‘He thinks the Royal Family need him’: What Harry and Meghan are really trying to achieve with farcical return… as ALISON BOSHOFF reveals why they expect to be ‘let back in’ – and why their own team is ‘miserable’

Prince Harry’s charm offensive – mounted this summer via a toe-curling blokey podcast with bearded former England rugby player and Traitors star Joe Marler and some ‘goat yoga’ at a charity event – is most certainly over.

It had barely survived the chaos and the misbriefings of the Sussexes ‘private’ trip to the UK in July, which included a visit to see the King at Highgrove.

But now, at the conclusion of an extraordinary week in which the Sussexes were reminded by the Palace of their status as ‘akin to private citizens with commercial and charitable interests’ – as opposed to being royal – all bonhomie has evaporated.

Within 24 hours of Monday’s ‘guidance letter’ from the King, via the Lord Chamberlain, to relevant senior stakeholders across the Government, military and Lord Lieutenancies, Harry’s side had their say.

Via his press team (he has a communications expert in London and a team in California) the Prince was stung into strikingly peevish public criticism of the Palace.

‘The duke is understood to have taken particular issue with the notion that the couple were to be treated as private citizens. If that were the case, it was claimed, such formal guidance would not be required.

‘The Sussexes prefer the term “public figures”, and would have liked an acknowledgement that, on a personal level, they remained members of the Royal Family, despite no longer receiving public funding,’ said a Sussex source.

There was more of the same on Thursday. ‘They are public figures,’ a source close to the couple told their favoured outlet People magazine. ‘Members of the public know who they are. The idea that they can live a normal, “private” life is sadly not realistic.’

Just over a fortnight after Harry landed back home, the Prince is already chipping away at the idea that he is a private citizen, despite the fact he and Meghan said that they wanted to live as private citizens back in 2020 – and even though his friends have repeatedly insisted that his intention is to be as ‘low profile’ as possible over the coming months.

Now those very same friends are briefing that Harry ‘always expected’ a row like this one to be the outcome.

After all, they say, he was briefed against by the Palace machine ‘for years’ when he and Meghan were living in the UK. They say he views this week’s developments as just yet more of the same.

‘He is not surprised,’ a friend tells me. ‘Remember, this is a couple who had briefing after briefing after briefing against them from parts of the establishment. They had really prepared themselves for this outcome before they came back. They were always expecting it.’

Yet wanting privacy, desiring to have the freedom of ‘private citizens’ – and then complaining when they are labelled as such by the Palace seems, at first, rather perplexing.

What then is Harry trying to achieve? Says another source, bluntly: ‘Look, they expect to be let back in. Harry expects they [the Royal Family] need him.

‘He and Meghan have nothing else going for them. They’ve burned every bridge in America.’

With that in mind, it’s worth noting that yesterday Harry announced his forthcoming activities – which were rather pointedly, one might say, described by his team as his ‘September public engagements’.

As for Meghan, she’s apparently eyeing the prospect of being invited to the 40th anniversary celebrations for the Phantom of the Opera in London on October 9.

This would send a bit of a message as Lord Lloyd-Webber and King Charles are close. As a former actress, a re-entry into British showbusiness would make sense for her.

You could certainly argue that building new bridges here is imperative for the couple given the decline of their American dream – their commercial deals have fallen away, Meghan’s As Ever brand doesn’t appear to be flying, and their attempts to make waves in Hollywood have led only to embarrassments.

To be told they are out of the royal fold, then, through this week’s Palace press release, has caused what appears to be an almighty tantrum from Harry’s side, who claim to have found fault with the timing of the release.

It seems the Sussexes feel they didn’t have enough time to ‘clarify’ some of the points made of behalf of the King.

You may think it takes some nerve, after the couple dropped so many vicious bombshells on the Royal Family in their television interview with Oprah, in Harry’s memoir Spare and in the Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, to be annoyed about a lack of warning over what was effectively a re-statement of the terms of the Sandringham summit in 2020.

Nevertheless, they complain that they were caught ‘off guard’ – as well as being denied the chance to protest their royal status.

To demonstrate the ‘unfairness’ of it all, their representatives even went so far as to release the timings – to the minute – of when each email dropped. The letter was shared with them at 1.59pm. They say they wrote back at 2.19pm ‘in the hope’ the Sussexes could have ‘the chance to clarify one or two points’.

At that point, Harry was visiting Tower Bridge Studios in London and ‘could not be contacted’ until 3.09pm. At 3.11pm, they received confirmation it was too late to change anything as the missive already been sent to the media five minutes earlier.

As you might expect, this briefing of such minutiae, and in such bad grace, has only served to shred what remains of relations between the Palace communications team and the Sussexes.

Sources close to the Palace, who were ‘weary and wary’ before their return, have rather had their point made for them about the sheer impossibility of navigating a working relationship with the Sussexes.

The mood music is very much: ‘Will they never learn?’

From the Palace side, I’m told the intention on Monday had only been to ‘clarify’ that the Megxit deal as struck in 2020 still held, despite the new circumstance of the couple and their children Archie and Lilibet returning to the UK and enrolling the children in schools.

