The King banishes Andrew - but will it be enough?

0:02Jon Sopel:This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:05Emily Maitlis:Am I right in thinking you threw a birthday party for Epstein's girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, at Sandringham?

0:13Jon Sopel:No, it was a shooting weekend.

0:15Emily Maitlis:A shooting weekend?

0:15Jon Sopel:Just a straightforward shooting weekend.

0:18Emily Maitlis:That was Prince Andrew speaking to me in November of 2019. It looks like Andrew, as we must now get used to calling him, will be spending a lot more time at Sandringham.

0:30Jon Sopel:The decision of the king to strip him of his title of prince, to strip him of the Royal Lodge at Windsor, was dramatic, jaw-dropping. But will it be enough for the royal family to finally deal with the Andrew problem? Welcome to the News Agents.

0:56Jon Sopel:The News Agents. It's John.

0:58Emily Maitlis:It's Emily.

0:59Jon Sopel:It's Lewis. And to give a rough timeline on events, we had been due to give you an episode that was a Q &A today, so sorry if your questions aren't being answered, but we then repaired to a pub last night, the three of us, with the whole of the News Agents team, because our dear cameraman Rory is going on to past as new, and we were in the pub probably for about an hour, hour and a half when Mr Goodall produces his phone with the breaking news on it that the prince had been stripped of his princedom and would no longer be living in Royal Lodge. And we all went, gosh. Well, I don't think the word was gosh, but it was something like that.

1:41Jon Sopel:It is an astonishing moment in the history of this royal family. It is.

1:45Lewis Goodall:I mean, that statement, although short, it could not have been more pointed and it could not in its own way, a royal way, an understated way but nonetheless have been more excoriating. And it says His Majesty is today initiated a formal process to remove the style, titles and honours of Prince Andrew who will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten-Window. It then says that his lease on the Royal Lodge will be removed. And then that last paragraph where they say Their Majesties, i.e. the King and Queen, wish to make clear that their thoughts and utmost sympathies have been and will remain with the victims and survivors of any and all forms of abuse.

2:22Lewis Goodall:That cannot be read to me in any other way than effectively saying that the king believes the accuser, Virginia Giffray, does not believe Prince Andrew, his brother, who has always denied these allegations, and not only in word but in deed, to remove, to formally strip his younger brother of not just the dukedom but the princely title itself. It's basically without modern precedent. The closest thing or any precedent at all in the history of the royal family, the closest you'd have to get to is going back to the sort of early 20th century when King George at the time removed various titles from sort of German relatives, quite distant German relatives in the First World War.

2:59Lewis Goodall:But nothing like this. Someone who is so close in line to the throne itself to actually have his princeton removed is without precedent.

3:09Emily Maitlis:Yeah, and although this feels like it came out of the blue, or as you say, in the pub, there was an inkling that something was afoot as early as last Thursday. Now, we reported earlier this week on the newsagents that some kind of news was expected when on Thursday of last week, crews were called to Royal Lodge for a passing traffic camera shot. What did that mean? It meant that newsrooms were alerted that there might be a shot of interest if they wanted to send a camera crew down to Royal Lodge at about eight o 'clock last Thursday. And in the end, it got too big. As we know, there were sort of too many crews there.

3:53Emily Maitlis:There was a chopper, there was a helicopter and the announcement or the shot itself was pulled. What did that mean? It meant that King Charles had imagined driving through or up to the gates, through the gates of Royal Lodge to basically read his brother, Prince Andrew, the riot act. And the palace decided that it was called off because it all felt too much. But it didn't mean the story had gone away. Quite the opposite. It would not have been anywhere near the scale that we saw last night if it had happened on Thursday. And so I guess the question is, what happened between then and yesterday?

4:31Emily Maitlis:Well, on the one hand, the king had more of a chance to think about what he wanted to do. He faced that very public heckle at Litchfield Cathedral on Monday. And there were questions that had started to mount about whether the sovereign had a real grip on the Andrew question. He did. He always did. But it had to be managed carefully. And I was speaking last night to those who are very close to the king and queen. And from what I understand, the talks began again on Tuesday. People close to the monarch were asked their thoughts on Tuesday night. The talks continued into Wednesday morning and were then signed off.

5:11Emily Maitlis:And something, to be honest, that I had not properly understood, and I think many in the media had not properly understood, was that Prince William was not actually the one driving this. We'd all understood that the real sort of heft of this move came from Prince William. I was told last night that it is Prince William actually who's most concerned about the state of his uncle's mental health, something that he takes very seriously. His work, Kate's work has been very close to the issues of mental health. And I was also told that there was a bit of discomfort. Maybe that's too strong. There was a bit of nervousness from the siblings, from Prince Edward, from Princess Anne, who didn't want their eldest brother to go too hard on their other brother, Andrew.

