The arrest is history: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

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1:04Gregg Carlstrom:The Economist

1:11Gregg Carlstrom:Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

1:25Gregg Carlstrom:Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are both Gulf monarchies with vast oil and gas reserves, both stable American allies that have had common cause for decades. But they're having a tiff, one that could be bad news well outside the region. And Jesse Jackson had an incredibly inclusive vision for America's Democratic Party, for the country itself. Our obituaries editor says he campaigned for more than a half century from the moment he witnessed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

2:05But first...

2:11Gregg Carlstrom:I think it's fair to say that most Britons love a little scuttlebutt about the royal family. Indiscretions and peccadillos and petty squabbles, it's all a reminder of their very human failings. They are no better than us, kind of thing. But the king's brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, he is responsible for way more scuttlebutt than the public bargained for, perhaps most of all the accusations of Virginia Giuffre, who claimed that Jeffrey Epstein forced her to have sex with Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor. Just one of the events that have led to him being stripped of his titles and gently nudged out of his house.

2:47Gregg Carlstrom:As the Epstein file dumps have kept coming, Andrew's name and image keep cropping up. And yesterday, on his 66th birthday, the cops came knocking. It's really an event without precedent.

3:01Sonny Loughran:Sonny Loughran is a Britain writer at The Economist. If you look at the papers today, the pictures of Andrew leaving the police station are plastered all over the front pages, which I think gives you some sense of just how massive this is in Britain.

3:15Gregg Carlstrom:So Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested. Under what charges? What's going on?

3:21Sonny Loughran:So crucially, he hasn't been charged. The investigation is ongoing and the Crown Prosecution Service will assess the evidence to decide whether a charge can be brought forward in time. That could take a while. But the timing and the fact that he's being investigated for misconduct in public office suggest that this is related to the latest batch of Epstein files released by the US Department of Justice. They appear to show Andrew during his time as Britain's trade envoy passing confidential documents to Jeffrey Epstein, which isn't allowed. Those kind of documents are generally covered by the Official Secrets Act and trade envoys are charged with keeping them confidential.

3:55Sonny Loughran:We should also say that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied wrongdoing in regards with his relationship with Epstein. Having been released from the police station yesterday, Andrew returned to the King's estate in Sandringham, but Thames Valley police say they are set to resume searches at the Royal Lodge, Andrew's former home in Berkshire.

4:12Gregg Carlstrom:But whether or not charges are eventually pressed, the idea that this has happened at all is pretty striking.

4:20Sonny Loughran:Yes, it's very unusual. In 2002, Princess Anne became the first member of the House of Windsor to be convicted of a criminal offence after her dog bit two children in a Windsor park. But she was never arrested and paid only a small fine. The last time this son of a monarch was arrested was in 1685. that was James Scott, the first Duke of Monmouth. But he was the illegitimate son of Charles II and thus never in line for the throne, unlike Andrew, who is eighth in line. The last proper role to be detained was Charles I, who was charged with treason and tyranny, having been defeated in the English Civil War and beheaded in 1649.

4:58Gregg Carlstrom:Now, I think it stands to reason that Mr Mountbatten-Windsor will not be beheaded, but this is the law taking its course, I guess.

5:07Sonny Loughran:Yes, I don't think he'll be beheaded, but he could still face a serious sentence. So Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is under investigation for misconduct in public office, which is a notoriously difficult offence to convict someone of. The vast majority of those convicted for misconduct in public office are prison guards and police officers. No politician or high-level public official has ever been convicted. But if he is convicted, the max sentence is life. On some level, his arrest is a sign of things working as they should. None of the powerful Americans implicating the Epstein files have yet been arrested.

5:41Sonny Loughran:The son of Queen Elizabeth II has. And history is full of royals who got away with things that would have put their subjects behind bars. So on some level, this is progress. And on Thursday, the king promised to help with any investigation, saying that the law must take its course. But it's definitely not a good look for the monarchy. And there could be more damaging reports to come. Police are still assessing whether to investigate separate allegations that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked a woman to the Royal Windsor estate to have sex with Andrew. And there are big questions about just how much Andrew's aides and security officers knew and enabled his relationship with Epstein.

6:17Sonny Loughran:Even the late Queen, who reportedly loaned Andrew millions to help settle his case with Virginia Giuffre, may not escape criticism.

6:24Gregg Carlstrom:And as you say, in a more general sense, this is not a good look for the monarchy. after quite a long period of bad looks.

6:32Sonny Loughran:Yes, well, Republicans certainly sense an opportunity, and they're quite optimistic that this scandal threatens the institution of monarchy itself. It's obviously a moment of weakness, but that's quite ambitious. Without getting too much into the political theory, the monarchy exists to provide a kind of national myth and spectacle. Sometimes that means deifying the royals. Other times it means reviling them. Scandal is a feature of monarchy, not a bug. so I think we should be careful with the idea that any one scandal can really damage the monarchy in the way abolitionists hope saying that we just don't know what this investigation is going to turn up and it could still get a lot worse for the House of Windsor Sonny thanks very much for your time Cheers Jason

7:32Jason Palmer:Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the two biggest economies in the Arab world. They're the two biggest powers in the Gulf. They've been allies for decades with economies that are very tightly linked.

7:44Gregg Carlstrom:Greg Karlstrom is a Middle East correspondent for The Economist.

7:48Jason Palmer:And yet, over the past few months, they have fallen into a steadily worsening spat, one that is going to have consequences for the region and perhaps beyond.

8:00Gregg Carlstrom:So what's the source of the spat, Greg?

