Beaming Meghan Markle and Harry cosy up to anti-royal Jamaican PM who wants to scrap monarchy ahead of Charles’ op

PRINCE Harry and Meghan Markle have sparked a diplomatic row after posing on a red carpet with Jamaican leaders who want to ditch the Royal Family.

The duke and duchess – who have trashed the royals since quitting for the US – were all smiles while King Charles has been ordered to “slow down” after his hospital scare and Princess Kate is off until April after major abdominal surgery.

Harry and Meghan posing with Jamaican PM Andrew HolnessCredit: The Mega Agency

Harry and Meghan held hands on the red carpet in Kingston, JamaicaCredit: The Mega Agency

The couple put on a loved-up displayCredit: The Mega Agency

It comes just days before King Charles’s prostate opCredit: Paul Marriott

William and Kate with Jamaican PM Andrew Holness in 2022Credit: PA
Jamaica is one of 14 non-UK realms – including Canada, Australia and New Zealand – where the unwell King is head of state.

Harry and Meg put on a loved-up display on the red carpet for the premiere of Bob Marley film One Love.

They posed for snaps with Marlene Malahoo Forte, Jamaica’s minister for legal and constitutional affairs, who last year vowed to “sever ties” between Jamaica and the monarchy.

In January, she said the government would bring a Bill to Parliament in April to remove the King, 75, who has been ordered by wife Camilla “slow down” amid his health scare.

The couple also posed for photos with PM Andrew Holness, who ambushed Kate and William on their ill-fated Caribbean tour in 2022 to say the island nation is “moving on”.

It was the second glitzy outing for Harry in days after he hung out with celebs such as John Travolta when he picked up a Legends of Aviation gong at a Hollywood gala.

The Royal Family insist it is up to the people living in Realms to determine if they wish to leave.

The then-Prince Charles attended the transition of Barbados to a republic in 2021.

He remains Head of State of of 15 Realms including Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and the United Kingdom.

There are no plans for Jamaica to leave the Commonwealth which is a voluntary association of 56 independent countries and has been growing every year and includes non-Empire nations such as Togo and Rwanda.

PAST ABUSES

The late Queen axed Harry and Meghan from their Commonwealth role after outspoken comments, and their Netflix series was slammed by historians after it claimed the free association of nations was “Empire 2.0”.

Harry and Meg waded into the debate just weeks after Megxit saying the Commonwealth must acknowledge its “uncomfortable” past and said “change is needed and it’s coming”.

They were speaking in a video chat to the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust (QMT) in 2020 and hailed the global Black Lives Matter protests as a “moment of reckoning” for those who committed past abuses and said the movement should continue for “as long as it takes”.

Several months later the late Queen removed their role as ambassador and president of the youth charity.

Harry, who has previously apologised after wearing a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party, calling an Army colleague “our little P*** friend” and telling another “you look a raghead”, has accused the Royal Family of racism.

We can’t deny or ignore the fact that all of us have been brought up and educated to see a world differently
Prince Harry

In the 2020 video chat, Harry said: “Certainly when you look across the Commonwealth there is no way we can move forward unless we acknowledge the past.

“And I think so many people have done such an amazing and incredible job, I mean, acknowledging the past and trying to right those wrongs.

“But I think we all acknowledge on here that there is still so much more still to do.

“It’s not gonna be easy and in some cases it’s not going to be comfortable but it needs to be done because, guess what, everybody benefits.

“When it comes to institutional systemic racism, it’s there and it stays there, because someone somewhere is benefiting from it.

“We can’t deny or ignore the fact that all of us have been brought up and educated to see a world differently.”

Slavery was abhorrent and it never should have happened
Prince William

Meghan said: “We have to say in this moment and time we are going to have to be a little uncomfortable right now because only in pushing through that discomfort that we get to the other side of this.”

The couple’s Harry & Meghan six-part series as part of their £100m Netflix deal was blasted for tarnishing the late Queen’s Commonwealth legacy.

One contributor to the programme, the writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch, called the Commonwealth “Empire 2.0”.

Calls to scrap monarchy

JAMAICA has launched plans to ditch King Charles as its Head of State.

Caribbean neighbour Barbados became a republic with an elected head of state in 2021 – sparking calls for Jamaica to follow suit.

The island’s parliament will vote in April whether to scrap ties with the British monarchy.

Jamaica’s PM Andrew Holness told William and Kate the country was “moving on” from the monarchy during their controversial 2022 visit.

Many Jamaicans demanded that the royal family apologise for its alleged role in the slave trade and pay reparations.

Prince William spoke of his “profound sorrow” about slavery during the trip, stopping short of an apology.

But he and Kate were slammed for shaking hands with children through a wire-mesh fence on the “tone-deaf” trip.

At the time, Minister for Legal Affairs Marlene Malahoo Forte said: “Every colonial nation has its time when it must reconsider its arrangements.

“I don’t think any issue should have taken the royal highnesses by surprise.

“They have been warmly welcomed.”

While the academic and author Professor Kehinde Andrews said: “It’s not changed a thing, they’ve just got better PR.

“If you look at the black people in the Commonwealth, well their conditions are almost just as bad as they were 50 or 100 years ago.”

Their words were interspersed with footage of the Queen broadcasting to the Empire in 1947 and her speech at the Commonwealth summit in London in 2018.

When William addressed Jamaica’s politicians at a black tie dinner in the country on his ill-fated trip two years ago he expressed “profound sorrow” for the “appalling atrocity of slavery”.

He said: “Slavery was abhorrent and it never should have happened.

“I strongly agree with my father, the Prince of Wales, who said in Barbados last year that the appalling atrocity of slavery forever stains our history.”