Falsehood that typecast half of Britain as racist was delivered with all the nuance of a sledgehammer, writes MICK HUME

Harry and Meghan’s Netflix whinge-a-thon began as I’d expected. 

It was an epic tale of how their love had succeeded against all odds, interspersed with attacks on the evil British Press and the dark forces at work in the Palace. Everything was rather predictable – and not a little dull.

But then something strange happened. Less than three minutes into the first episode, the film took an unexpected turn.

This is about ‘something much bigger than us,’ Harry declared. And then: up flashed an image of the statue of Edward Colston, the 17th-century slave trader, being pushed into Bristol Harbour by Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020.

Since Harry and Meghan clearly need to hear it, Brexit – and the politics behind it – had nothing to do with trying to keep a glamourous mixed-race American actress from marrying into the Royal Family

The film cuts to more archive footage of Boris saying ‘take back control’ in front of a Vote Leave bus, and the then-Ukip leader Nigel Farage saying ‘immigration is the number one issue – people are very upset’

In her absurd new film, Meghan complains that the Windsors ‘typecast’ her as a typical Hollywood actress. How strange, then, that she and her husband seem to have no problem in typecasting half the British people as a racist mob

Over this footage was broadcast a familiar voice. It was Boris Johnson, presumably speaking on the Vote Leave campaign trail back in 2016, telling supporters that the EU referendum was the moment to ‘take back control of this country’.

Sorry, what? What do Brexit and BLM have to do with Megxit?

The theme was picked up again in the final ten minutes of the second episode. Commenting on the couple’s 2017 engagement, TV historian David Olusoga claimed that ‘this fairytale’ was ’embedding itself in a nation that [was] having a pretty toxic debate about the European Union’.

Again, the film cuts to more archive footage of Boris saying ‘take back control’ in front of a Vote Leave bus, and the then-Ukip leader Nigel Farage saying ‘immigration is the number one issue – people are very upset’.

Historian David Olusoga then warmed to his theme, telling us that ‘social media’ – that great resource – had proved decisively that immigration was the major issue behind Brexit. He added: ‘Immigration is very often, in this country, a cipher for race’

Olusoga then warmed to his theme, telling us that ‘social media’ – that great resource – had proved decisively that immigration was the major issue behind Brexit. He added: ‘Immigration is very often, in this country, a cipher for race.’

This point was illustrated by a random clip of some idiot yelling: ‘Get back to Africa!’ It was not clear who he was or who he was shouting at – but whatever you say, David.

The same theme – that Brexit and racism were somehow intertwined – continued to be delivered with all the nuance and sophistication of a sledgehammer.

At one point in the film, Harry quoted from a 2016 EU Commission report that, he pointedly said, was published at ‘exactly the same time that our relationship became public’.

Again: what?

You may be the centre of your own small world, Harry, but – and I hate to break it to you – you and your girlfriend’s blossoming romance had nothing to do with EU-UK relations.

Next James Holt, executive director of the Sussexes’ Archewell Foundation – and a former ‘media director’ for the Liberal Democrats – popped up to support his paymasters, opining that Brexit ‘gave people with really horrible views of the world a little bit more strength and confidence to say what they wanted to say – to do what they wanted to do.’

But it was Professor Olusoga who has the final word, drawing the madcap theory back – inevitably – to Harry and Meghan.

‘It was an inauspicious moment for Britain to be trying to live out this fairytale story, with this fairytale princess, and this diverse modernising country,’ he said.

This flurry of propaganda came thick and fast, all coated in that familiar Netflix sheen that lends everything a cloak of ‘truth’. But step back – and the claims are shown to be as outrageous as they are insane.

By now, of course, we’re all familiar with Team Sussex’s allegations that the British Press is ‘racist’ and the Palace ruthless. But the notion that Brexit Britain is such a racist backwater that the couple could not bear to stay here is – to put it mildly – a novel one.

This bizarre claim, which you might summarise as ‘Brexit caused Megxit’, is one of the key themes of the new film. 

Harry and Meghan have evidently swallowed wholesale – or are just cynically peddling it for the purposes of the film – the nostrum shared by both the Guardianista Establishment over here and the woke New York Times elite over there: that Brexit is a disaster that must one day be overturned.

