American call for Prince Andrew to be barred from US over Lockerbie row – Telegraph Blogs

Saturday 12 July 2014 | Blog Feed | All feeds

Toby Harnden



 (Photo: PA)

Kevin Rennie wants Prince Andrew barred from US shores (Photo: PA)

This is interesting. There's now been a demand for Prince Andrew to be excluded from the United States as retribution for Britain's "assault on justice" over the Lockerbie bomber fiasco.

I've long had the feeling that people in Britain, including (or perhaps especially) those in government, have understimated the depth of anger and disappointment here over the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Americans aren't fixating on every development (though recent Telegraph reporting has had a big impact) but there's an abiding sense that this was a thoroughly shameful affair.

The problem for Britain is that it isn't seen as a row between the Obama administration and Gordon Brown's government that can be easily seen as being in the past. It's not just Obama people who are incensed about it and the dismay is not just with Brown or the Scottish executive – there's a feeling that the UK Establishment as a whole has dirty hands.

It's hard to imagine a more emotive issue that one that involves mass murder, Middle Eastern terror and aeroplanes. And, of course, there's the stubborn fact that al-Megrahi remains alive and apparently well. Until he's dead, and probably long after that, this issue will fester.

So the fact that Kevin Rennie is now urging that Prince Andrew be barred from American shores is an important development. By way of background, Rennie is a sober conservative, blogger, Hartford Courant columnist, friend of Britain and a former Republican state senator in Connecticut. He always weighs his words carefully.

In his blog post, he describes "Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s third child" as a "bad seed" and an "undesirable" and describes UK behaviour during the saga as "British infamy". He notes the exclusion from the UK of the conservative talk show host Michael Savage from Britain for petty and nakedly points-scoring reasons and concludes:

Until the British government confesses its own actions and demonstrates that Prince Andrew played no role in the release of a convicted terrorist in its custody, the Duke of York should be banned from entering the United States. He’s not our sort.


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