Why are Prince Harry and Meghan moving back to the UK? – The Latest

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:11The last time we heard Harry talk about the prospect of moving back to the UK, a move did not seem close. It's really quite sad that I won't be able to show my children my homeland. I expect that there will be an uptick in the amount of stories that you see about Harry, Meghan and the family. there's a whole different tone to the treatment that Meghan gets.

0:34Nosheen Iqbal:From The Guardian's Today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Nashi Nikbal.

0:41Nosheen Iqbal:The news broke last night that Harry and Meghan are returning to the UK after spending six years living in the US with their family, with their two children, Archie and Lilibet. Aaron Sharp, your senior news editor at The Guardian, it's a massive story. It's dominating most of the front pages today. Was it a surprise to you? It was a massive surprise and it was a story that nobody really expected to break. It came out of left field appearing on the front page of a couple of national newspapers in the middle of a month where it's traditionally devoid of news. but here they are. I mean the last time we heard Harry talk about the prospect of moving back to the UK a move did not seem close.

1:21He was just lost an appeal against the Home Office over whether or not he should be afforded taxpayer funded private security and when he lost that appeal he said I can't see a world in which it would be safe for me and my family to return to the UK. 18 months later here we are a lot seems to have changed.

1:41Nosheen Iqbal:Well what do we know about his reasons for returning? Very little, very little. All we know is that his children have been enrolled in a school in the UK. We think it must have been a decision that was taken fairly recently and this is because the last time Harry was in the UK with his family he met the king, his father at his private residence in Highgrove and the king was not informed of any planned return to the UK for Harry, Meghan and the children. So this seems to be something which has happened relatively recently. In fact, there's quite an odd detail in our story where it just said the king was informed on Sunday.

2:16Nosheen Iqbal:Exactly. Just call up your dad and say. Yeah, I don't think anybody that I know has got a family set up where if someone's moving halfway across the world to return to their home country, it's the type of thing that you just slip in on the weekend before you do. You've got the family WhatsApp. That's true. But they're not a typical family. Aaron, if you can bear to, could you give us a reminder of what the couple have been up to since what the tabloids described as Megxit, since they moved out to sunny Montecito in California? Yeah, well, it's kind of sort of Instagram versus reality, isn't it?

2:52The Instagram version is long walks on the beach, sun-kissed summers in California. But actually, they've been quite busy since they've been out there involved in a lot of very commercial enterprises. there have been the Netflix documentary deals they've been the Spotify podcasts

3:08Nosheen Iqbal:tens of millions of dollars worth of deals a lot of money and that's money that they've needed to earn in their new capacity as private individuals but it's also been quite busy news wise because with all of those commercial enterprises has come headlines lots of claims allegations made against Harry's relatives back here in the UK especially in his book We all remember the interview with Oprah in which there were claims of an unnamed royal making racist remarks about the skin colour of Archie. Even though it's been quite a relaxing break or a sort of California break for the Sussexes over in America, it will have been quite a challenging one for the royal family, constantly having to bat away stories which have been generated by the Sussexes from the US.

3:59Nosheen Iqbal:It's been quite exposing for them, hasn't it, from all sides? Yeah, it really has. It really has. And I think there's this sense of them having left a royal role, but not really having found a new role in their capacity as private individuals. There have been lots of projects. The projects have not really taken off maybe in the way that they would have hoped. So lots of high-profile deals and perhaps not so much rewarding content later. They are returning to the UK. And, you know, as you said, they are coming back as private individuals. but do we know anything about the state of their relationship with the king and the extended royal family basically will they be welcomed back with open arms well as we know now when they visited the king in high grove six weeks ago the king was not told that the family were going to return to the uk but the family must have done some planning for their return to the uk because as we've said they found a place to live the kids are enrolled in a school so the fact that that information wasn't shared with the king maybe speaks to the state of the relationship as it is now.

5:01And even though they are on speaking terms, maybe there's not the full level of trust that maybe there would be between normal relatives. That's understandable. Things leak in the royal circles and maybe they just didn't want this story to come out before they were ready to announce it. For his part, you should say King Charles has said he's looking forward to being closer to the family and that's understandable. With William, his brother, it's still very difficult. I mean, all the information that we have, and it's a very limited amount of information that we have about their relationship, but every suggestion is that they just don't speak.

5:34They haven't spoken for years. A lot of the allegations that were made about the reasons for the royal fallout by the Sussexes when they were in America were pointed at William and his wife, Catherine. And that relationship is known to be one that is broken. Right.

