Prince not guaranteed Commonwealth job

Leaders to meet to decide on Queen’s successor as organisation’s head because the title is not hereditary

Christopher Hope

Hannah Furness

THE right of the Prince of Wales to become the next Head of the Commonwealth is expected to be decided at a major meeting of the 53 countries that comprise the organisation in late April.

Leaders from the countries will gather in London for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM), which is expected to be the final one to be attended by the Queen. There the countries are likely to set out the plans for who will replace the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth in a long communique issued at the end of the meeting, The Daily Telegraph understands.

The Queen, who turns 92 in April, was proclaimed head of a much smaller Commonwealth at her coronation when she became head of state in seven of its eight members. Today the Queen is the head of state of 15 realms among its 53 members, mostly former constituents of the British Empire.

Although the Prince of Wales will become King on the death of his mother, the head of the Commonwealth is not a hereditary position and there is no guarantee that he will follow the Queen into the role. One source said: “As part of the conversations at CHOGM it is perfectly natural that there will be a conversation at some point about succession going forward.”

A second source said: “It will be discussed at CHOGM, no question. Be- cause Britain is hosting it this year they want to bring it to a head. What they don’t want is for the Commonwealth to split up, to become irrelevant.”

For years, it has been widely assumed that the Prince of Wales will become Head of Commonwealth. The Prince has previously represented the Queen at CHOGM, with two major tours to Commonwealth countries in the last year and a lifetime of relationship with its leaders.

In a 2015 speech to CHOGM, the Queen signalled her deep support for her son, saying she could not “wish to have been better supported and represented in the Commonwealth than by

the Prince of Wales, who continues to give so much to it with great distinction”.

A new “high level group” of senior officials looking at the governance of the Commonwealth Secretariat – which was set up at the last CHOGM in Malta in 2015 – met for the first time in London yesterday. The meeting provided a chance for the officials to discuss the succession, although the Secretariat stressed that the issue was not part of its mandate.

Commonwealth figures are very sensitive to concerns from smaller members that the organisation is dominated by the “ABC” white countries – Australia, Britain and Canada.

One source said: “They are trying to make sure that the smaller nations have just as much say, if not more, on certain issues. Deploying Harry is very important.”

Prince Harry is expected to take on more Commonwealth roles in an attempt to modernise the Commonwealth and to “re-energise” it and make it “more relevant”, according to a source. The Prince is expected to take a leading role in the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy project, which was proposed by Commonwealth countries in 2015 to help protect forests. The Prince visited one scheme in Epping last year.

The Royal Commonwealth Society has recently opened a new office in Washington DC and a “Nordic-baltic Hub” based in Helsinki to reach out to Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.

The hope is that the Commonwealth – and its role in connecting member states – will become more relevant to the UK after Britain leaves the European Union next year.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said any decisions about succession were a “matter for the Commonwealth”.

Not long ago, I stood in a corner of Spencer House – the London palace owned by Lord Spencer – and watched Prince Charles work the room. It was an impressive spectacle. Titans of industry queued up to shake his hand; one businessman was visibly sweating at the prospect of touching the royal personage. Prince Charles chatted effortlessly, dropping in a question here, a joke there, as he subtly moved on without offending the person he’d been talking to.

It isn’t rocket science but, still, putting a room full of gawping admirers at their ease is tricky. And it must be pretty boring, too.

Yet still he does it, day after day, year after year. In 2017, he undertook more public duties than any other royal. He did 374 British engagements and 172 abroad, pipping his sister, Anne, to the post, with a total of 546 engagements to her 540.

That figure is unlikely to decrease any time soon. Last year, Prince Philip, now 96, retired from royal duties, after completing 131 engagements in 2017. The Queen, 92 in April, cut back her duties from 332 to 296 last year. And it’s Prince Charles who has to take up the slack, not least on Commonwealth duties. In 2010, he represented the Queen at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in India. And, in 2013, he represented his mother for the first time at a Heads of Government Meeting, in Sri Lanka.

This November, he turns 70, and yet he’s still waiting for the job of his life. That’s seven decades of slogging round the globe, albeit in seat A1 of the Royal Squadron’s planes; seven decades of donning unflattering national costumes; of dancing awkwardly with scantily dressed locals; of listening to interminable recitals by wellmeaning schoolchildren. At least he’s guaranteed the number one job as monarch on the unthinkable day when his mother dies. But he isn’t a shoo-in as the Head of the Commonwealth.

Since the Commonwealth was set up in 1949, there have only been two Heads: George VI until his death in 1952, and the Queen since then. But the monarch isn’t automatically Head. The Commonwealth Secretariat has declared the Queen’s successor as Head will be chosen by the Commonwealth heads of government. And it’s emerged that Commonwealth bigwigs are meeting to discuss “wider governance considerations” – code for the succession.

There is no formal procedure for choosing that successor, and many senior Commonwealth insiders think Charles remains the leading contender. The former Prime Ministers of Canada and New Zealand, Stephen Harper and John Key, have backed Charles for the job. Still, others suggest an election would burnish the Commonwealth’s democratic standing.

How strange it would be if someone else got the job. When Prince Charles succeeds to the throne, you could end up with the unprecedented position where he is king of 16 Commonwealth realms but not Head of the Commonwealth.

Yes, it’s true that Prince Charles doesn’t command the same respect as the Queen – as Amitav Banerji, a former Commonwealth Secretariat director of political affairs, allegedly said in a 2009 diplomatic cable. But then again, no one else in Britain commands the same respect as the Queen. She is almost universally admired, after never putting a foot wrong in 66 years on the throne.

But who on earth is better qualified than her eldest son to take over? He knows the Commonwealth back to front. He has stood in for his mother on numerous Commonwealth occasions. And the Queen herself wants him to take over.

In 1958, she declared, in Letters Patent, that Charles and his heirs and successors should become the Head. In her indirect way, she signalled as much at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2015 in Malta, where she was accompanied by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. In her opening speech there, she said she could not “wish to have been better supported and represented in the Commonwealth than by the Prince of Wales who continues to give so much to it with great distinction”.

As so often, the Queen sums up the position fairly and succinctly. Her boy should get the job.