Prince Harry will likely be removed as Counsellor of State by the government

The royal “Counsellors of State” conversation really started last year, when the Queen was hospitalized and Buckingham Palace covered up her hospitalization for 24 hours. The week she was hospitalized and canceling her schedule, both Prince William and Prince Charles were out of the country. William was on holiday (per usual) and Charles was working. People realized that Prince Andrew was the only Counsellor of State in the country at the time, so if the Queen was truly incapacitated, Andrew would have had “authority” to make certain decisions.

In the months to follow, there’s been talk about removing Prince Harry and Prince Andrew as two of the four Counsellors of State, and replacing at least one of them with the Duchess of Cornwall. Nothing has been done about it because it’s not really Buckingham Palace’s decision – it’s a matter of state and a matter for the government. It’s also sort of a fundamental continuity-of-government issue, and I’m still shocked that no one has really dealt with it? Well, finally, rumors abound that the government might be looking into it:

Prince Harry should not be eligible to stand in for the Queen as a Counsellor of State because he no longer resides in the country, a new parliamentary briefing paper reveals. But Prince Andrew could still stand in for his mother should she become incapacitated, despite having to step down from public duties and relinquish his HRH title because of the Epstein scandal.

This week the House of Commons Library quietly published for the first time guidance on what arrangements can be put in place if a monarch is unable to perform their royal functions. It follows intense public debate about the roles of Dukes of Sussex and York as ‘stand-ins’ for the sovereign now they have both quit as working royals, particularly in light of the 95-year-old Queen’s recent ill-health.

The parliamentary briefing paper will increase pressure on Buckingham Palace to take legal steps to resolve the matter once and for all. There have been calls to appoint the next two senior royals in line to the throne – Prince Edward and Princess Anne – in their place.

A Government source said: ‘There’s been a lot of noise about Harry and Andrew and their roles as Counsellors of State and it was felt important MPs had all the facts. It has nothing to do with Her Majesty being ill.’

Crucially, the newly-published guidance says: ‘Under the 1937 Act, a Counsellor of State must be domiciled in “some part” of the UK.’ It adds: ‘The Regency Act 1943 added the discretionary provision that if it “appears to the Sovereign” that any eligible Counsellor will be “absent from the United Kingdom or intends to be so absent during the whole or any part of the period of such delegation”, then Letters Patent [a legal tool available to the monarch] “may make provision” for excepting that person.’

Harry remains sixth in line to the throne but hasn’t lived in the UK since late 2019. However, there is no provision under the Act to exclude a member of the family who is no longer a working royal, so long as they remain in the line of succession, so Andrew, who is ninth, could be called on to stand in.

Buckingham Palace said last night that there was ‘no change’ to the current Counsellors. An aide said suggested there were ‘no plans’ to change them. Sources speculated the royal household may be concerned about the reaction from ‘across the pond’ if changes are made. ‘They could just be reluctant to poke the bear,’ they said.

[From The Daily Mail]

Call me cynical, but I would imagine that all of this is being slow-walked because they don’t want to go through a massive fuss about changing the Counsellors of State when most of these people know that they’ll have to do it again (soon) for King Charles. When Charles is king, Camilla will be one of his Counsellors of State, and William too. That’s when the larger conversation about whether Harry is “allowed” to be a Counsellor will really happen, and I would assume that Charles will have a bigger say in whether he wants Harry as a counsellor. And I would think… no, probably not. Charles would probably prefer Anne and… God knows. Not Edward and not Andrew. LOL. But yeah, they should definitely take care of this. (And I kind of doubt Harry cares at this point, but who knows.)

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, WENN.

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