Prince Harry recalls what Prince Philip said before Afghanistan tour

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And speaking in the wake of this week’s documentary about the Duke of Edinburgh, which featured substantial contributions by Harry, Jonathan Sacerdoti warned the behaviour of the Sussexes – not least their controversial interview with Oprah Winfrey earlier this year – had the potential to damage the Royal Family as an institution. Prince Philip: The Royal Family Remembers aired on BBC One on Wednesday night.

Initially conceived as a project to mark his 100th birthday until the Duke of Edinburgh’s death in April, the film featured Philip’s children and grandchildren sharing their favourite memories of him.

However, Mr Sacerdoti, a regular commentator on Sky News as well as a contributor to The Spectator, highlighted what he saw as a contrast between Prince Philip’s 70 years of service, and Harry and Meghan’s decision to step back as senior royals and subsequent move to the United States.

And he suggested their public pronouncement since – including explosive claims of racism levelled against an unnamed royal which they voiced in their interview with Ms Winfrey – had serious implications.

It’s a great fear, I think, that what Meghan and Harry are doing could damage the Royal Family

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Mr Sacerdoti told Express.co.uk: “Certainly, it is having some negative effect – among other controversies going on at the moment it’s one of the things contributing to increased talk about there being a sort of republican resurgence in the UK.

“So I think that they’re not acting in a way that would reflect Prince Philip’s own personal ethos with relation to service and the Royal Family.

“It’s a great fear, I think, that what Meghan and Harry are doing could damage the Royal Family, not just in the immediate future, in the coming months and years, but much longer term.

“I don’t know if I think that it will be successful in that and I think it would be unfair to say their aim was, would be to destroy the monarchy or to bring down the Royal Family or the concept of monarchy in Great Britain, I don’t imagine that their aim.

“But could it have that effect? It certainly could contribute to a wider feeling or movement in that direction.”

Allegations of racism and bullying were extremely serious, and the way Meghan and Harry had gone about raising them was “quite incendiary, quite difficult and destructive” in terms of actually resolving the problems and sorting them out, Mr Sacerdoti suggested.

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He added: “The documentary really underlined what we’d all known about Prince Philip, and reflected the thoughts that have been much-written about and talked about since he passed away and of course before then as well during his life.

“And that was that he was a paragon of service in the Royal Family, he did demonstrate that ethos of serving the country from a position at the top of it, married to the Queen.

“And he’s been much-respected for the way he carved out a role for himself as the male partner of the monarch.

“There wasn’t really a blueprint for the way he did it and he created something that I think had a lot of support in Great Britain and around the world and especially around the Commonwealth.”

Turning his attention to the Duke’s grandson, Mr Sacerdoti acknowledged: “I think Harry did mention that in the documentary.

“Of course, the interesting difference between the two of them isn’t just that he doesn’t appear to be reflecting that that behaviour of his grandfather’s, but he also, to be fair to him, didn’t choose to be in that position, quite the same way that Prince Philip had a knowledge of it going in.

“So Harry was born into the family and really had no choice in that matter whereas Prince Philip did choose to marry Princess Elizabeth and I think that one could, if one was trying to understand the difference between them, say that Harry perhaps is trying to live a life of service now in the way that he thinks he can do that.”

However, he said: “I also think it is worth saying that there’s an awful lot of pushback against how he is behaving and how he and Meghan are conducting themselves, especially in relation to the family.”

During the documentary, Harry said of his grandfather: “Going off to Afghanistan he was very matter of fact and just said: ‘Make sure you come back alive’ … then when I came back, there wasn’t a deep level of discussion, more a case of: ‘Well you made it. How was it?’ That’s how he was.

“He was very much a listener, he sort of set the scene for you to be able to share as much as you wanted to share but he would never probe.”

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