bitchy | Boris Johnson tried to convince Prince Harry to stay in the UK in January 2020

The photos of Prince Harry and Boris Johnson in this post are from January 20, 2020 in London. Both men attended the UK-Africa Investment Summit at the Intercontinental Hotel London. Note the date – that was Harry’s final day in the UK before he flew to Canada to reunite with his wife and baby boy Archie. Just one week prior to this, Harry met his family in what was dubbed the “Sandringham Summit,” where he negotiated the terms of his exit from the UK. So, after the Sussexes announced their exit and after the Sandringham Summit, the Windsors made a last-ditch effort to try to convince Harry to abandon his wife and child and stay in the UK. The Windsors asked Boris Johnson to intervene and do just that. From the Daily Mail’s exclusive excerpts of Boris Johnson’s memoir:

Boris Johnson made an extraordinary last-ditch bid to persuade Prince Harry not to quit the UK. The former Prime Minister reveals in his sensational new memoir that he was asked to give the Duke of Sussex a ‘manly pep talk’ to convince him it would be a mistake to leave Britain for a fresh start abroad with his wife Meghan.

Mr Johnson’s new book, Unleashed, will be serialised in the Daily Mail from Saturday, and is already tipped to become the political memoir of the century. He reveals that in January 2020, just weeks after his landslide election win, officials in Downing Street and Buckingham Palace believed he might be able to talk Harry out of his seismic decision to quit the UK and walk away from his royal duties.

The ex-PM writes that there was ‘a ridiculous business… when they made me try to persuade Harry to stay. Kind of manly pep talk. Totally hopeless.’

The secret meeting, which underlines the close links between No 10 and the Palace, took place in the margins of a UK-Africa investment summit in London’s Docklands. It came just hours after the duke gave an emotional speech in which he said he and Meghan were leaving with ‘great sadness’ but felt they had ‘no other option’ but to step away from royal life. The two men met for 20 minutes without aides as Mr Johnson tried to persuade the prince to reconsider.

A friend said Mr Johnson paid tribute to Harry’s efforts on the Invictus Games and praised Meghan’s work on their shared passion for promoting the education of women and girls in developing countries.

‘He thought they were a great asset to UK plc and it was a real shame they were leaving when they were doing such great work,’ the friend said. ‘It was a man-to-man conversation, they were totally alone. But Harry wasn’t for turning – he was unpersuadable by that point. Boris succeeded in delivering Brexit but even he couldn’t stop Megxit.’

The following day, Harry flew to Canada to be reunited with Meghan and their son, Archie. The family later moved to Montecito, California, where they remain today, having given up their lives as working Royals.

[From The Daily Mail]

I was going to say “it’s crazy to get a whole-ass prime minister involved in the royal family’s bullsh-t,” but then I remembered that there is a ton of precedent. John Major got involved in then-Prince Charles and Diana’s divorce. David Cameron issued a statement of defense about Hilary Mantel’s critique of Kate. And on and on. But yeah… even after the Windsors rooked Harry at the Sandringham Summit, hoping to force him into capitulation, they still asked BoJo to intervene and try to convince Harry to stay. Judging from the photos, Boris was also acting out the “Freedom Flight.”

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.