Explained: The race row over which Harry-Meghan could lose royal titles  

Will Prince Harry and Meghan Markle lose their royal titles? According to reports in the British media, a bill has been introduced in the UK Parliament to strip them of their royal titles. This comes after the Royal Family has been engulfed in yet another row over race. But what do we know about the controversy? Let’s take a closer look: What happened? The row goes back to a 2021 interview Harry and Meghan did with Oprah Winfrey. The Guardian quoted Meghan as saying that a member of the Royal Family, whom she did not name, had spoken to Harry about “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born”. BBC quoted Oprah as asking, “Because they were concerned that if he were too brown, that that would be a problem? Are you saying that?” To which Meghan replied: “I wasn’t able to follow up with why, but if that’s the assumption you’re making, I think that feels like a pretty safe one, which was really hard to understand.”

“I think it would very damaging to them,” she added.

“That conversation, I’m never going to share, but at the time it was awkward. I was a bit shocked,” Harry chimed in. Winfrey in the aftermath of the race row clarified that Harry confirmed to her that neither Queen Elizabeth nor her husband the Duke of Edinburgh was the individual in question. Then, the furore over race and the Royal Family erupted again this week. This, after a book by Omid Scobie entitled Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival identified two members of the Royal Family as “racist royals.” Scobie previously wrote Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family in 2020. The Dutch version of the book identified King Charles and Katherine the Princess of Wales as the two members of the Royal Family who enquired as to what the skin colour of Meghan and Harry’s first baby would conceivably be. Meghan and Harry’s first child Prince Archie was born in 2019. It was the Dutch journalist Rick Evers, who obtained a copy of the book, that broke the news. The names were then picked by talk show host Piers Morgan and a number of outlets. The names of the “racist royals” remain absent from the English edition of the book. Scobie has insisted that this is a translation error and denied that this is an attempt to create a controversy and sell books.

“The book I edited didn’t have names in it,” Scobie told BBC.

Meanwhile, the publisher of the Dutch edition of the book has withdrawn and pulped the copies. But the translator of the book has defended her work. “As a translator, I translate what is in front of me,” Saskia Peeters told Mail Online. “The names of the royals were there in black and white. I did not add them. I just did what I was paid to do and that was translate the book from English.” This isn’t the first time the Royal Family has had to deal with allegations of racism. As per CNN, in December 2022, as Camilla, Queen Consort, held an event at Buckingham Palace to highlight the issue of violence against women, the chief of a domestic violence charity was asked ‘where she was really from’. “It was like an interrogation,” Ngozi Fulani of charity Sistah Space told BBC. “Although it’s not physical violence – it is an abuse.” “I have to really question how this can happen in a space that’s supposed to protect women against all kinds of violence,” Fulani added. It was previously reported Charles referred to a wealthy Indian property developer and polo friend Kolin Dhillon by the nickname ‘Sooty’. Prince Harry himself was engulfed in a race row after a video emerged of him calling a fellow cadet ‘our little Paki friend’. What’s the bill Harry and Meghan are facing? British lawmaker Bob Seely is planning to move an amendment in UK Parliament stripping Harry and Meghan of their titles. “In the next couple of weeks, I shall present a Bill in Parliament to strip the Duke and Duchess of Sussex of their royal titles,” Seely wrote in the Mail. I’m not a republican and support the monarchy, but after the latest instalment of the couple’s feud with the rest of the Royal family, I believe that Parliament and the Privy Council should consider a nuclear option,” he said. “My aim is simple: if someone doesn’t want to be a royal, that is a decision we respect – but they should not keep the titles and privileges if they trash an institution that plays an important part in our nation’s life,” he added. “People close to the young royal couple have revealed that Harry and Meghan are not behind claims made in Omid Scobie’s book. But, I suspect that few people believe such denials,” the British Conservative MP said. As per the BBC, Harry and Meghan have strongly denied any notion that they or their representatives fed Scobie information for his book. Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace has indicated that ‘all options are open.’ With inputs from agencies