EXCLUSIVE: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s ‘firm message’ to senior royals before Colombia tour

As Prince Harry and Meghan Markle journey to Colombia for a controversial four-day tour, an expert shares with the Mirror how they’ve delivered a firm message to senior Royals

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will send a ‘firm message’ to senior royals while on their Colombia tour, and it could ‘deepen their rift’ according to an expert.

The Sussexes be flying out on a four-day trip to Colombia, visiting the capital of Bogota and the coastal city of Cartagena. As they’re no longer working royals, they won’t be representing the UK in an official capacity, but the trip will include many of the hallmarks of a classic royal tour.

Now royal author Tom Quinn has spoken with the Mirror about the purpose behind the Sussexes’ trip, which marks their second tour of 2024, and he believes this is ‘undoubtedly Meghan and Harry’s way of sending a message to the senior royals’.

Author Tom Quinn believes this latest trip could deepen the Royal rift ( 
Image:
Anadolu via Getty Images)
According to Quinn, the author of Scandals of the Royal Palaces: An Intimate Memoir of Royals Behaving Badly, one of the Sussexes’ reasons for travelling to Colombia will spark irritation in the palaces Harry once called home before carving out his new independent life in California.

Quinn said: “The tour is undoubtedly Meghan and Harry’s way of sending a message to the senior royals: ‘We will continue to behave as royals whenever and wherever we wish and there is nothing you can do about it’. It’s a message that can do nothing but deepen the rift between Harry and his family.

“But for The Firm, the Colombia tour is an infuriating reminder that they cannot stop Meghan and Harry behaving as if they are working Royals – accepting an invitation from a sovereign state always makes it look as if Meghan and Harry are somehow acting in an official royal capacity.”

During the couple’s last tour in May, which took them to Nigeria, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Richard Montgomery, confirmed the couple were not representing the British government on an official basis during their visit to the West African country. Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria at the time, Mr Montgomery clarified: “It’s great that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are visiting Nigeria, which I understand is at the invitation of Defence Headquarters. But they are visiting in a private capacity, not an official one. So, the British High Commission is not involved in arranging or facilitating their programme. They are not representing the work of His Majesty’s Government on this visit.”

This distinction has raised questions about the purpose behind such tours, which are usually the domain of working members of the royal family. Harry and Meghan stepped back from official duties in 2020 and went on to make serious claims about their time in The Firm. The fifth in line to the throne, Harry remains a prince but has given up his military titles. The Sussexes have also kept their Duke and Duchess of Sussex titles, however, they are no longer addressed as his or her Royal Highness (HRH).

However, four years on, Quinn believes the pair have lost some of their ‘glitter’, which they hope a successful tour could restore. He continued: “Despite opting out of official royal duties Meghan and Harry know that a national tour restores some of the glitter they lost when they left the UK for the States.

“One or two palace officials have grumbled that Colombia is pretty much the only country that would have Meghan and Harry. And there is no doubt that senior Royals in the UK would have declined an invitation to visit a country where any kind of security is difficult to maintain. They are also worried that the Firm will be blamed for not trying to stop the tour should anything happen to Meghan and Harry while they are in Colombia.”

Colombia is known to have a ‘high terrorist threat’, as well as soaring rates of abduction incidents. The Defence Ministry’s figures show that, from January to October 2022, at least 287 people were kidnapped by bandits, marking an alarming 73 per cent surge from the previous year. The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has urged Brits to ‘reconsider’ travelling to the country unless their visit is absolutely essential.