Last week, Lynne Featherstone launched a new battle against the establishment when she wrote to the equality watchdog following the birth of Viscount Severn, son of the Earl and Countess of Wessex.
As LibDemVoice’s army of monarchists will be well aware, when the Hon James Windsor was born, he knocked his elder sister Lady Louise back to 9th in line to the throne, just as a generation before, his uncle Prince Andrew took his elder sister Princess Anne’s place in the line of succession.
This change in the line of succession is the first to happen since the Equalities Commission was formed so Lib Dem Equalities Spokesperson Lynne Featherstone has written to them for a ruling, citing the step as a possible breach of sexual discrimination law through the recent enforcement of common law practice of male preference primogeniture in designating successors to the throne.
“This would appear to be a clear example of sexual discrimination gainst Lady Louise and an example of sexual discrimination taking place n a public institution,” she said.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour last week, she defended her actions against claims of frivolity:
To me, this is a glaring example right at the heart of British life that needs to be changed. There is an undisclosed war on women out there, and I’m fighting to free us.
The Woman’s Hour segment is still available as one of the BBC’s many podcasts. You can also find out more on Lynne’s own blog.
Alex Foster is not a constitutional expert and has only checked his Royal Family facts on Wikipedia. E&OE
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.6MB)
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11 Comments
Surely automatically favouring the oldest child would be against age-discrimination legislation so it seems that the monarchy’s stuffed whatever it does. Maybe we just ought to abolish it 🙂
The reactionary argument is to argue the the monarchy isssue and then the age issue – neither of which are reasons not to deal, as other countries with monarchies have dealt, with changing the most obvious discrimination against women. Arguing to get everything sorted in one go is an argument for the status quo and another century or so of inaction.
I don’t think it is “reactionary” to point out age discrimination – why is this a lesser issue than sex discrimination? We have legislation against age discrimination as well – in what way can the one be said to be a “lesser” law than the other?
Lynne addresses that very question in the audio file!
How about race discrimination? I believe my own claim to the throne is likely to be disallowed as I am of English rather than German stock. Harold Godwinson must be rolling in his grave!
Andrew,
Harold Godwinson was a Saxon, so also a German by your reasoning, maybe you should go for a descendant of Boudica or Owen Glendower.
On the upside the Saxon nobilty did elect their kings, so you could leave it to our highest court, ironically the House of Lords to decide the succession
🙂
This article has led to some rather odd Google ads. Pictures of Fat Women?!
While talking about the equality and the discrimination in our traditional ways of the British Society, I think we might find these two news item interesting. This is the time we should look into these as well.
1)- Robot rights:
http://deepak07.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!6B4C770ED18A196C!208.entry
2)- As the time moves on:
http://deepak07.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!6B4C770ED18A196C!209.entry
Oh dear… I am amused that all the people who pick on Laurence Boyce for being pig headed and unreasonable about religion have come out of the woodwork to be pig headed and unreasonable about the monarchy…
#9 Jennie: I assume that “coming out of the woodwork” crack is aimed at me. As it happens, I actually wrote about this more than a week ago, welcoming the fact that Lynne was taking this forward – arguing along similar lines to what she was saying.
But clearly welcoming something is not enough; we have to be blindly uncritical as well. I simply fail to see why it is being “reactionary” and “pig-headed” to point out that we now have age discrimination legislation in the UK, although I can clearly see how it is inconvenient. No-one here has actually explained why this is irrelevant, and if it ever got to a court of law it certainly would have to be considered, so Lynne had better come up with a better argument than to pout about chestnuts.
(Honestly – even I could come up with a better argument against than that: all she has to do is point out that your line to the throne is based on when you’re born and not what your age happens to be – which is always 0 when it happens in any case. It might not be a particularly strong argument, but its better than having to witness the party’s youth affairs spokesperson waggling her finger at anyone who has concerns about age discrimination and calling them a sexist).
My guess is that if you find the whole notion of inheritence – and primogeniture by extension – rather pernicious, then you probably feel rather ambivalent about any attempt to come up with a “fairer” system. The problem is ultimately the system itself; institutionalised sexism is just the icing on the cake. Characterise that as pig-headed if you want; I just think it’s because you are scared of the wider implications.
James: or, alternately, I was just amused and wasn’t trying to make any deep point at all