Two thirds of Britons back removal of Duke of York's titles
An unflattering biography of the disgraced duke by Andrew Lownie this month delved into the private life of the late Queen's son, depicting him as sex obsessed, a 'useful idiot' and easy prey for Jeffrey Epstein.
Two thirds of Britons support stripping Prince Andrew of his remaining royal titles, a move Prince William is reportedly considering for when he becomes king
Support: 67%Oppose: 13%
Results link in following tweet pic.twitter.com/NsI8EFfRxx
— YouGov (@YouGov) August 11, 2025
Some 13% opposed the removal of his titles and 21% were unsure, the survey showed.
Three years ago, 62% believed Andrew should have his York title removed, with the current 67% in-favour figure seeing a jump of five percentage points.
Another YouGov survey found that just 5% have a positive view of the King's brother, with Andrew languishing at the bottom of the royal favourability tables, beneath the Duchess of Sussex who has a 20% positive rating and the Duke of Sussex at 28%.
Legislation would be required for Parliament to prevent Andrew continuing as the Duke of York, while his birthright to be a prince, as the son of a monarch, could be changed if a Letters Patent were issued by the King.
The duke stopped using his style of His Royal Highness following his disastrous Newsnight interview, but it could be removed entirely by a Letters Patent.
Andrew stepped away from his public role in 2019 amid the furore over his friendship with convicted billionaire paedophile Epstein.
He later paid millions to settle a civil sexual assault case with Virginia Giuffre, who was trafficked by Epstein as a teenager and who Andrew claimed never to have met.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Trump's approval ratings drop with Republicans as he deals with Epstein fallout and tariff concerns
President Donald Trump's approval ratings with Republicans have dropped as he handles fallout from the so-called 'Epstein Files', and concerns about rising prices linked to his global tariffs. A new poll this week, from YouGov and The Economist, revealed 13 percent of Republicans disapproved of the president, with 83 percent approving. The poll was conducted among 1,577 adults across the U.S. This number had increased from May when a similar poll found that 9 percent of that group disapproved of the president. A YouGov/Economist poll, taken on January 26- 28, days after Trump returned to the White House, revealed only a 5 percent disapproval rate among right-leaning Americans. The president's slowly but surely declining approval rating, even among his own supporters, may indicate that his loyal MAGA base is faltering. Specifically, Trump's approval rating with right-leaning Americans has declined on issues including personal trust and the economy. In June, inflation rose to 2.7 percent. Job growth slowed down last month with just 73,000 jobs added to the economy, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate rose to 4.2 percent, but remains historically low. Trump fired head of the bureau, Erika McEntarfer, after the surprisingly weak jobs report, claiming without evidence that the numbers had been rigged. On Monday, he appointed conservative economist E.J. Antoni to the role. The president is seeing inflation rise even as he promised that it would end on the first day of his second stint in the White House. "Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods," he said at an election rally last August. Trump's sagging approval rating among his own supporters also comes amid concerns about his tariff policy. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick predicted that monthly revenue would reach $50 billion due to the new taxes on imports - however, JP Morgan warned that the costs will ultimately be passed onto consumers in the form of higher prices. Trump's economic approval rating with Republicans dropped from 90 percent in January to 79 percent this month. When it comes to inflation, his approval rating went from 84 percent to 72 percent. While the vast majority of Republicans and right-leaning Americans still support the president, the polling trends indicate that economic worries may be eating into that support. Voters' views on Trump's trustworthiness also took a hit. Between the January poll and the latest survey, Republicans who think the president is untrustworthy went from 7 to 14 percent. One major issue that has caused ruptures in the MAGA base is the Trump administration's handling of the investigation into deceased sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Many conservatives, along with Democrats, were outraged by a July 6 memo from the Department of Justice and FBI which concluded that Epstein died by suicide and that there was no 'client list' of high-profile figures involved in his alleged sex trafficking scheme. Attorney General Pam Bondi had earlier insinuated there was a client list sitting on her desk, and that much more information was to be revealed in the investigation. Trump reacted to the uproar by telling his supporters to move on from Epstein. In the weeks following the DOJ memo, the Wall Street Journal published a bombshell story about Trump sending Epstein, his onetime friend, a 'bawdy' birthday sketch in 2003 which reportedly read: 'Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.' The president denied creating the card, and filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the WSJ and its owner Rupert Murdoch. Subsequent reporting also revealed that Trump was informed by Bondi in May that his name appeared in the Epstein files, along with many other high-profile people. Last month Trump denied Bondi had told him that he appears in the Epstein files. The president has never been formally accused or charged with a crime in connection with Epstein. And the issue is unlikely to disappear. Representatives Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, and Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, are planning to bring Epstein survivors to the Capitol for a press conference on September 3 when the House returns from recess.
