Bristol aristocrat Lady Victoria Hervey has sparked controversy after she called for anyone who is organising anti-monarchy protests to be arrested before the Coronation, and then released afterwards.
Lady Victoria, the eldest daughter of the 6th Marquess of Bristol and older sister of the current Marquess of Bristol, was debating the King’s Coronation with activist Peter Tatchell on GB News.
Her comments have been condemned by many commentators claiming she was advocating internment without trial, but it followed the mass arrests of Just Stop Oil protesters in the capital last weekend, and a statement from the Metropolitan Police later this week, saying they would have a ‘low tolerance’ to anyone ‘undermining this celebration’.
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Lady Victoria told GB News’s Dan Wootton: “I don't have time for anti-monarchists. If it were illegal immigrants who were protesting against the crown, I would just tell them to go and live in Russia or China or a communist country where there is no sovereign, where there is no royal family. If you’re very anti-monarchy, why do you want to go there?
“I’m all for protesting and all of that, but if I was in charge of this Coronation, I would arrest all the heads, all of those kinds of people who would be protesting. I would put them all in jail, like, pre-Coronation and then release them after,” she added.
Host Mr Wootton asked if she was advocating arresting people ‘even if they’ve not done anything criminal?’. She replied: “If they have a record of doing anything, so all those Just Stop Oil, all of those lot - just put them jail.”
Lady Victoria was temporarily cut off financially from her mother - who lived in Monaco - when she refused to take up a place at the University of Bristol to study French and history of Art. She ended up getting a job in the fashion world in London, became a model and was one of the so-called ‘It Girls’ of the 1990s, where she appeared on TV and in tabloid newspapers, fuelled in part by a relationship with Prince Andrew.
Later in her appearance on GB News, she defended the Duke of York, saying the woman who he paid £12 million to settle out of court with over sex abuse claims had 'completely falsely accused him'.
The Met Police have not quite taken up her suggestion, although some Just Stop Oil protesters remain in custody following their arrest a few days ago. The only almost comparable situation in UK law for such an idea involves anyone convicted of a ‘football-related’ offence being banned from travelling abroad, having to surrender their passport and report to police stations whenever there is an England match in another country.
Lady Victoria's comments sparked fury from some commentators. Journalist Otto English said: “What you are seeing here is what a lot of self-styled aristocrats actually think. The curtain is drawn back - this is what they think - or rather an excuse for thinking.”
The Hervey family have often been controversial, although usually from a different perspective. Her great-great-great-great grandfather, the 4th Earl of Bristol, sparked controversy in 18th century Britain for passionately in favour of Irish nationalism, and was almost arrested for inciting a rebellion.
In Bristol itself, the 4th Earl also stepped in to support working-class poet Ann Yearsley, a milkmaid from Clifton who called for the abolition of the slave trade and campaigned against the Society of Merchant Venturers, after she accused her original patron Hannah More of keeping her earnings from her.
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