8:03Jason Palmer:It's been brewing for years. And as always in the Gulf, these things are both political and personal. The political part of it is divergent approaches to foreign policy. The Saudis have become increasingly frustrated with the UAE because the UAE has been supporting rebel groups and separatist movements and other non-state actors across the Middle East. We've seen that in Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, and other places in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. And the Saudis feel like that is undermining and weakening states and central governments in the region. The counter-argument from the UAE is that many of these states are weak to begin with, and they would rather work with separatists or rebel groups if they're strong and reasonably effective at controlling territory, the UAE would rather work with them than work with weak central governments.

8:56Jason Palmer:And very often, this is a proxy for a dispute over political Islam. The UAE hates Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, and so it always backs their opposite numbers, whereas the Saudis are more willing to work with Islamists. There's also, I think a level of personal animosity growing between Hamid bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince, and Hamid bin Zayed, who is the president of the UAE. Ten years ago, when MBS was first coming onto the scene in Saudi Arabia, they were very closely aligned. But we've gotten to a point now where MBS thinks Saudi Arabia is the biggest country in the Gulf.

9:34Jason Palmer:It should be calling the shots and the Emiratis should follow behind. Whereas I think MBZ and Abu Dhabi resent taking orders from the Saudis, he feels like his country ought to be able to have its own independent foreign policy.

9:47Gregg Carlstrom:And you said that the spat could have implications for the region and beyond. What are the effects closer to home?

9:53Jason Palmer:The most immediate concern is for business people in both countries. The economic ties between these two countries are very, very tight. Trade is worth about$31 billion a year. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are both among the largest export markets for one another. And the concern is that as relations deteriorate, business is going to get harder. I've heard from diplomats who say that in speaking to companies in the region, they've heard stories of trucks being held up at the border coming into Saudi Arabia from the UAE, the Saudis delaying customs approval recently. They've heard from companies in the UAE that can't get Saudi visas for employees who need to come to Saudi Arabia on business trips.

10:37Jason Palmer:None of this is catastrophic yet, right? But executives are starting to draw up contingency plans in case things get worse.

10:46Gregg Carlstrom:And what about as regards conflicts in the region, the degree to which the spat is because each state doesn't like the way the other one is dealing with conflicts?

10:55Jason Palmer:So we saw this most recently in Yemen around Christmas. Now, Saudi Arabia and the UAE for many years had been on the same side in Yemen. They invaded the country in 2015 after the Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia, seized large chunks of territory. The Saudis and the Emiratis and some other countries fought together. But they've really had a falling out over the past few months after a group known as the Southern Transitional Council, which is a separatist group that wants to re-establish South Yemen as an independent state. Once on a major offensive back in December, they seized a lot of territory from forces backed by the Saudis.

11:33Jason Palmer:Now, the Southerners are backed by the UAE. And so this mapped onto the proxy conflict between the two countries. The Saudis were unhappy about this. They saw it as a threat to their security, having this UAE-backed separatist movement getting awfully close to their borders. And so they started carrying out airstrikes against the separatists. They forced the UAE to withdraw entirely from Yemen. They've pushed back the STC for now. But the fact that you had in December, Saudi jets bombing an armed shipment from the UAE in Yemen was the first direct conflict between these two countries. And it was a sign of just how bad things have become.

12:12Gregg Carlstrom:But given that both these countries do have entanglements much further afield, how much is this a battle between the two of them and a battle that sets things unstable elsewhere?

12:21Jason Palmer:I've heard about two particular areas of concern in recent weeks. One of them is the Horn of Africa. The UAE has invested quite a lot in relations with Ethiopia over the past two years. They're very close to Abe's government in Ethiopia, whereas the Saudis have aligned themselves with Eritrea. Now, Ethiopia and Eritrea already somewhat at daggers drawn. the Ethiopians are looking for access to a port on the Red Sea somewhere because they're a landlocked country. They are accusing the Eritreans of helping to foment ethnic conflict inside of Ethiopia. So they're on bad terms. And then you add to it this competition between their foreign backers, the Saudis and the Emiratis.

13:06Jason Palmer:And there's a fear that we may see greater conflict in the Horn of Africa. And then the other country that I hear people worrying about is Syria. The Saudis have invested quite a lot in supporting Ahmed Sharar's government. Of course, the interim president who took power after the Assad regime fell in 2024. The UAE, on the other hand, is very skeptical of the Sharar government because he is an Islamist. He used to be a jihadist. And again, the UAE hates anyone who comes from an Islamist background. So there's a fear that if things get bad between the Saudis and the Emiratis, that that conflict may play out in Syria, that perhaps the UAE might look for partners to work with who are not the central government in Syria.

13:49Jason Palmer:So again, the concern is that this won't stay limited to the Gulf, that in a region that is already quite unstable, this conflict between the two Gulf heavyweights will have consequences elsewhere.

13:59Gregg Carlstrom:And is the fear of that kind of spread of instability enough to help de-escalate things? Do you have a sense that this might be self-limiting in some way, or is this only getting hotter and hotter?

14:09Jason Palmer:It seems to be the latter so far. There's been no shortage of efforts to mediate. Qatar, somewhat ironically, which was blockaded by Saudi Arabia and the UAE nine years ago, is now trying to mediate the conflict between Saudi and the UAE. There's also been a flurry of diplomacy from Egypt, from Bahrain, from Turkey, but they don't seem to have made any progress. And my understanding is that the top leaders from Saudi and the UAE essentially have not spoken since the end of December. So this is going to come down to whether you can convince the two of them to bury the hatchet and go back to having a functional relationship.

14:48Jason Palmer:And so far, there are no signs of that.