onslaught of austerity and economic decline.
The same anger is there today in Britain. The left and trade union leaders could use this moment of extreme weakness for the entire establishment – over Andrew and Mandelson, the mutiny in Labour’s ranks, as well as the recent victories for the Palestine movement – to go on the offensive: to mobilise en masse to bring down the government, and put the working class in the drivers’ seat.
But so far, the response of the left ‘leaders’ to this entire scandal has been woefully poor, if not absent altogether. In truth, it wouldn’t even cross these peoples’ minds to pursue such a course of action. For them, the existence of the monarchy is as natural and unquestionable as the capitalist order itself.
How criminal to squander such a clear opportunity! The entire situation is crying out for a militant lead, but none is forthcoming.
The Revolutionary Communist Party remains too small to provide that lead, which is why we are recruiting to build a fighting opposition to this vile and exploitative system. We say:
- One prince isn’t enough! Lock up the lot of them!
- Starmer out! Put the whole system on trial!
- Down with the Epstein class! Down with this gang of abusers and exploiters!
- Abolish the Monarchy! For a Socialist Republic!
