Public would rather Prince Andrew attend coronation than Meghan Markle, poll finds

Exclusive: Public opposition to both royals attending nearly as strong as resistance to the invite for Chinese government representative

Britons would rather see Prince Andrew attend the coronation of King Charles III than the Duchess of Sussex, new polling suggests.

In an exclusive survey for The Independent, 43 per cent of people thought the Duke of York should attend the historic service marking his brother’s ascension to the throne.

The same proportion believed he should not attend, according to Savanta polling conducted just over a year after he reached a multimillion settlement in the sexual assault case brought against him by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.

Meanwhile, just 40 per cent of the 2,274 people surveyed thought Meghan should go to Saturday’s historic ceremony, while 44 per cent felt she should not.

Following the lingering fallout from his memoirSpare, Prince Harry confirmed last month that he would attend the coronation alone, with Meghan staying home in the United States with their children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.

The couple opted to “step back” as senior royals and leave Britain in 2020, just two years after their wedding. Even before that decision, Harry had condemned the “abuse and harassment” and “racial undertones” in the relentless British press coverage of the former Suits actor.

Prince Andrew was stripped of his military titles and royal patronages last January by the late Queen after he was accused by Ms Giuffre of sexually assaulting her on three occasions when she was 17 and being trafficked by his late friend, the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The Duke of York was interviewed by BBC Newsnight about his relationship with Epstein and the allegations against him (BBC/PA)

The pair reached an out-of-court settlement two months later, in which Andrew accepted no liability, and he always rejected any claims of wrongdoing. But he faced further humiliation as York councillors voted last April to strip the 63-year-old of his Freedom of the City title.

While the duke was permitted to play a significant role in the events marking his mother’s death last September, he faced heckling from crowds during a procession of his mother’s coffin along Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.

YouGov polling in April placed Andrew as the least popular royal in its regular surveys, with just 10 per cent of respondents viewing him favourably.

He was followed by Meghan and Harry, of whom 24 and 29 per cent respectively had favourable views.

In Savanta’s new polling for The Independent, Britons were considerably more opposed to both Andrew and Meghan attending the coronation than the idea of inviting Sinn Fein, the party formerly known as the political wing of the IRA, which overtook unionists for the first time in Northern Ireland’s 2022 election.

Thirty-two per cent of people felt Sinn Fein should attend, while 38 per cent did not. Michelle O’Neill, vice-president of the party which still refuses to take its seats in the House of Commons, has confirmed she will attend the Westminster Abbey ceremony.

The strength of opposition to Andrew and Meghan’s attendance was closer to that of a Chinese government representative going to the ceremony, to which 46 per cent are opposed and just 30 per cent are in favour.

While senior Conservatives have called the move “outrageous” and “an insult to the freedom-loving people” of former British colony Hong Kong, China’s vice-president Han Zheng is expected to be present on Saturday.