Thread by @AndrewPRLevi

The level of desperation emanating from Downing Street today is off any normal charts.

First MI5 (see short 🧵, attached 👇).

Now HM The Queen.

I’m talking about Prince - no longer HRH - Andrew, of course.

Let’s clear this up, shall we?

Another🧵 /1.

https://twitter.com/andrewprlevi/status/1481664885549408260

Under the UK’s peculiar constitutional arrangements, The Queen is required (or assumed by convention to be required) to heed, & act on, the advice of her PM.

She is considered, under the same conventions, to have the right to be consulted, to encourage & to warn./2.

In the case of Prince Andrew giving up his military ranks & roles, his patronages & use of “HRH”, that means:

(a) The Queen is required to agree to those steps if the PM advises them

(b) the same goes for the timing

(c) she can’t take them without the PM’s agreement

/3.

The Queen has the (assumed) right to be consulted by the PM about the proposed steps. She has the right to encourage them to be taken. Or to warn against them being taken.

But she can’t make them happen. Stop them happening. Or change the timing. If the PM is determined. /4.

Sometimes it’s said that The Queen makes “personal” official decisions, such as the award of the Royal Victorian Order or the Garter.

But when push comes to shove, that’s a polite fiction.

If the PM is determined to prevent an award, it will be stopped. /5.

What if the PM wants The Queen to be party to something illegal?

Well, it turns out she does it.

We have - unbelievably - a high profile case study with the current PM.

Why does she do it? She has to take the PM’s advice. If he advises the action is legal, that’s that. /6.

So, back to Prince Andrew.

The actions announced are, of course, due to the dangers represented by the Epstein-related court case in the US.

Yesterday, Andrew’s motion to have the case against him dismissed was thrown out. But he can appeal that. He may. /7.

On the one hand, Andrew’s Epstein debacle has been unfolding for so long, a decision to strip him of titles etc could long since have been taken. On the other, Andrew’s case has far to run (unless, with the agreement of his accuser, he settles). /8.

The accusations against Andrew are most serious. In that sense special, of course.

But there’s nothing special about the current moment. Still less about Thursday 13 Jan 2021, the day after Mr Johnson was brutally taken apart at PMQs, with multiple calls for his resignation. /9.

As with the Chinese agent case (my separate 🧵, see above), “go figure”.

Really. It’s high time.

The disgraceful spectacle of Mr Rees-Mogg lying to The Queen on the PM’s behalf was a stark warning. /10.

The politicisation & debasement of the The Queen & the role of Head of State is just more collateral damage from the actions of an increasingly desperate, reckless occupant of 10 Downing Street.

Prince Andrew & Mr Johnson are sweating right now.

So should we all be. /11. End