Why now? Inside Harry and Meghan’s UK return

0:02Sky News, the full story first.

0:11Tom Cheshire:Prince Harry and Meghan will return to Britain this month. This is why.

0:23Tom Cheshire:Hello, Ed Conway here. Here's what might sound like a slightly random question. What do AirPods, bananas and a pair of shoddily made running trainers from the 1970s have in common? On the surface, not very much But on my podcast Stuff Matters I will uncover the deeper stories behind each of them You will see how together they tell a fascinating new story about the world we live in The first full series of Stuff Matters is out now Just search for it on your podcast app and follow

0:58Tom Cheshire:Hello, Tom Cheshire here, standing in for Neil. Big news overnight. Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and their children, Archie and Lilibet, will return to the UK. Six years on from their departure to settle in California. But after stepping away from royal life, with plenty of twists and turns along the way, why now? And could their return help repair Harry's fractured relationship with his father, King Charles, and his brother, Prince William? Our royal correspondent, Laura Bundock is with me. This is big news, very sudden news. I think unexpected to say the least because they left and since they left, there's been so much about why they left, why they would never return back to the UK.

1:38Tom Cheshire:All those reasons. Suddenly this is out the blue. Were there any indications this was on the cards? Until I would say the last 24 hours, no. I think we were few trips overseas he had done, and most recently, obviously July when he was back in the UK, and seen them as a real success and increased his hankering to come home more often. I wouldn't go as far as to say he was sat in Montecito homesick, but I do think coming back to the UK, bringing his family back this summer re-energised his connection with the UK. I'm sure at that point, they were already thinking about it. I think for the Sussexes, it's been at the back of their minds for a while.

2:23I think they were starting to look at how old are the kids? They're going to be starting schools. What do we want that education to look like? That's certainly a big driver in this.

2:32Tom Cheshire:That sounds like a nice environment to come back to. But it's also, by their own telling, it's a hostile environment in terms of the media. Megan Dutch of Sussex was saying she was having suicidal thoughts as a result of the attention she got in the UK. They're not the most popular couple, either if you look at the polling, they'll also be coming back into that. Yeah, I mean, there's lots to break down there. Let's just start at the beginning of the reason they left the UK in the first place, when as far as the interview with Oprah, the Netflix show, Harry's memoir, every other sort of comment they've made about it, it was simply untenable for them to remain here.

3:08They felt that Meghan was being hounded to extreme lengths in the UK. There were obviously issues around their privacy here as well. Harry did not like the way the palace was working. They came up with this proposal that they wanted to make work this half in, half out. And we hear a lot about that. But what that would basically mean is that they are still doing their charity work in the name of the crown, i.e. working royals, as well as pursuing other interests at the same time. It was an unsrodden path at this point. And the late queen said, I'm not having that. You're either with me or you're not with me.

3:42You can't do that. And so that's what led to them making that massive move. And, you know, I think a lot of people will say, oh, you know, it's a move that's not worked out. They're coming back to the UK, you know, with a tail between their legs. It's far more nuanced than that. They've gone to the US. That's obviously where Megan's from. So they've got a group of friends. If you speak to people who know them, they have a fairly quiet life there. They do the usual things at the weekend. They take the kids to preschool, whatever you call it, over there. Dog walk, hiking, it's a very nice lifestyle they have.

4:09But I think for Harry, he grew up here, didn't he? He went to school here. He served in the military. There's so much connection there. The family, obviously, as well. So that went on. I think if we look at why are they coming back, One of the big reasons, I think, is that things have changed. It's not the late Queen. It's not Prince Philip anymore. It's the King, Harry's father, with whom he does have a good relationship. So they've had to work on that relationship. But as far as I know, they are in close contact and speak regularly.

4:40Tom Cheshire:I suppose that meeting then earlier this year was pretty important in that decision to come back with the King. Because Meghan was there and the kids were there. But I think it's been building on a relationship that was already there. I think perhaps when you speak to people who know them, they will all say, don't believe everything you read about. I mean, there were suspicions, I think, certainly from the palace point of view after Harry said so much and aired so much of his watching in public with the memoir. And that was really hurtful to lots of them. But I think the happened. The King has obviously had cancer.

