Prince Harry, Meghan Markle: What does ‘financial independence’ mean? - NEWS.com.au

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s bombshell statement today, announcing their decision to quit as “senior” royals, contained one particularly striking line.

“We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the royal family, and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty the Queen,” the couple said.

Working to become financially independent. What does that mean, exactly? At a basic, top-line level, it means being able to work; to pursue commercial deals; to earn an income of their own outside the royal family.

Fair enough. But like so many aspects of Meghan and Harry’s announcement, the details are frustratingly vague.

Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that they went public with their intentions before bothering to first tell the Queen, Prince Charles or, for that matter, anyone else in the royal family.

In an alternate universe, where this situation was handled competently, all the details of the couple’s new life and, crucially, their ongoing relationship with Buckingham Palace would already have been settled behind the scenes.

There would have been a nice, clean, amicable joint statement, and a clear explanation of which responsibilities – and benefits – Harry and Meghan would endure and enjoy going forward.

Instead what we have is a passive aggressive statement from the blindsided Palace, saying discussions with Harry and Meghan are at “an early stage” and there are “complicated issues that will take time to work through”.

And we have a revamp of the couple’s personal website, which combines reams of meaningless PR drivel with unilateral pronouncements about things the pair actually have no control over.

I’m particularly thinking of the section dealing with “funding”.

“The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have made the choice to transition into a new working model. As they step back as senior members of the royal family and no longer receive funding through the Sovereign Grant, they will become members of the royal family with financial independence, which is something they look forward to,” it states.

“Their Royal Highnesses feel this new approach will enable them to continue to carry out their duties to Her Majesty the Queen while having the future financial autonomy to work externally.

“While the contribution from the Sovereign Grant covers just 5 per cent of costs for the Duke and Duchess and is specifically used for their official expense, their Royal Highnesses prefer to release this financial tie.”

So, they’re giving up their share of the Sovereign Grant, which is the public money used to fund the royal family each year. We can all agree that’s the right move.

But what about the other 95 per cent? In Harry and Meghan’s words, that is funded by “income allocated by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, generated through the Duchy of Cornwall”.

That’s a fancypants way of saying Harry’s dad gives him a lot of money. And where does that money come from? The public.

Prince Charles is, among other things, the Duke of Cornwall, which means he receives the income from the duchy. Every year he gives some of it – a few million pounds – to William, Harry and their partners.

Think of it as an allowance, but on steroids.

The royals consider this to be “private” money, even though it’s raised from the people of Cornwall. I daresay most normal people would disagree. But that’s a debate for another day.

I’m more interested in Meghan and Harry’s definition of “financial independence” as living, in very large part, off that money.

Nowhere on their meticulously redesigned website do they mention relinquishing it. They fully intend to keep it.

It’s the rough equivalent of me, a 29-year-old man, getting a multimillion-dollar allowance from my parents and describing it, without a hint of irony, as financial independence.

There’s an added wrinkle here too. While Harry and Meghan have assumed, probably correctly, that they will keep receiving the cash, they actually don’t get to choose.

That decision rests with Charles, who was described by a senior royal source today as “incandescent with rage” over their announcement.

It’s exactly the sort of detail that should have been negotiated before any of this went public. Instead, the Sussexes have merely assumed Charles, and by proxy the people of Cornwall, will keep paying their way. It’s extraordinarily presumptive.

There are other obvious exceptions to Harry and Meghan’s new-found independence. For example, they seem to think they should be able to keep using Frogmore Cottage as a part-time residence, so they can “always have a place to call home in the United Kingdom”.

Technically, the Queen owns the cottage, which is not nearly as modest as its name suggests. You may recall the British taxpayer recently spent 2.4 million pounds renovating it.

Does financial independence mean Harry and Meghan will get to keep using the property for free, even as it sits empty for long periods while they live in Canada? Or will they be expected to pay rent?

Again, this is the sort of detail that should have been sorted before the announcement, not left to the speculation of some tosser in the media.

Then there is the astronomical price of providing security for Meghan and Harry. Their website makes it crystal clear they expect the British taxpayer to keep covering that cost, whether they happen to be in Britain or on the other side of the world.

Maybe that is the right call, but it’s not theirs to make.

The backdrop to all of this is the fact that both Harry and Meghan are already independently wealthy – the former is worth tens of millions, mostly due to his large inheritances, and the latter was estimated to be worth about 3.5 million pounds before their marriage, having enjoyed a successful acting career.

It is absolutely bizarre to hear two multi-millionaires, with exponentially more money in their thirties than most people will earn in their lifetimes, talk earnestly about “working to become” financially independent.

The words “out of touch” spring to mind.

Harry and Meghan are already more than capable of true independence – of cutting themselves off from all royal money and starting fresh.

That is not what they’re proposing. They want the free holiday home, and the taxpayer-funded security, and a nice bite of the Duchy of Cornwall’s income to top things off.

Ultimately, the only conclusion you can draw is that they want to be freed from the vast majority of their royal responsibilities, while giving up – what, exactly? The Sovereign Grant, which covers a measly 5 per cent of their spending? That’s not a commensurate sacrifice.

They want to leverage their mega-celebrity status to earn an entirely new fortune as private citizens, without relinquishing most of the financial benefits they get from their connection to one of the most powerful public institutions in history.

There is a fair balance to be struck here, somewhere. It will require a process of painstaking, detailed consultation between the couple, the Palace and the British government.

Harry and Meghan didn’t consult at all. The backlash – which has already started – was inevitable.

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