Did Brexit cause Megxit? Does anyone care?

 More details in the Times

Although the couple do not talk about Brexit in the Netflix documentary, commentators in the programme make the link between racism and the vote to leave the EU. Harry talked about “unconscious bias” in the royal family and “racist undertones” in media coverage.

The imagery used in the programme includes clips of a Brexit protest and Boris Johnson promising to “take back control of the country”.

The historian and author David Olusoga provides commentary that the pair’s relationship was “embedding itself in a nation having a pretty toxic debate about the European Union”. James Holt, executive director of their Archewell Foundation, called the 2016 referendum a “perfect storm that gave credence to jingoism and nationalism”.

Lord Frost, who was Brexit minister under Johnson, said the link “resurrects the tired old criticism that our decision to leave the EU was driven by racism and even asserts that such attitudes worsened the pressures on their marriage”. He added: “This smear just does not stand up to examination.” He told the Daily Mail the couple were “either ignorant of the real facts or making deliberately incorrect claims for political reasons”.

Elsewhere

Serving as their proxy, Hirsch rejected the established purpose of the modern Commonwealth since its founding in 1949 as “the free association of its independent member nations” to promote good government, education, economic development, environmental policies and human rights. Instead, she offered a malevolent and wholly inaccurate view. The Commonwealth was nothing less than a “privileged club” that she called “Empire 2.0”. She said its purpose was to extract wealth from former colonies and keep them “inter-generationally poor”. It was an astonishing repudiation not only of Charles but the legacy of his late mother.

In the Daily Mail (sorry),Lord Frost is quoted at slightly more length:

'All opinion surveys show that Britain is an unusually welcoming country to people of all backgrounds, has among the lowest levels of racism in Europe, and is most positive about diversity [certainly the EU's own one does -- see Briefings for Brexit or this blog passim]

He went on: 'Polling at the time of the Brexit vote shows that the real reason for the decision to leave was a wish to restore self-government and the sovereignty of our institutions, concepts about which one might have expected members of our thousand-year-old Royal Family to have a greater understanding and empathy.'