Royals: SA move could be tricky
Expert says Harry and Meghan would have to renounce their titles and privileges
PRINCE Harry and Meghan Markle will have to renounce their royal privileges ahead of any planned move to South Africa, a royal expert has warned.
The duke, 35, and duchess of Sussex, 38, voiced their desires to live in the country on ITV’s Harry &
Meghan: An African Journey, which aired on Sunday and charted the pair’s 10-day tour in South Africa.
However, royal correspondent Victoria Arbiter told the New Zealand talk show Breakfast that there are a number of reasons a move to South Africa cannot occur while the couple remain members of the British royal family.
Questioning whether the British or South African taxpayer would fund their security, she added that showing “favouritism” to one Commonwealth nation would not be fulfilling their “responsibility” to the queen.
“That’s just not going to be okay unless, of course, they renounce all of their royal privileges, their royal titles, everything to do with their life as a member of the royal family”, she said.
“I don’t see that happening, either.”
Arbiter continued: “In the documentary, Meghan talks about the grass always being greener, but there are logistics that come into play when you’re a member of the royal family.
“Some of them are a little bit more obvious.
“So they move to South Africa, so who pays for their security there?
“Yes, they’re both independently wealthy and they could support themselves there. But is the South African taxpayer suddenly paying for their security, or is the British taxpayer paying for that?
“Neither party is going to be particularly happy.”
She said that while a move might be a “lovely” idea, it is rather unlikely that South Africa would be in the running because the royal couple could be accused of favouritism.
Arbiter continued: “Harry and Meghan’s first responsibility is to the 16 nations for which the queen is head of state – South Africa is not one of them. It is a Commonwealth nation, but then there are 53 total members of the Commonwealth, so then there’s accusations of favouritism if they’re spending time in South Africa.”
She suggested Meghan and Harry’s only option would be to renounce their royal titles if they wanted to consider the move.
She said: “Harry has long talked about his passion for the continent as a whole; he’s clearly very happy there; he went there to heal following his mother’s death – it is somewhere they can spend a lot of time, but live there full-time?”
In the hour-long ITV documentary, Harry revealed he was considering living in Africa one day.
He said: “I don’t know where we could live in Africa at the moment. We’ve just come from Cape Town; that would be an amazing place for us to be able to base ourselves, of course it would.
“But with all the problems that are going on there I just don’t see how we would be able to really make as much difference as we’d want to.”
Harry also revealed Africa would be the main focus of his and Meghan’s work in the future.
“The rest of our lives, especially our life’s work will be predominantly focused on Africa, on conservation.
“There are 19 Commonwealth countries across this continent; there’s a lot of things to be done, there’s a lot of problems here but there’s also huge potential for solutions.”