THE Scottish Greens have called for a national debate on the monarchy in the light of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s relationship with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor has come under pressure from Epstein’s victims and their families to travel to the US to testify, and a recent YouGov poll for Sky News suggested 82 per cent of the public think his brother and head of state, Charles Windsor, should encourage him to do so.

Seizing on the crisis to advance the cause of a democratic republic, Scottish Greens external affairs spokesman Patrick Harvie MSP said: “His behaviour clearly needs criminal investigation, but we should be equally outraged at the way the Palace bankrolled and protected him.

“It is an outdated and fundamentally undemocratic institution. It is built on nepotism and privilege, and it dodges the transparency we should be able to expect of those in power.

“When families across Scotland are struggling, it is indefensible that vast sums of public money are spent on an institution that none of us has ever voted for and handed to a family that has not earned it.”