5:49Nosheen Iqbal:I was going to say fraught, but broken sounds much more serious. Yeah, it just doesn't seem that there's much contact between both camps. Maybe that will change. Maybe proximity will bring that closer. But one of the reasons Harry said that, you know, he couldn't feel safe bringing his family to the UK was, as you said, this issue of police protection, of security. Now, there was this ongoing long dispute with Ravec, which is the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, this independent committee which decides on whether a private individual warrants security. Now, in an interview with the BBC last year, when he was asked whether he'd spoken to the king about it and asked the king to intervene, Harry said, I never asked him to intervene.

6:31Nosheen Iqbal:I asked him to step out of the way and let the experts do their jobs. Which is, ouch. Aaron, could and would the king give Harry that security if he wanted to? Well, technically, where Ravek is concerned, the king can't. it's a publicly funded body that makes decisions on who can get taxpayer funded security based on a certain criteria Ravek's position is that Harry as a non-working royal does not qualify for that protection Harry has challenged that legally the challenge failed it's worth saying that since he has been given permission to appeal again so there may yet be movements in that case but Ravek we know is quite busy it's quite oversubscribed at the minute and one of the reasons it's oversubscribed is that because there are nine living prime ministers which i think is interesting right aside on the story um in terms of the king's uh ability or willingness to provide his son with security he could pay for private security out of his own pocket of course the king could do that there are private security firms who take care of vips all over the world and they are available for hire the question is whether or not that private security can be afforded to harry at the expense of the taxpayer.

7:45And at the minute, the position of the Home Office and the position of Ravek is no.

7:49Nosheen Iqbal:Right. And of course, Harry and Meghan's other major battle was with the British press. Now, Aaron, can you just remind me of how that's actually looked or gone in recent years? Well, it's a mixed bag. I mean, Harry was out and proud about the fact that he was going to use his newfound freedom as a non-working royal to take on the British press and bring them to heel. He has won some victories he's won a victory against mirror group newspapers he has reached a settlement with the publishers of the sun newspaper but i think the these were cases about privacy and yes yeah cases about privacy um claims of illegal methods used to source stories about him his family his friends ex-partners but the big case i think everyone will remember because it's the most high profile case it went all the way to the high court and has been played out over the past 12 months is the case that harry and a list of very high profile co-claimants brought against the daily mail um daily mail didn't back down in that legal case harry didn't back down neither did his co-claimants which were people like elton john david furnish elizabeth hurley ultimately harry lost that battle and he lost it convincingly the judge dismissed his claim and it's left harry with an eye-wateringly large legal bill, which he is going to have to find a way to pay.

9:11So I can't see that that relationship with that side of the British media is going to be mended anytime soon.

9:18Nosheen Iqbal:That's interesting because you've preempted my next question in some ways because I wondered if in this sort of 2.0 era of Harry and Meghan, whether their relationship with the media will be different because, you know, we know how much they fought for privacy, but we also know how much they do also need the press when it comes to selling or promoting whatever new venture that they're yeah putting out to the public so is there a balance to be struck and you know what will it look like i think i think there is a balance to be struck um you're right in the point that you make about harry and megan needing the press even this announcement today about them returning to the uk was briefed to a small number of newspapers so there is a relationship there that needs to work both ways clearly harry will be more visible by virtue of the fact that he and his family now live in the uk you know there was an element of when they were in california they were sort of out of sight out of mind for a lot of the british press and where there were stories the stories didn't come thick and fast in the way that they did when he was a working royal he was based in the uk now that he's back the family are back I expect that there will be an uptick in the amount of stories that you see about Harry, Meghan, the family and what they're up to.

10:30However, I do think that a lot of people will sit up and take notice of how the press treats Harry in light of all the court actions that he's brought against the press in recent months and years. and Meghan of course and we know that there's a whole different kind of tone to the treatment that Meghan gets as a member of the royal family who is a person of colour who talks freely about her mental health and all kinds of issues which it's never really been the done thing for royals to talk about she's a modern royal in many ways and that's been difficult for certain elements of the traditional media to accept so I think it'll work both ways where you'll get figures in the media who will try a new approach maybe with Harry and Meghan now that they're back.

11:11Maybe it will be more measured, but certainly Harry will need to come closer to the media now that he's back in the UK and there is a commercial benefit to him doing that.

11:21Nosheen Iqbal:Aaron, thank you so much for your time. Not at all, thank you. That's it for today. My huge thanks to Aaron Sharp, The Guardian's senior national news editor. You can follow this story over at theguardian.com. Before we go, I'd really recommend listening to the most recent episode of our sister podcast, Science Weekly. Madeleine Finlay discovers whether the incoming rain will be enough to reverse the effects of this summer's drought. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus will be back in your feeds as usual tomorrow morning and The Latest will be back tomorrow night.

11:51Nosheen Iqbal:This episode was produced by Bryony Moore and Leo Schick. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgovin and it was presented by me, Nosy Nickvall.

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