Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Labour has stumbled into the royal culture war

The party's interventions make little sense

(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Given Starmer’s aim of getting red wall voters back on side, Labour should not have touched the Harry and Meghan debate with a bargepole. It is a massively loaded cultural issue that can only hurt them. And yet it seems they couldn’t help themselves. Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, has said in a television interview that Meghan’s claims of racism should be ‘fully investigated’ by the Palace. This is exactly the kind of move that leaves only confustion when trying to work out about what Starmer is trying to accomplish.

I feel like I’m the only person who lives in Great Britain who doesn’t really care that much either way about the whole Harry and Meghan ordeal. I am nominally a royalist in that I think the current system — at least with the head of state we have at the moment — is better than a presidential one. Yet Harry is so far down the line of succession, I can’t get too upset about what he does and does not do in constitutional terms. If this was William, then I’d get the hype; as it’s his younger brother and William has several children, I just don’t care very much.

If you’re going to avoid the culture war, then why get involved in a portion of it that is highly toxic?

And I get the idea that things like the Oprah interview pose an existential threat to the monarchy as a whole, which should make me care more than I do. Except, British royalty has been here before and survived much worse. William and his massive popularity bodes well for the current basic constitutional arrangements, whatever his sibling decides to do in the interim.

But again, I know I’m mostly alone in not caring all that much about Harry and Meghan one way or another.

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