5:58Emily Maitlis:But it was the king himself who had nerves of steel. And again, contrary to what we read in the newspapers, I heard that originally there was extremely strong pushback from Andrew, who was trying to find every means and every reasons he could to resist this. And when I asked last night what brought Andrew around, I was told that the monarch had simply made him see the ultimate threat. In other words, and this is a phrase that was used to me, I don't think it's the words that the king used, you'll topple us all. In other words, Andrew did not want that on his shoulders. that the idea was that the king had put to him something in the tenor of, would your mother really want to see you putting at risk the whole establishment?

6:46Emily Maitlis:Which I think goes back to the chat that we had earlier this week, which is about how public perception and public mood was way ahead of certainly where parliament was, where MPs were, and even where the palace, possibly even where the king was. And they suddenly got this sense that things were, I mean, not precarious. It wasn't like the whole thing was going to end overnight, but the questions were being raised in the public's imagination. And the king thought he had to move decisively and fast. And he had to make Andrew see that this was, yes, possibly an existential moment.

7:21Jon Sopel:Yeah, I think that is absolutely fascinating what you've gleaned from your contacts, Emily, particularly that this isn't just about Andrew and the problem of Andrew and it just being about him. It's about all of them. And unless they did something very, very dramatic, then all of them could be in some kind of jeopardy as a result of it. And you can imagine the machinations, you know, I mean, you know, just any family having to deal with this. But a family, the royal family, under a perpetual microscope for anything that they do and the analysis that it will bring. That, you know, it would be difficult enough to do something like this, even if it was your own brother and you were just leading a quiet life in suburban Britain or whatever it happens to be.

8:15Jon Sopel:But this was in the glare of publicity. I'm also fascinated, Emily, because there was so much to dig into there. What you said about and I think that, you know, it has felt like it is open season on Andrew at the moment that the concerns within the family of guys steady. This is someone who might be in a fragile state right now.

8:35Emily Maitlis:Yeah, that was a big twist for me, actually. And we'd assume that William was the steely one. But actually, I think they are having those conversations. They do need to go carefully. And it is, you know, at the heart, I know we call it a firm and we call it a monarchy and we call it an establishment, but it is a family. And I think there were definitely voices being raised, you know, in the lead up to this. I'm not saying this was all on Tuesday and Wednesday night. But in the lead up to this, we do need to remember that there is somebody at the heart of this who may be feeling incredibly mentally fragile.

9:09Emily Maitlis:And I think that was coming, sounds like, from what I was told from Prince William.

9:13Lewis Goodall:Well, he might end up more mentally fragile because there is talk. I mean, Chris Bryant, Labour minister, was doing media around this morning and he was asked about this. They said that the government is fully supportive of this action, that the prime minister is fully supportive of it. He inevitably will have been consulted about it. But he was asked as to whether the government would support if the US House of Representatives wants to continue its inquiries into Epstein and the links that he had with various people, including Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, whether he ought to go and go before Congress.

9:43Lewis Goodall:And Chris Bryant, on behalf of the government, said, well, now that he's an ordinary person, a member of the public, to use his words, like anybody else, then yes, if that's what Congress was. I'm sure Chris Bryant said I'm sure that he would comply. But I think that it is a mark and it has to be, I think, a measure of how rattled and deeply, deeply concerned the king is and the monarchy is. And probably to some extent the government might be as to what impact this could yet have on the royal family and the monarchy itself. And I think that, you know, Charles, who knows that as a result of the long, long length of his mother's reign, knows that he is a transitional figure for the monarchy.

10:24Lewis Goodall:His reign is going to be short. This is easily the most important decision that he's made since he's become king. It may be the most important decision he makes during his reign. He's trying to cauterise a wound basically for his son. He doesn't clearly, I think, want William to have to deal with this. There have been all his reports in the newspapers, haven't there, about the idea that when Charles is gone, if Andrew is still around, then William would be harsher. Charles has decided that he's not going to bequeath that legacy or bequeath that problem to his son. And it seems to me to be a seminal moment in his reign.

10:55Jon Sopel:I couldn't agree more. I also think that there's something else about, you know, I've been speaking to people in government this morning and, you know, they're saying, look, of course, we were consulted about all of this. And we weren't surprised when the statement came out last night. I get the impression that it's very different from the last major moment, which was, of course, the death of Diana and the reaction that took place after her death and the Queen and the rest of the royal family staying up in Balmoral. when it looked like the Blair government was kind of being very proactive in telling the royal family what they needed to do to be in line with public opinion.

11:33Jon Sopel:And, you know, your majesty, the public need to see you back at Buckingham Palace and we can't just have the flag flying at half mast over there. You need to come back. I think this government is very happy to say, no, no, no. This was the king sorting this out himself and not trying to interject themselves into the story of what has unfolded in the past 24 hours.

