A BBC opinion poll has indicated that 89% of Britons want an end to discrimination against female members of the Windsor family, which has the exclusive right to provide the head of state under Britain’s feudal constitution. Nineteen percent favour continued discriminations against Catholics and seventy-six per cent believed that the majority of citizens should be barred from becoming head of state regardless of gender or religion.
Publication of the results of the poll coincided with reports that the Prime Minister has talked to “Buckingham Palace” about changing the laws that govern who should become Britain’s hereditary head of state by ending discrimination against female Windsor family members and Catholic girlfriends of male Windsors.
At present males have precedence and members of the Windsor family who marry a Catholic may not become head of state.
Justice Minister Jack Straw told Parliament that reform now had “higher priority” than before. Some MPs were sceptical about this, however, as it followed government sabotage on Friday of a bill to end such discrimination put before parliament by Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris.
Referring to discrimination against Windsor family and friends but not other citizens, Prime Minister Brown told journalists that “in the twenty-first century people do expect discrimination to be removed.” If the law is changed Britain’s constitution will continue to deny the majority of Britons the basic democratic right of equal treatment regardless of family origin.