The Duke of York will not attend the royal family’s traditional pre-Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace on Thursday amid controversy over his links with an alleged Chinese spy.
Prince Andrew is said to have decided to pull out of the occasion after speaking to his ex-wife and close friend, Sarah, Duchess of York. He had already withdrawn from joining senior royals at Sandringham for the festive period.
The Buckingham Palace lunch is a private event for senior royals and their wider family who will not be attending Christmas celebrations at King Charles’s Sandringham home.
It was alleged at a high court hearing last week that the businessman Yang Tengbo, who has been banned from entering the UK, was said to have been a close confidant of Andrew. Yang has insisted it is “entirely untrue” to claim he was involved in espionage and that he has “done nothing wrong or unlawful”.
The businessman was the founder-partner of the Chinese arm of the duke’s Pitch@Palace initiative, and visited Buckingham Palace twice in 2018 to meet him. He is also said to have entered St James’s Palace and Windsor Castle at Andrew’s invitation.
Andrew ceased all contact with Yang when concerns were first raised about him, according to a statement from his office last week. It said the prince met Yang through official channels with “nothing of a sensitive nature ever discussed”.
Andrew and the Duchess of York were reportedly on the guest list for Thursday’s lunch for about 70 members of the extended royal family, which is seen as a family rather than official occasion.
Sources told the Daily Mail that Buckingham Palace was unsure if the couple would attend until Wednesday. Senior royal aides are said to have been optimistically operating on the working assumption the duke would “see sense” and decide to “keep his head down”.
