What is behind the return of Harry and Meghan to the UK?

Football may not have come home this summer, but Harry and Meghan are on their way.

This “unexpected development” is even more surprising “when you recall all the things the Sussexes said in books, on Netflix, and to Oprah Winfrey about their unhappy life in Harry’s country of birth”, said ITV’s royal correspondent Chris Ship.

The couple will reportedly move into a private, non-royal residence outside London. One of the main reasons behind the surprise announcement, according to news.com.au is that Meghan has been offered a role in an upcoming TV project in the UK.

No further details have been forthcoming, leaving great speculation over the reasons for their return from California.

What did the commentators say?

This is the culmination of “Project Thaw”, said royal author Andrew Lownie in The Washington Post – the plan, involving King Charles, “to bring Harry back into the fold after years of estrangement following the couple’s ‘Megxit’ from Britain”. In that way “the news should not have caught everyone off guard” and “there have been signs for the past year that Harry was keen to set up his own alternative royal court in Britain”.

“Please say that the Prodigal Son and the Prodigal Daughter-in-Law have decided to return to Britain for the right reasons – to heal family rifts, rather than their finances,” said Harry Mount in The Independent. Experts have noted the couple “have now achieved six full tax years of non-UK residency – enough to manage the ‘temporary non-resident’ rules for capital gains tax”. Their return then “just happens to be ideally timed for their bank accounts, as well as for their children to start the new academic year in British schools”.

But the decision is an “admission of failure, whether Harry and Meghan are intellectually honest enough to admit it or not”, royal commentator Kinsey Schofield told Page Six. “They had America, Hollywood, enormous contracts, global name recognition and every conceivable advantage,” she said. “And six years later, they’re coming back. That is failure.”

But I am told this move is “not due to any problems in the US”, said the BBC’s senior royal correspondent Daniela Relph. Instead “it has been driven by the couple’s desire to spend time in Europe, nearer Harry’s family and wanting to educate their children in the UK”.

The theme that came up again and again “when I spoke to people close to Harry earlier this year” was homesickness dressed up as ambition, said Dan Wakeford on Celebrity Intelligence. “He doesn’t care about the appearance of wealth. He cares about the appearance of doing good work,” one source said, describing a man who missed his family, his friends and his old life. Another source told Wakeford on Celebrity Intelligence the couple were “wildly unhappy”.

While it is “great on a personal level” for Charles to have more private access to his younger son and grandchildren, it will “take a long time to establish a reasonable degree of trust”, Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty Magazine, told The Guardian. “People will still wonder: do Harry and Meghan have another media deal set up?”

What next?

Harry “has no plans to return as a working royal”, said royal editor Matt Wilkinson in The Sun. But sources admit some elements of their move back to the UK remain “up in the air”.

One such detail is the prospect of a Gallagher-brothers-style burying of the hatchet for Harry and Prince William. But it appears there will be no Knebworth equivalent for the royals quite yet with the former BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt suggesting William would be “apoplectic” at the Sussexes’ return.

“In the long term, the return of the Sussexes to the UK opens up the prospect of two rival courts, William’s and Harry’s,” he said. “In the short term, Harry will be able to deepen his rapprochement with his father. And his presence back home will make it harder for his brother to duck a reconciliation.”