Spectator
2 hours ago
- Spectator
The US is right to warn Britain about its free speech record
Every year the US State Department is required to produce a report on the human rights situation in every country in the world. The report card for the UK came out yesterday. While otherwise fairly anodyne, the US was painfully scathing about our record on free speech. Unsurprisingly, the State Department was unhappy about the Online Safety Act's long-arm provisions affecting US websites, our abortion protest laws and our strict contempt rules (which last year forced the New Yorker to take the drastic step of geoblocking an important and informative article about the Lucy Letby case). It was particularly caustic about the fallout from Southport, where it did not mince its words. It stated, citing widespread arrests and prosecutions for online comments, that 'censorship of ordinary Britons was increasingly routine, often targeted at political speech'. Ouch. Admittedly this appraisal bears strong marks of a Trump administration finger discreetly placed on the scale. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has long seen State Department bureaucracy as too woke and progressive in its approach to human rights abroad: reportedly the order has gone out to backpedal equality and diversity issues and emphasise traditional freedoms instead. Furthermore, the Trump government's own free speech record at home is far from spotless: witness its fairly heavy-handed attempts to browbeat universities, broadcasters and others to toe its line. Nevertheless, this is something we'd be very foolish to ignore. The first point is that, biased or not, the State Department is correct. Britain, or at least the establishment in charge of it, shows worrying signs of seeing free speech as a distraction to be sidelined rather than a value to be pursued. True, the whirlwind state descent on social media following Southport, and the stern warnings from police and others to avoid controversial comment, may not have been secretly ordered from Downing Street in the manner of some Central American dictatorship. But an unprecedented and vicious clampdown it still was, even if it reflected no more than tacit agreement among the great, the good and the courts that something drastic had to be done to stop people speaking out of turn. There were plenty of other things that could have been highlighted in the report, and which would have been an entirely fair cop. Even if the total suppression by injunction of discussion over the Afghan refugee crisis came too late, there were always the 30-plus people a day arrested for social media posts, regular police interventions to silence speakers who might cause offence, and so on. Secondly, it's important that we should take note of how others see us. The slow but steady erosion since about 1990 of our right to speak our mind without state interference has passed many by in the UK who are not free speech enthusiasts. And not entirely surprisingly: gradual political change often presents itself as a fait accompli to a population when it is too late to do much about it. But all this has not escaped foreigners. We should be worried that this country, once seen as a beacon of free speech in an increasingly authoritarian Europe, should now be seen as a serious backslider. Particularly so where this is by the US, a country which retains an instinctive affection for us arising out of shared history and culture. No doubt Uncle Sam would, in its own interests, like to discreetly detach us diplomatically from Europe; nevertheless, we ignore this at our peril. Thirdly, all this should remind us that it is in our interest to keep the free speech issue from hurting our international reputation further. At the moment we are not doing this. We do not endear ourselves to an increasingly online world community when we place large swathes of the internet off-limits to those without VPNs as a result of the Online Safety Act. The government's stern orders earlier this week to websites to preserve online free speech or else will deceive no one and will be seen as the reputation management measure it is. Still less will we win friends when Ofcom, a UK government agency, writes threatening letters on official notepaper to US websites with no connection with the UK at all such as 4Chan, and Kiwifarms. Earlier this year it did just this, demanding promises to comply with UK law and to fill in all sorts of Ofcom paperwork, and menacing them with enormous fines if they did not. (They politely told it to go fish, but by then the damage was done.) Every instinct of this government will be to face down the State Department and carry on referring to keeping the UK internet safe. But it would do well to bear in mind that foreigners can sometimes be right and that taking steps to keep them onside, even at the cost of a little pride, can reap big dividends. This is one such occasion.
