The death of Queen Elizabeth II will spark “a big public debate” on the future of the Royal Family that could lead to the end of the monarchy “as we know it,” Labor MP Diane Abbott has said.
Abbott is the Labor MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. She served in Jeremy Corbin’s Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Home Secretary.
“The monarchy as we know it will last as long as the Queen is alive,” Abbott, the first black female member of the British Parliament, told Vanity Fair.
“I think there will be a big public debate [after the Queen’s death]… and I think what the Royal Family and their advisers did with Meghan will be part of the argument for change,” she added.
The “big public debate” about the future of the Royal Family could reach the floor of the Parliament, Abbott said. She suggested the debate could be fueled by calls to reconsider the current monarchical arrangement and probably adopt a model similar to the Scandinavian system that is devoid of “all the pomp and ceremony.”
Charles may never ascend to the throne, royal writers says
Anna Pasternak, the author of The Real Wallis Simpson: A New History of the American Divorcee Who Became the Duchess of Windsor, thinks the debate could lead to the end of the Royal Family and that Charles may never ascend to the throne.
“I’m not 100 percent sure that we will see Charles ascend to the throne,” Pasternak said, according to Vanity Fair. “The Sussexes have sparked something so fundamentally incendiary in this country that it is changing the face of Britain, and I think the monarchy as an archaic institution may well topple.”
Kelechi Okafor, the host of the London-based podcast Say Your Mind, believes that Diana and Meghan Markle may have triggered events that will lead to the collapse of the British monarchy.
“The queen is a figurehead for an empire that refuses to understand that its days are gone,” Okafor said. “Diana came along… and then Meghan Markle came along, and everything started to fall to pieces.”
Philip’s death sparked speculation about the future of the Royal Family
The claims by Abbot, Pasternak, and Okafor that the British monarchy may not survive the Queen come after she marked her 95th birthday on April 21 less than two weeks after the death of her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Prince Philip died in Windsor Castle on April 9 at the age of 99. He died with the Queen reportedly at his bedside after a month of hospitalization during which he was treated for an infection and heart surgery.
The death of the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen’s 95th birthday a week later has led to speculation that the Queen could retire from public life and hand over the reins of the monarchy to her eldest son and heir apparent, Charles, Prince of Wales.
The British people don’t want Charles to be King, according to a survey
Amid speculation about the possibility of the Queen handing over the reins of the monarchy to Charles, a recent survey suggests the majority of British people don’t want Charles to be king.
Monsters and Critics reported that a survey conducted by Deltapoll between March 31 and April 1 found that 47 percent of the respondents wanted William to be king, while only 27 percent said they wanted Charles to be king.
A shocking 18 percent of the respondents said they wanted the monarchy to be abolished entirely.
Reacting to the survey numbers, Graham Smith, the CEO of Republic, an organization that is campaigning for the replacement of the monarchy with a Republic, said it reflected the growing generational divide and the fact that the Royals are disconnected from modern attitudes.
According to Smith, the “poll tells us people no longer care about the hereditary system, they want a choice.”