The letter confirmed Prince Harry and Meghan’s HRH titles remain ‘in abeyance’ and they were not to be treated as working royals, but as private citizens.

The question of their security, the letter notes, is down to the Home Office. If circumstances arise in which public funds might be called upon when they visit, organisers are to contact Buckingham Palace for guidance.

However, there’s no escaping the fact that what had seemed clear enough when the Queen drew the line in 2020 – and Harry and Meghan were going to live permanently in America – now looks simply confounding when they are in the UK.

Put simply, the Sandringham arrangement fails the ‘duck test’. (The duck test being that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.)

Here, Harry (still fifth-in-line to the throne, lest we forget) and Meghan behave like royals and insist that they have royal status – but the King insists they don’t.

One observer says: ‘Harry and Meghan’s philanthropic activities are so close to the royal playbook. They go on “royal” tours abroad, they lay wreaths, they meet local consular staff, they make speeches which closely echo sentiments expressed by the King.

‘Now that they are back in Britain, can the public really be expected to remember that Harry is a member of the Royal Family, who is acting like a working royal, but isn’t? It feels like nonsense.’

A source close to the Sussexes believes this confusion is actually what the couple are counting on and forms part of the strategic thinking behind the return – which is, surely, a high-stakes tactic.

The source says: ‘Ultimately their PR is disastrous every time and I hear that the team are utterly miserable. It all looks awful.

‘The spinning is unbelievable – so sloppy and I cannot believe that they offered (off-the-record) quotes in response to the King’s letter.

‘What it shows is that they’re assuming the King would change his mind about sticking to the Sandringham summit rather than holding the line.’

As ever, the Sussexes are trying to ride two horses. As well as all the grumpiness and back-biting, friends of the couple are still keen to emphasise their ‘excitement’ over their new beginning.

They are about to make a start on house-hunting in earnest in the Cotswolds, and have been prioritising the first days at school for Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five.

They’ve not been spotted out and about, which is apparently a deliberate move. Home for now is a ‘cottage’ on the estate of a wealthy friend, about which I’m told: ‘You or I would call it a massive house but they call it a cottage.’

The Sussex friend adds: ‘I think they’re both feeling largely very positive and are really excited about the new chapter. They have minimal plans between now and Christmas and the aim is to be quiet.’

However, the anonymous briefings and public announcements this week tell a rather different story.

Those ‘September public engagements’ announced by Harry’s team today include the launch of the INSPIRE educational initiative and the Wellchild awards.

He has been patron of the charity for seriously ill children for 18 years. Before the main ceremony, he will host a private reception for the young recipients and their families, present the award for Inspirational Child and deliver a speech.

After his UK commitments, the Duke is scheduled to fly to New York on September 22 to attend the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting.

There also remains a heavy focus on plans for the Invictus Games next year. It’s thought he was filming some material for sponsors at the Tower Bridge Studios this week.

Indeed, plans for the Games are at a crucial point, with Prince Harry and the team seeking further corporate sponsorship.

One of their major sponsors, Boeing, opted not to renew after the event in Vancouver in 2025. Another sponsor is Netflix, who recently downgraded Harry and Meghan’s deal to a ‘first look’ arrangement, and who dropped out of their commercial partnership with As Ever.

Some say that Harry needs to get around £20 million in sponsorship to ‘save’ the Games in the coming months.

That may account for the dismay after Ugandan military chief General Muhoozi Kainerugaba announced that the country, a member of the Commonwealth, was pulling out because of ‘that Harry-Meghan nonsense’.

He wrote on X: ‘In order not to be construed as being opposed to His Majesty King Charles III of the United Kingdom, whom we deeply revere, Uganda hereby withdraws from the Invictus Games.’

Harry subsequently let it be known he blamed the Lord Chamberlain’s letter for the withdrawal.

Palace sources, however, counter that the letter made very clear that if there was uncertainty over protocols to contact Buckingham Palace for advice.

They insist they would have responded to any query over the Games with the line that the King encourages any and all organisations and events which support wounded service personnel.

Questions remain over the Games in Birmingham, which have a budget of £45million, with the UK Government coming up with £26million of that. There will be around 400 competitors.

As for Meghan, apart from the potential Phantom of the Opera invitation next month, what lies next for the Duchess here?

Her ‘role’ in the new series of Guy Ritchie’s hit Netflix drama The Gentlemen – which her team briefed was one of the reasons why she was excited to return to Britain – seems to have been no more than a warm conversation and some wishful thinking on her part.

‘It was always a conversation,’ I’m told, as distinct from a negotiation or an actual deal.

Neither Harry nor Meghan are about to take up additional patronages – they’re ‘not in a hurry’ apparently – but friends think they might as time goes on. Harry is in dialogue with various veterans’ associations.

At the end of October, the Sussex family will return to California for half term week, and then batten down the hatches for another five weeks in the UK before they go back to America for a longer spell over Christmas.

Harry believes that by then a Home Office review will have changed his security status.

‘He thinks he is going to get some kind of increased security after the review,’ says his friend. That might, alone, allow this messy re-entry to count as a success rather than a humiliating mess.

But then, as one rather cynical associate from California put it: ‘They aren’t relevant unless they are causing trouble.’