The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
Bipartisan group plans to bring Epstein victims to capital to speak out on files and push Congress to release them
GOP rebel Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna plan to bring survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's sexual abuse to Washington, D.C., in a bipartisan push to get Congress to release the controversial 'files' in the case. Massie of Kentucky, who has created a headache for President Donald Trump this year after rebelling against the 'One Big, Beautiful Bill,' said that he will host a joint press conference at the Capitol with the California congressman, several survivors and their attorneys. 'I will be hosting a press conference at the Capitol, joined by survivors of Epstein and Maxwell's abuse — several of whom will be speaking out for the first time,' Massie and Khanna announced Monday in a post on X. 'The survivors deserve justice and Americans deserve transparency.' The Epstein case engulfed the Trump administration in controversy for weeks following a Justice Department and FBI memo in early July that said no further files in the case would be released, contrary to the president's previous pledges to do so. That sparked fury among the Trump base, which has long sought their release. Trump has defended the move even as politicians on both sides of the aisle call for their release. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend and sex-abuse accomplice who is serving 20 years for her role in his sex trafficking scheme, was recently moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas after being interviewed by the Justice Department for information about his case. Massie and Khanna's press conference is scheduled for September 3. The Republican representative clapped back at criticism on X that the publicity stunt was 'putting the victims at a huge risk.' Massie said that the survivors set to attend the press conference 'thought they were getting justice' before the Trump administration 'did a 180.' 'Some might have come forward before to provide testimony or evidence already that wasn't made public,' Massie added. Khanna is leading the charge for the Democrats on the issue and is also pushing a House Oversight subcommittee to subpoena Epstein's alleged 'birthday book.' The book is the subject of a The Wall Street Journal report that revealed the alleged existence of a 'bawdy' 50th birthday card from Trump to Epstein. The president has denied the validity of the letter and has filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch, WSJ 's parent company, Dow Jones, and the two journalists whose bylines appear on the story. Massie and Khanna's press conference is reminiscent of a similar move pulled by Trump in 2016 to embarrass his former opponent, Hillary Clinton. He appeared at a press conference ahead of the October 2016 televised debate with three women who accused former President Bill Clinton of inappropriate sexual contact—Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick and Kathleen Willey—and rape victim Kathy Shelton, whose attacker was defended by Hillary Clinton. Bill Clinton denies the allegations of the three women. At the time, Clinton's campaign said they were 'not surprised to see Donald Trump continue his destructive race to the bottom.' The president reportedly planned to seat the Clinton accusers in the Trump family box during the presidential debate, but it was thwarted at the last minute, according to reports. Since deploying 800 National Guard troops to the streets of D.C. to wage a war on 'out of control' crime in the capital, the spotlight has largely moved on from Epstein, despite the efforts of some Democrats and MAGA influencers who are still up in arms over the debacle. Still, anger remains from constituents at town halls across the country. Doug LaMalfa, a fourth-generation rice farmer who has represented his northern California district in Congress since 2013, was booed, jeered and cursed out by angry voters Monday at the local Elks Lodge in Chico over the president's economic policies and the administration's handling of the Epstein case. Over 90 minutes, attendees called LaMalfa a 'liar,' an 'a**hole,' and accused him of 'bull****.' At one point, when the moderator called on one person to ask a question, someone yelled: 'F*** you!' There have been similar reported scenes earlier this year in states including Wisconsin, Georgia and North Carolina.