5:16And I think a life event like that brings things into focus a bit more. And there is another interesting thing. The King's private secretary, a man called Sir Clive Alderton, recently announced that he was stepping down from the role. And he's been at the King's side for years and years and years, a very trusted aide. But he is one of the men in grey suits that Harry was so rude about in his memoir, Spare. And I just wonder if not any one of those individual things, but collectively those things together have helped pave the way in terms of Harry mentally thinking there is a road to me perhaps coming back to the UK for a bit.

5:50Tom Cheshire:All that dirty laundry you mentioned, there wasn't much of it sort of hung on the king as it were, but there was a lot on the Duke of Cambridge, Prince William. That's the other key relationship here, isn't it? And Harry was saying things like William assaulted him. when he was questioning whether the royal family was racist, it was William who had to go in front of Sky News cameras and say, we're not a racist family. That is going to be a lot harder to reconcile, no? I mean, don't get me wrong. The King was really hurt by the fact, A, Harry wrote a memoir because it's not what the royals do. Harry says some hurtful things about Camilla.

6:23So stepmother comments, things like that, relaying personal conversations that Harry had with the King when he was talking about taking on the tabloid press and the King describing it as a suicide mission. All of that, the King would not have want put into words. But the William comments, I think, I'm not going to say irreparably damaged their relationship, but the two brothers, I mean, very different characters. William, thoughtful, considered, measured in many ways. Harry, this, you know, all guns blazing. The party prince. Well, the party prince is one of those kind of name monikers that he always hated because he felt it was stuck to him and therefore things happened because of that.

6:58People will say to you, Aids Closon will say, William was just very good at getting away with it. He's innocent here. But they had a great relationship. The Fab Four, Meghan, Harry, William, Kate, that has broken down completely. They're not speaking. I think there is a lot of work to do. Will there be a reconciliation? It's a really interesting question. I'm now wondering because you could see it perhaps happening. Harry is not going to want to move to Windsor, let's be honest. That is not probably on the right move, purple brick. Yeah, firing up the zoop. Searching for properties there, I'm sure.

7:30And I wonder if there'll be a gentle softening, a thawing of that very tricky relationship.

7:35Tom Cheshire:If they do do some royal duties, but they're still pursuing commercial opportunities, that's going to rankle with his older brother, no? They're not officially royal duties in the sense that they're not carrying them out on behalf of the royal family. So they're not getting any sovereign grant for the charitable work they do. That's kind of an important distinction in a way because they're not being publicly funded for looking after and championing the cause of stay champion. But it feels like a half in, half out scenario, doesn't it? Whereby they have their commercial interests. Megan can bring the as ever brand over here or keep it going remotely in the States.

8:11The jams, all the lifestyle stuff, the Martha Stewart kind of thing she wanted to pursue. And it's all intense doing successfully. They will be closer to charities they care about here. but it is them doing that as private individuals. So that's the big distinction. But of course, if you look at it on pages of newspapers, you look at the pictures, who's going to know they're here as private individuals as opposed to they're here as working members of the royal family? It looks the same.

8:45Tom Cheshire:Hello, Ed Conway here. Here's what might sound like a slightly random question. What do AirPods, bananas and a pair of shoddily made running trainers from the 1970s have in common? On the surface, not very much But on my podcast Stuff Matters I will uncover the deeper stories behind each of them You will see how together they tell a fascinating new story about the world we live in The first full series of Stuff Matters is out now Just search for it on your podcast app and follow

9:23Tom Cheshire:You mentioned newspapers and I suppose the other reconciliation they'll be hoping takes place, or maybe they won't, but the great British public, who I think have a pretty negative view. You talked about the nuance of their lives and nuance maybe lost on most people. It's going to take a bit of an effort to win back the public, if indeed that is what they want to do. I think they will look at this as a bit of a long-term project for them in that they know what they've said. They did that with the conviction that they had at the time. They will know that to kind of rebuild public trust will require being judged on what they're doing rather than what they're saying.

10:00It's hard when you do have the commercial side of it because it is a very different thing we don't normally see from royals.

