It’s been more than three years since Harry and Meghan officially left the royal family. But what was it that lead to | dG1fNTBBdGNKcnBpN1E
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00:00Look, they're clearly very unhappy with the royal existence that they have at the moment
00:04and the way that their public life impinges on them. It's something they clearly want
00:10to change and many people have sympathy with that. It's understandable. The crux of the
00:16matter is you can't be half royal. You can be part of the royal machine, you can accept
00:22the privileges that go with it but also take the restrictions and all that and you live
00:29in a bubble or you can stand back. The next generation of Dukes of Kent, Dukes of Gloucester,
00:36they're private citizens, no one would recognise them in the street. You can go down that route
00:39if you want. What you can't do is to be transatlantic royals who drop in, do a bit of royal stuff
00:46but then go off to do this financial independent stuff in LA or Toronto, wherever it is.
00:51I think the whole plan that Harry and Meghan have is a really problematic one because they're
00:55talking about stepping back, they're talking, their critics would argue, about having their
00:59cake and eat it. They're talking about one day representing the Queen on a foreign tour
01:04to another country, on another day, say in North America, earning serious money with
01:09some sort of endorsement of some sort of product. The risk is that those two things aren't compatible.
01:15The risk is that their pursuit of money will tarnish the Windsor brand and tarnish the
01:21house of Windsor. This is the real problem for the Queen and Prince Charles. They are
01:26dealing with this as a grandmother and as a father on the one hand and they're also
01:31dealing with it as the protector of an ancient dynasty. And we have seen that how as protectors
01:38of the ancient dynasty, when they need to, they act brutally, as they did with Prince
01:41Andrew when they removed him from public office. There may be a point that at some stage that
01:47the Queen, Charles and William believe that what Meghan and Harry are proposing is a threat
01:53to the institution of the British monarchy, then they will act. You know the monarchy
01:57finds itself in a moment of turmoil, flux and a genuine crisis because of course this
02:03has opened up a Pandora's box. There are so many wider issues at stake. The future of
02:07the monarchy, the streamlined monarchy that you keep hearing people talking about. What
02:11does that actually look like if Meghan and Harry do step down?
02:17What does it look like if Meghan and Harry do step down?