11:54Lewis Goodall:Although I think it's undoubtedly true that one of the reasons, one of the factors the palace would have moved in this way is because they would have observed and seen what we've been talking about for the last week or two, which is the rising parliamentary pressure, which was coming from all sides of the house to do something more dramatic. And of course, there are still other things that could be done. You might think that, you know, once you've taken the princeton away, what is there left? It's worth just noting, and this would be a matter for the government and it would be a matter for parliament, it's worth noting that Andrew remains eighth in line to the throne.

12:19Lewis Goodall:Theoretically, there could be some cataclysm and Andrew could be our head of state. Obviously, that is deeply unlikely. But for him to remain, it seems to me, in the line of succession feels pretty absurd when you're saying that he doesn't deserve being a prince. But theoretically, at least, he could be king. That's crazy.

12:36Emily Maitlis:I think the main thing that the king has done at this point is put distance between himself and Andrew. And that is obviously geographic. As we said at the beginning, Andrew will be moving to Sandringham. We don't know the cottage that he'll be living in. But when I was asked about the size of the cottage, I was directed to think of it as more of a villa, something with at least six bedrooms. So probably not what most people have in their mind. And the question I asked was what happens then to his close protection, to his security, his bodyguards? And I was told that it would be light touch, will no longer be at the taxpayer's expense.

13:13Emily Maitlis:And I think this does open a much bigger question that you were starting to talk about with Chris Bryant, that once there isn't that sense of immunity, clearly nobody is above the law, but there was a sense of a protective circle around Andrew whilst he was inside the royal family. When that is gone, when he's a private citizen, then if the police want to question him, if the Met Police want to question him, that becomes much easier. If Congress want to call him, that becomes much easier. Without titles, the forces of the law know that they have, if you like, the king's sanction to do their job without dragging him into it.

13:54Emily Maitlis:And I think the statement that you read at the beginning confirms the sovereign's thoughts that places the victims at the centre. And it's a very confusing line that just to dig into it for a second, because they don't mention Andrew and Jufres by name. They don't even mention Epstein by name. Clearly, Andrew has denied all the allegations that Virginia Jufres made against him. And so I was curious to understand whether the monarch now considers Andrew guilty. And I was told that, roughly phrased, they think he's a privileged, overprivileged, entitled man out of step with the world, out of step with the modern world.

14:35Emily Maitlis:Is he an absolute criminal? Probably not. But they'll never really know the involvement that he had. And this allows that sense of distance, as I said at the beginning, it allows the police to come in if they need to. It allows Congress to come if they need to. And I think that is a very important part of what has happened here, that the king is actually saying, I'm hands off now.

14:56Lewis Goodall:The only thing I'd say is, right, one of the reasons that this is so damaging and potentially still really damaging, who knows, maybe even existential for the royal family. Let's be honest, the king can talk about putting distance between himself and Andrew at this point as much as he wants. But this family have protected this guy for a long, long time. The late queen protected this guy. She's his favourite son for a long time. He was an HRH until 2019. He was a trade envoy until, what, 2011. This is a guy who is still going to be living at the king's expense. We say it's private expense, but as we've just talked about on the show before, where private and public ends for the royal family, I don't know.

15:31Lewis Goodall:No one's ever been able to explain it to me. So they've taken this maximal action now because they've been forced to do so by events. That's the truth. This is an institution which has protected him. That is the cold, harsh truth.

15:41Jon Sopel:Yes, that is the cold, harsh truth. But I think that the king has total plausible deniability in the sense that he wasn't king when all of this was erupting. And his mother paid for the settlement. we understand you know that that is how much so all of those things you know the queen who had this kind of seemingly blemish free record all the time that she was on the throne prince andrew is maybe a black mark in the way that she dealt with that afterwards and not kind of seeing where things were but i do think that you know is has the king been radical yes is it enough to cauterise the wound, as it were, that Andrew has left.

16:20Jon Sopel:I think possibly, in the sense that, realistically, this is a maximalist position that the king has taken. Still living on the king's property, at the king's expense. Sure, he's not living in a two-up, two-down, but at the same time, it is a mighty, mighty fall from grace. He could say, don't live with someone else. There are going to be some people who want his nose rubbed in the dirt even more. But I think that the kind of sense of it is now, OK, that statement from the King last night was pretty emphatic and decisive. And that therefore maybe, yes, look, every camera of every news organisation is pointed at the gates that lead to Royal Lodge in Windsor right now in the hope of catching a snap of Andrew arriving, leaving, whatever.

17:11Jon Sopel:They've probably got a long, wet day there. But maybe by the middle of next week, it will kind of think, what new lines have we got?