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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle “squandered a golden opportunity to show” what Britain “is really like in matters of race,” an ex-equality chief said.
Trevor Phillips, previously chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the U.K.’s equality watchdog, said “no one cared about Meghan’s race.”
His comments come after years of debate about whether Meghan was a victim of racism at the hands of the media, the royals, the public or all of the above.
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“They could have been a beacon of discovery and reconciliation,” Phillips told the Daily Mail. “Not just to Britain, but the whole world.
“Instead, they completely squandered a golden opportunity to show everyone what this country is really like in matters of race—a country where no one disturbs themselves about a marriage across the lines of race and ethnicity.
“But they constructed this completely ridiculous and unpleasant story about how maltreated they were—which, frankly, no one believes.
“No one cared about Meghan’s race. They could have made things different for millions of people and they chose not to. That’s unforgivable. In my book, that’s a sin.”
Phillips is an anti-racism campaigner, though he has been controversial in Britain, having previously been accused of Islamophobia over comments describing U.K. Muslims as “a nation within a nation.” He stood by his remarks.
He also played a walk on part in an argument over whether Prince Harry misquoted a former spokesperson to Queen Elizabeth II in his book Spare.
Harry wrote that the Daily Mail “convened a ‘Fleet Street jury’ to consider our ‘crimes'” after the couple stepped back from royal life.
The book read: “Among them was the Queen’s ex–press secretary, who concluded, with his fellow jurors, that we should hereafter ‘expect no mercy.’
“I shook my head. No mercy. The language of war? Clearly this was more than simple anger. These men and women saw me as an existential threat.”
The account appeared to be based on a Mail story which included quotes from both Dickie Arbiter, former press secretary to Elizabeth, and Phillips.
However, the reference to “no mercy” came from Phillips, not Arbiter, and, to make matters worse, even then it appeared to be taken out of context.
While the article did make reference to a “Fleet Street jury,” the quotes had been lifted from other newspapers, meaning there was no contact or agreement between Arbiter and Phillips as they had spoken separately to different publications.
Harry also appeared to strip the nuance out of Phillips’ actual comment, which offered advice on how Conservatives and young progressives might both turn on the prince: “Once outside the royal enclosure they will no longer enjoy the deference that Harry, at least, has had all his life. They will join the rest of us in the trenches.
“They can expect no mercy from those who like things just as they are and, to be honest, they’ll get short shrift from the many activists who have endured a lifetime of calumny from the media, largely without complaint.”
His analysis appears to have aged well as conservative commentators have repeatedly accused Harry of betraying his family while just this past week, Imarn Ayton, a Black Lives Matter activist in Britain, took a swipe at the couple.
She told Good Morning Britain: “The one that irks me the most, is when they decided to use black people as a weapon, as a tool when they needed support. That is my issue.
“‘Let’s get support from the black community. Let’s talk about racism, and then three years later let’s say: ‘We didn’t talk about racism.’ They brought us on that journey with them and then just kind of dumped us at the end. They used us.”
Jack Royston is chief royal correspondent for Newsweek, based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jack_royston and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We’d love to hear from you.
