If it’s all so sinister, why are the Sussexes keeping their titles?

So the Duke and Duchess of Sussex did choose the nuclear option, after all. As a way of saying goodbye to Britain – which Prince Harry still called “my home” – and sensationally saying hello to America, they took the deliberate decision to damage the institution of the monarchy on the way out as much as they possibly could.

Cold, cruel, cultishly entrapping, institutionally racist, the monarchy came out worse from the Oprah Winfrey interview even than it did from the Netflix drama The Crown (which Winfrey admitted to watching as her homework). Indeed, for much of the interview, the Sussexes looked as if they were auditioning for the roles of the hero and heroine of series five.

Yet, if the monarchy really is a sinister racist institution, Harry and Meghan ought to resign their HRH titles and the Duchy of Sussex forthwith.

Questions of whether they should have these titles removed should be beside the point. If they truly believe the monarchy to be quite so unpleasant and dangerous, and

‘People who are driven to a mental state where they no longer want to live should surely turn to therapy, not Winfrey’

threatening to mental health, why would they not take the honourable way out of it as soon as possible?

Meghan misled Winfrey when she suggested that it was racism that prevented her son Archie from becoming a prince. The convention is that Archie will only become a prince when Prince Charles accedes to the throne. The royals have been slimming down their numbers for years, and grandchildren of the monarch, for example, no longer have the automatic title of prince or princess, as the children of Princess Anne and Prince Edward demonstrate.

Yet such an unchallenged accusation – made in that part of the programme when Prince Harry was mysteriously not present, as were so many of the worst allegations – is deeply damaging for British softpower abroad, especially in the United States.

Americans cannot be expected to know the minutiae of royal protocol, but they have been left believing that prejudice has prevented Archie from both becoming a royal and receiving royal security, which is untrue.

In fact, the Court, Palace, “Firm”, or whatever else it is called, has been at the very forefront of the battle for good race relations in this country ever since the 1950s, when the Queen called

for tea parties to be given to welcome New Commonwealth immigrants. As well as the United States, Commonwealth countries will be shocked by the couple’s allegations, which need to be supported by Prince Harry naming the supposed racist in the Royal family, thus allowing him or her to explain, deny or contextualise the remark about Archie’s skin colour. (Whoever the racist was, they were certainly not voicing mainstream Palace opinion.)

If it was true that the Duchess was driven to consider suicide by the attitude of the tabloid press, why didn’t she simply do what other royals and senior politicians have always done, and read responsible broadsheets such as The Daily Telegraph instead? People who are driven to a mental state where they no longer want to live should surely turn to therapy, not Winfrey. Nor was it solely the Palace’s job to explain to Meghan about the ferocity of the tabloids, but Harry’s, too.

“I really wasn’t planning to say anything shocking,” the Duchess of Sussex claimed, in one of her many highly questionable remarks. According to her narrative, “We didn’t have a plan” for the multi-million streaming deals – indeed, seemingly nothing was planned – and she didn’t even Google Harry when she met him.

One thing that was clearly true was her remark that “I didn’t fully understand what the job was”. But, once again, that was Harry’s failing more than the Palace’s. royal work is often hard, unglamorous and boring, pretending a curiosity in people in whom one is not genuinely interested.

Yet when Harry says that shaking hands and smiling at people was just “part of the job, part of the role, it’s what is expected”, he devalues the memories of everyone for whom meeting him was an exciting and important moment in their lives.

The monarchy has lasted a thousand years and will clearly survive this. Its strength is that it is a family and thus the passage of time always brings forward new personalities to take the place of the old. The Sussexes will live their lives in wealth and luxury in sunny California. But they should do so as Mr Harry Wales and Ms Meghan Markle.

For why should they want to carry the escutcheon of an institution that they clearly dislike, despise and even supposedly fear?