Republic, the British campaign against monarchy, has confirmed that Britain’s feudal head of state arrangements cost much more than claimed by defenders of the undemocratic institution. A report published last week says the true cost of this system of hereditary privilege to the people of Britain is £202.4m a year, not the £40m claimed by monarchists.
The costs include £100m for police protection of multiple Windsor clan members and £26m local taxpayers have to find when the Windsors visit. Taxpayers must also pay the bills for butlers, footmen and dressers for the super-rich clan.
Republic says that the “civil list” part of the Windsor take, amounting to £14.2m, has risen by 94 per cent in real terms over the last twenty years.
The people of Ireland, Britain’s nearest republican neighbour, pay only £1.8 for their much admired presidency. The most expensive monarchy in mainland Europe costs less than half the cost of the British racket.
Exact information about the cost to taxpayers of the clan and about their activities is made hard to get by the Windsors’ exemption from freedom of information laws.
Until Britain frees itself from the feudal institution, Republic calls for queen Windsor to be paid an annual salary, set by Parliament, for the income from the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster to be taken from the family, and for the status of the Crown Estate as the property of the people to be put beyond doubt.