10:05Tom Cheshire:Do you think it might need a change of tack as well? So you think of the Netflix series, the Spotify stuff as well, all those big deals. And when you see it on television, it's this sort of sun-dappled Montecito, everything's perfect in this quite unused sort of kitchen. That stuff seems to be particularly irritating to the British public. It might be harder to do it in a gloomy English winter anyway, but do you think they'll tone down that sort of aspect of it and lean more into the British side of life? Look, I don't think you're going to see Megan with a gun over one shoulder and a brace of pheasants in the other hand.

10:38That is not...

10:38Tom Cheshire:Slow gin. That's not going to happen. It's hard to know, isn't it? Because you're right, the California vibe runs through everything to do with that brand. But that brand is her brand and very separate from Harry. And they've kept, I think, quite deliberately distinct in that way. For Harry, it is all about, at the moment, Invictus. So the Invictus Games are being held in Birmingham next summer. And he is all over that. So he's in meetings constantly, not just the UK about it, but with all the different teams. It's all going on and he's really hands-on. So from that point of view, he'll want just to be seen to be carrying on doing that.

11:13And I think I was there in the summer. I was really up close with him, as close as we are now, when he was at something called Fisher House, which is this sort of halfway house for families. If they've got loved ones from the military who were needing hospital treatment or appointments or ongoing treatment. And this is brilliant setup. Harry's a big supporter. I saw him there meeting some of the Invictus veterans, meeting someone who makes cakes there, meeting some of the patients. He has a natural connection with people. I think he probably knows that the Harry we all remember, that Harry is the Harry he needs to project more of now.

11:47If he's here, then he can do more of that. I think he's not a lost cause. Especially when you look at the popularity, there is still, I think, a small clump of people. I think there's a residual affection.

11:58Tom Cheshire:Back to those teenage days as well, that's the sort of Harry that lots of people remember, lots of people grew up with like me. If that's what's offered, maybe that's the way back in. I'm not sugarcoating everything he said and everything he's done because he caused a huge amount of problems within his family, but with the British public as well. It did not go down well here, saying everything he said, being so publicly rude. The other sort of section he was rude about was us, the media. These big cases against newspapers, the last of which against the Daily Mail did not go his way. That relationship with the media, do you think that's going to change?

12:38Tom Cheshire:Will he be as combative as he has been in the past? We've had the last of his kind of fight with Fleet Street, basically. So we've had a case against publishers of the Mirror, The Sun, and now the Daily Mail. And the Daily Mail, I think, was the one that he was overwhelmingly defeated on. Not one single of his allegations did he have a win on. And I think that was absolutely crushing for him. He was furious about it. We heard the statement he released. They called it a whitewash. A complete whitewash. So he's still really angry. In terms of his relationship with the press going forwards, I think they are very aware of the changing landscape of the modern media in that it is not, we're all sitting down and watching the news at a certain time.

13:17We're not all picking up the morning newspaper and holding it in our hands as we drink our cup of tea. And so they are sort of savvy when it comes to how to get their message out there. They're savvy in terms of who they might ask to come on various engagements. So there was one broadcaster in particular, they took on a foreign trip recently because they knew that broadcaster would be more interested in the plight of the country they were in, as opposed to kind of, it's Harry and Meghan, what's Meghan wearing today? So I think they're in their own way having to figure that out. Because at the moment, when you have your normal communal garden royal engagement, we operate in a rotor system whereby we take it and turn to the other broadcasters.

13:53The newspapers will send someone. So it's not a massive press pack. It's just a couple of people. We share our words, our pictures, whatever. Harry and Meghan don't want to do that. So they don't have any kind of rotor, except they sort of do at the same time. So they're trying to do things differently. In terms of his relationship with the tabloids, they're a journalist he will never speak to. He will hold a grudge. looking ahead to the future, there is a way I think they think they can use bits of the media.

14:17Tom Cheshire:To their advantage. To their advantage and the social media accounts as well. One of the other long running disputes has been about protection for the family. This is huge, yeah. And speculation about that. Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, has just said today that this is a private matter. So we haven't got any more detail on that. But presumably there must be some sort of accommodation going to... It might have changed because now their residence is not in the States, it will actually be in the UK. Is there some movement, do you think? Does there have to be for them to have wanted to come back?

