DETAILS of the settlement between Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre to end her claim that she was forced to have sex with the Duke three times when she was 17, under the orders of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, have been kept secret but it is believed to amount to over £12 million.
Despite all his vehement denials of the specific allegations and his willingness to challenge accusations of rape in a public trial, the Duke of York caved in this week and agreed to an out-of-court settlement that contained no admission of guilt.
US lawyers are predicting that this multi-million pound amount will be dwarfed when the fees for lawyers are taken into account.
All of this raises the question – who is going to stump up the money to bail-out the Queen’s second son from a rape trial?
All are agreed that the prince himself doesn’t have the cash to meet this massive bill and the money will be paid by for by the Queen.
This begs the further question – where does the Queen get the money from to foot the bill?
The finances of the monarchy are shrouded in secrecy with the Queen receiving a sovereign grant last year of £51.5 million out of the profits of the Crown Estate.
This is public money to be spent supporting her official duties and maintaining the numerous hangers-on in the royal household.
The rest of the monarch’s massive income is derived from the Duchy of Lancaster estate, £22.3 million in 2021, income that is declared ‘private’ and which the monarchy refuses to give any information or accountability to the common people.
MPs are demanding assurances from the Queen that no public money is used to fund this settlement, assurances that the royal household have been quick to give while remaining silent on where it is really coming from.
Of course, there is no way that MPs can force the monarchy to divulge any of its secrets; the Queen sits astride the remnants of a feudal monarchy that is above the law, above any accountability while being free to make millions off the backs of old feudal rights that many thought were consigned to history by the English Cromwellian Revolution.
The activities of the privileged prince of the realm that has emerged including accusations of rape against minors and jetting around the globe on Epstein’s ‘Lolita Express’ have sickened people and it has lifted the lid on the corruption and privilege that lies in the heart of the monarchy.
This week, another investigation into royalty was opened when it was revealed the police are conducting an investigation into cash-for-honours and citizenship for a Saudi national that has been linked to the Prince of Wales’s charity.
Prince Charles has denied any knowledge of this alleged offer of honours and British citizenship in return for substantial donations to his charity.
While the monarchy is engulfed by scandal, the working class will be watching closely as all the secrecy and mystery surrounding it is coming into the open.
While the working class is under the hammer with inflation and benefit cuts driving millions of workers into destitution, forced to choose between heating their homes or feeding their children, the sight of a monarchy making millions out of ancient feudal rights and using it to fund the dissolute parasites who lord it over the people, will provoke not just outrage but a revolutionary determination for change.
Workers won’t just sit back and accept destitution while the monarchy and the capitalist class make billions in profit on their backs.
The working class must demand the trade unions act by ending all collaboration with the Tory government and the capitalist state and call a general strike to bring down the Tories and go forward to a workers’ government.
A workers’ government will expropriate the capitalist class, abolish the monarchy, replacing it with a workers’ state and a socialist society.
Only socialist revolution can take Britain forward into the modern world free from the remnants of a decaying feudal system and a monarchy that is in its last days.
