Prince Harry reaches out to ex-advisors in huge sign he wants to win over UK | Royal | News

Prince Harry has sought the advice of former aides on how to plot his return to the UK from the United States, a report claims.

Sources have told the Mail on Sunday that the Duke of Sussex has been talking to people from “his old life” as a working senior royal.

The unnamed sources cited by the publication are reported as saying the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are not seeking a permanent move back to Britain.

A source said Harry is turning away from Hollywood publicists and is seeking “counsel” from his old friends and associates.

They added: “He is clearly reaching out thinking, ‘I need to do something different because what I’m doing is clearly not working’. In short, he is rethinking the way he operates.”

Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, left the UK for North America shortly after they stepped back from their duties as senior working royals in January 2020.

Since then the couple have settled in Montecito, California, with their children, Prince Archie Harrison and Princess Lilibet Diana.

The Sussexes are believed to be estranged from senior royals, with Harry and Prince William’s relationship understood to be especially distant.

The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex both attended the funeral of their mother’s brother-in-law, Lord Robert Fellowes, on Thursday (August 29) but they are believed to have kept apart and not spoken to each other.

Tensions between the royal brothers can be traced back to the early period of Harry’s relationship with Meghan, when his then fiancee had a falling-out with the Princess of Wales in the run-up to their wedding.

Harry made a series of allegations against his brother and other members of the Royal Family in his memoir, Spare, including a claim William pushed him over in a row about Meghan.

Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace have not responded in public to the Sussexes’ claims.

Recent reports have suggested King Charles may be open to mending bridges with his youngest son even if William chooses not to.

A “friend” of Prince Harry’s cited by the Mail on Sunday‘s source has reportedly devised a strategy outlining how the Duke might start moving in UK circles again.

The source told the same publication that the friend believes if Harry returns to the UK with “zero fuss” and does “mundane” events then he could win the British public over again.

They cautioned that this could only happen if certain members of the Royal Family were to allow it.

Harry’s former private secretary Edward Lane Fox has been named as potentially paving the way for his return, but he told the Mail it wasn’t something he took a view on.

A return to the royal fold may prove to be harder than the Duke can imagine, with the terms of the Sandringham summit which decided the Sussexes’ role outside the monarchy.

Harry and Meghan are believed to have wanted to step back from royal duties, but instead stepped down completely in the wake of the agreement struck between the Duke, the late Queen, King Charles and Prince William.

It is believed the idea of the Sussexes cutting lucrative commercial deals while still sometimes representing the monarch was a risk to the Royal Family’s reputation the House of Windsor was not willing to take.

Whether Harry can renegotiate or wants to reopen the deal struck in 2020 remains to be seen.