14:46It's such a big thing for Harry. One of the major reasons he's been saying he hasn't felt able to bring his children over here to get to know his homeland. Certainly, he didn't feel it was safe for his wife, Meghan, to come over either. As far as I know, as of when we are speaking right now, there hasn't been a shift in the current status of his security. So basically, when him and Meghan left the UK and left their royal roles, his security was massively downgraded. And he has obviously taken that fight furiously through the courts, trying to argue that the decision making process wasn't carried out in the correct way.

15:28Lost that, took it to the Court of Appeal, didn't win that either. But he has always maintained that just because his official title might have changed. The threat level to him hasn't, and the threat remains. It has always been a bigger threat for Harry in the past because of his associations with the military as well. There was a bigger prize on his head, perhaps. He said that hasn't changed. It was unfair. It didn't feel safe. If you get automatic security here, then they're obviously more looped in with security services, intelligence, that kind of thing. They can carry guns. I suspect it will be sorted very, very soon.

16:03Tom Cheshire:Some of the argument around security is that if you've stopped being a working role, you've given that up, in part to pursue commercial opportunities. You've made millions from those commercial opportunities, like any other private citizen who face threats as well. You're a billionaire or an exile or whatever. They pay for their own security. So could that become another big story over the coming months? It could easily, if this decision isn't made and isn't made quickly, certainly. Because Sussex is due to arrive in the UK, you would imagine imminently, just because of when school term starts and the kids have been enrolled here.

16:35I think with the security, RAVEC, this very secretive committee that is in charge of making these decisions. Remember, it's not just for royals, it's for VVIPs, it's for senior politicians. So it includes former prime ministers as well.

16:49Tom Cheshire:This isn't Buckingham Palace making that decision. No, although yes and no, because no, it's a home office committee, which sits independently, but it does have representatives from the palace helping inform these decisions. Harry has always been deeply sceptical about how that process works, the secretive nature of it, the redactions that he found in a lot of documents. He felt he had been targeted, basically. That was his argument. The Home Office will say, this committee sits independently of us, hence the Prime Minister saying, nothing to do with me, except it sort of is at the same time. Someone else's problem.

17:23Tom Cheshire:And if I'm hoping, it remains someone else's problem. I mean, As you say, imminent arrival. What do you think it's going to look like day to day? Megan said ages ago that she wouldn't be able to do the school run in the UK because she'd just be swarmed by photographers. That's part of the reason to going. School's starting. What's she going to be doing? What are they going to be doing? I know that's the big question. I mean, I think with the school run, William and Kate, the Waleses have shown actually you can do the school run because they do it all the time. If you look at when their engagement starts and finish, they are literally working around the school run for many of those days.

17:55So I would argue, A, well, Prince and Princess of Wales managed to do it. And B, when Harry was growing up, it was a very different set of circumstances in that there was this hounding, this following by the paparazzi. We have the press. If a photo landed in a newspaper of Meghan dropping off Archie at school, no one would publish it. It wouldn't go near it. I don't think people would accept that photo either, but there is this code that it won't get published.

18:23Tom Cheshire:That's really interesting. Attitudes in the media and in the public have changed to make that more possible. Yeah. I can't think of a photo in America of her dropping her kids at nursery that's come out. You certainly won't know of any picture from George, Charlotte or Louis school other than them trotting into school on the first day. What will be interesting is that we get a photo of the kids' faces because we've never seen Archie or Lilibet from face on. And I wonder if they will do that because they're here now and it will be, well, here they are. Obviously, they're moving here for a good chunk of time.

18:55Tom Cheshire:They're doing schools, all of that. But do you think it could be permanent? I think it's impossible to say at this stage. I think they are testing the water. I think enrolling your kids in a school suggests it's going to be at least a term because no parents will want to disrupt their kids' education even that early on in their school life. So I think they're looking certainly months at the moment. How many years they might be looking at this, I think will depend on how it goes, how they feel at the end of it, how they feel the kids settling in, how they're settling in. It's a massive move for them.