King open to removing word ‘empire’ from OBE honours amid colonial controversy

Recipients have previously handed back or turned down honours over ‘toxicity of empire’

Charles attends the bestowing and farewell ceremony on the final day of the royal visit to Samoa (AP)

The word “empire” may be dropped from British honours as part of reforms reportedly being considered by royal officials.

Under the plans, those with an OBE – Order of the British Empire – may choose to receive an Order of British Excellence, according to a new biography of the King by author Robert Hardman, which is being serialised by the Daily Mail.

A parallel Order of Elizabeth has also been proposed in remembrance of the late Queen.

However, in both cases, the colonial-era titles could be retained for those who wanted them.

In the new biography of the King, a senior palace official is quoted saying, “Any change is a matter for the government, but I think that they would find that this place was pretty open to the idea.”

Any alteration to the honours system would be down to Sir Keir Starmer’s government.

Several figures have previously refused honours over the word empire, such as Alan Cumming who handed back the OBE he won in 2009 last year due to its association with the “toxicity of empire”.

In 2003 after refusing an OBE poet Benjamin Zephaniah, wrote in The Guardian, “Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word ‘empire’; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality.”

Palace sources say that while decisions on honours system would be down to the prime minister, the King would be ‘open’ to the change (Getty)

Calls for reparations for Britain’s role in the slave trade recently overshadowed a summit in Samoa of the Commonwealth, attended by the King, many of whose member nations were once British colonies.

The King and Sir Keir addressed the issue indirectly at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

“None of us can change the past but we can commit with all our hearts to learning its lessons and to finding creative ways to right the inequalities that endure,” Charles said.

Charles, when he was Prince of Wales, spoke of the “appalling atrocity of slavery, which forever stains our history” during a visit to Barbados in 2021. At the Commonwealth summit two years ago in Rwanda, he spoke of his sorrow over slavery and its legacy for Indigenous communities and said it was a ”conversation whose time has come”.

Mr Hardman’s biography also reveals a report that Charles cut off Prince Andrew’s allowance, and the late Queen was planning to evict him from Royal Lodge.

Mr Hardman wrote that the keeper of the privy purse was “instructed to sever his living allowance” after Andrew reportedly refused to move out of the Royal Lodge, a 30-room mansion in Windsor Great Park, into the nearby smaller Frogmore Cottage.

The biography also reportedly states Queen Elizabeth was “quite intrigued” by a proposal to change the name of the OBE to the “Order of Britain and Elizabeth” and “would not have objected to a discussion”.

Last month former Scotland football star Ally McCoist said being made an OBE is the highlight of his career, and added that his late mother would have “absolutely adored” it.

A No 10 source told the Daily Mail: “We would not discuss any conversations with the palace under any circumstances.”