VAGUE promises about “consulting” and “considering” law changes to block Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from the royal succession fall woefully short of the moment.
The eighth in line to the throne has sparked the gravest crisis faced by the monarchy in our lifetimes.
Even Nazi-loving Edward VIII said he was doing it for love when he threw in the towel in 1936, in perhaps the closest comparable reckoning for the House of Windsor.
And he was effectively banished from the land . . .
You have to go a lot further back to find a senior royal to let down himself, his family and his country so spectacularly badly as Andrew.
While you do find rebellious dukes and wayward princes littered through British history, it is worth noting things don’t end very well for them.
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They certainly were not protected for decades with pay-offs and allowances, leaving a major stain on the otherwise mostly note-perfect legacy of their mother.
Nor were they welcomed home to a big country house after 11 hours in the nick by a valet and chef — all paid for by the current King.
Whether Andrew ends up being charged, found guilty and serving time, his position in Britain is now completely untenable.
Tortured forms of words about who exactly is paying for his servants — and presumably his mounting legal bills — won’t cut it.
The King may be picking up the tab from personal wealth, but we all know that personal wealth is largely dependent on his position as monarch and, directly or otherwise, from the wallets of his subjects.
When justice has run its course — as His Maj has rightly said it must — there can be no place for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in the realm, and certainly not in the UK.
Exile is the only option if Charles III wants to win this battle of survival for his dynasty and the legacy of his family.
Because that is what this is shaping up to be.
Downing Street accepts countries including Australia and Canada will have to be included in legal discussions to strip Andrew of his place in the succession queue — it’s their Royal Family, too.
And it opens the door to a fresh surge of republicanism.
Andrew’s behaviour is leading the news across large swathes of the remaining Commonwealth that have already thought long and hard about going their own way.
Latest polling would suggest support for an Aussie republic is at 41 per cent, compared to 59 per cent who wish to keep the monarchy.
But that survey was done before this scandal hit. I fear it will be grist to the mill for republicans, with some 46 per cent of Canadians already said to have been in favour of a breakaway from the King before Andrew’s downfall.
To stem this tide, Charles needs a decisive knockout blow to distance himself from his brother, which so far he has not delivered.
The King is due here in Washington DC in two months’ time in what had been billed as a historic celebration of America’s 250th birthday.
Instead, under the long shadow of his troublesome brother and the dead paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the trip is shaping up to be a PR disaster.
The King will be visiting the most high-profile experiment in what happens when a people decide they are not so fond of kings after all, right at the moment of maximum danger.
Global attention will be on Trump and Charles as they visit Washington and New York, amid calls for Andrew to be hauled to the US to comply with law enforcement over here as well as give, under oath, testimony to the Epstein inquiries.
Protests by victims are inevitable, alongside endless chatter about the future of the monarchy, all amplified for weeks.
On Thursday, courtiers and officials were left wincing at what could be to come, with President Trump giving a long- running commentary on the state of the Royal Family.
“It’s a very sad thing,” he said, lavishing praise on Charles as a “fantastic person who’s obviously coming to our country very soon”.
Maybe he was trying to be helpful, but this White House is anathema to the Firm’s long-standing “never complain” mantra — giving a timely reminder of his freewheeling disregard for diplomatic norms and protocol.
At a time when the monarchy’s very future is being discussed across the globe, the stakes could not be higher.
It’s time to get in front of the growing clamour and cast out Andrew once and for all.
For I fear other countries will go the way of the United States if he is not.
MUCH talk that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was the first royal arrested since Charles I (who would ultimately lose his head) after the English Civil War almost 400 years ago.
But that cruelly overlooks the 1st Duke of Monmouth, who attempted his own bout of regicide a mere 341 years ago. The illegitimate son of Charles II, the devout Protestant attempted to overthrow his Catholic uncle James II in the abortive Monmouth Rebellion of 1685.
He was arrested for treason and lost his head – and seemingly his place in the history books.
EXPECT major fireworks on Tuesday evening when seething Donald Trump addresses the American people in his annual State of the Union address.
Sitting in front of him in the audience at Congress will be the nine Supreme Court justices who have just ruled the President’s flagship tariff policy unlawful.
I suspect he will make his feelings known, in his signature style, on what he considers a “disgraceful” verdict .
While the White House insists there are other legal routes for the President to save his import levies, the 6-3 ruling by America’s top judges is a hammer blow to the entire centrepiece of the President’s economic policy ahead of crucial, legacy-defining mid-term elections in November.
Not least because the $200billion raised last year on the taxes on goods coming into the US has already been spent on deficit reduction and subsidising American farmers.
Repaying all that cash will not just be politically painful but a massive headache for the US Treasury, just when they need the economy to be going gangbusters.
