Harry the global non-authority

Prince Harry wants to be a freelance statesman — a man who is respected, skilled and experienced. Can he do it?

He is “not a working royal” but will do the work he was “born to do” and will “always be part of the Royal Family”. But he wants to work “half-in, half-out”, breaking a promise he made to his late grandmother Queen Elizabeth who made clear to him he couldn’t do that.

.He wants to build up a reputation as an authority on global affairs, which often clashes with King Charles, Prince William or Princess Catherine when they have planned speeches or visits. Some people believe Harry deliberately gets his speech out first to grab the headlines and divert attention away from the official royals.

A couple of days before King Charles’s recent visit to Washington where he was due to give a very important speech to a joint session of Congress to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Harry slipped away to Ukraine unannounced to make his speech first, advising Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump what their next steps should be. His advice was ignored.

Harry’s credentials as an expert on geopolitics seem thin. His CV is not particularly impressive. He served in the British Army and has held positions on various organisations and charities but there have been problems. He and the Prince of Lesotho created Sentebale, a charity helping children with HIV/Aids, in 2006 in honour of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. It has, however, now resulted in a bitter fallout with the chairperson Dr Sophie Chandauka, plus a High Court defamation lawsuit.

Harry has also been on the Board of Directors of African Parks but is now being urged to resign due to allegations of rape and torture by staff members.

There are also problems with the Invictus Games, the organisation for disabled ex-service veterans, which he co-founded and are due to be held in the UK next year. Many comments have been heard that the Games have turned into a Meghan and Harry Show, with the couple taking up far too much attention. They are also believed to take some of the money donated by the public to cover their own expenses and especially Meghan’s expensive clothes.

Harry’s chances of being seen as a statesman seem extremely low. Writing a memoir like Spare full of spite and lies is not exactly quite how a stateman would behave.

These are reasons why it would be difficult to give Harry an important role now. Another is Meghan, who is his controlling wife and thinks she knows more than anyone. What they both have is being hypocritical and offensive to his family.

Meghan regularly interrupts Harry even when he is talking to someone else because her needs come first and she wants him to stop immediately. She pats or pushes his back as her signal for him to move on. She also grips his hand and claws his arm with another hand to make sure he stays close. She always wants to be first and pushes to the front even if it is to hold a male team trophy which she had nothing to do with.

There are rumours that the couple are quarrelling about coming back to the UK. When Meghan left the royals with Harry she said she had “no intention of moving back to the UK”. After eight years in America Harry very much wants to return to the UK. Meghan may not.

He will know his exact UK security status once the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC) completes its risk assessment and issues a formal decision on his demand for 24/7 protection for him and his family. Since stepping down as a working royal, he is no longer automatically granted 24/7 taxpayer-funded armed protection and must currently rely on a bespoke, case-by-case evaluation.

Harry has trouble with critical press coverage. He tells other people to avoid taking planes to protect the environment, but usually takes private planes himself. He and Meghan have actively campaigned against the negative impacts of social media, particularly regarding the mental health of children. Yet they have utilised highly visible platforms like Instagram to promote their brand, and have prominently featured their young children in videos used for commercial marketing. Harry and Meghan continue to leverage and commercialise their royal titles for their business brand and have been accused of attempting to act like a parallel royal court in the US.

While Harry was a full-time member of the Royal Family, he said he felt “gagged”. Common sense dictates that a return on his own terms will not be acceptable.