Up flashed an image of the statue of Edward Colston, the 17th-century slave trader, being pushed into Bristol Harbour by Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020

The series played footage of Boris Johnson, presumably speaking on the Vote Leave campaign trail back in 2016, telling supporters that the EU referendum was the moment to ‘take back control of this country’ 

And – the film suggests – since Brexit is to blame for everything that is bad about Britain, it must be to blame for Megxit, too. Needless to say, however, this is a lie.

The 17.4million Brits who voted to leave the EU did not do so primarily because of race, still less racism. The vote, as Daily Mail readers hardly need me to remind them, was instead overwhelmingly about taking back control of our laws and our money, and cutting ties with stultifying EU bureaucracy.

Since Harry and Meghan clearly need to hear it, Brexit – and the politics behind it – had nothing to do with trying to keep a glamourous mixed-race American actress from marrying into the Royal Family. 

That much is obvious. And the Netflix filmmakers cannot even stand up their crazed theory without tripping over their own hypocrisy and inconsistencies. 

If Middle England really was so irredeemably racist towards the couple, how do you explain all those white, often elderly faces lining the streets in the third episode to celebrate the Sussexes’ wedding in 2018, two years after the Brexit vote?

Even Archewell’s James Holt admits ‘the sense of excitement’ at that £32million taxpayer-funded event was ‘incredible’.

Even Archewell’s James Holt admits ‘the sense of excitement’ at that £32million taxpayer-funded royal wedding was ‘incredible’

It’s also telling that Olusoga looked to social media for evidence of his cod theory that Brexit caused Megxit: it shows how desperate the attempts to prove this claim must have become.

After scraping the depths of the internet, Netflix flashes up appalling social media posts calling the duchess a ‘b****’ and a ‘c***’ – as if such insults were reserved for her. Yet a brief search of these cesspit sites shows that such dreadful language is hurled daily, often anonymously, at every woman in the public eye, of every creed and colour.

Certainly, the aggressively pro-Meghan Twitterati have form in showering equally ugly insults on the Princess of Wales. And what about these talking heads, wheeled on by Netflix to offer viewers supposedly expert analysis?

David Olusoga – who occasionally muses online about ‘systemic racism’ in the UK – has been a relentless critic of Brexit Britain.

Before the 2019 election, he claimed that Boris Johnson’s Tories were ‘fantasising about ‘Empire 2.0′.’

Fellow Britain-detractor Afua Hirsch, who repeats the ‘Empire 2.0’ line in the film, is no less partisan. 

She has questioned whether Nelson’s Column should remain in Trafalgar Square and penned commentaries for the Remainer Guardian newspaper claiming that black Britons are ‘openly chased in the streets by white racists’.

Yet while Ms Hirsch might normally be expected to favour the ‘cancellation’ of public figures for even the most minor historical speech-crimes, she appears uncharacteristically willing to forgive and forget Harry’s own chequered history – which famously includes dressing up in a novelty Nazi costume and calling an Asian army colleague a ‘P***’.

Fellow Britain-detractor Afua Hirsch, who repeats the ‘Empire 2.0’ line in the film, is no less partisan

‘I have watched him on this journey and seen that he has really embraced the education that is required for someone like him, to transform themselves into an anti-racist,’ Hirsch affirms, shedding her liberal credentials at the drop of a hat.

For these patsy experts, British history appears to be one long litany of racism and genocide. 

Yet as our late Queen tartly said in response to the some of the wilder allegations in Meghan’s notorious Oprah Winfrey interview last year, ‘recollections may vary’.

Clearly, in promoting the ludicrous suggestion by Olusoga and Hirsch that Brexit Britain is a racist swamp, Harry and Meghan have appointed themselves wokepersons for this hysterical cause.

But in doing so, they have dragged countless good-hearted British people into what started as a childish row with their family and their confected upset with the Press. 

This is no longer just about the horrid royals, the evil Press or Meghan’s father. This is about every one of the millions of people who voted for Brexit.

In her absurd new film, Meghan complains that the Windsors ‘typecast’ her as a typical Hollywood actress. 

How strange, then, that she and her husband seem to have no problem in typecasting half the British people as a racist mob.

Mick Hume is a media specialist and the author of Revolting! How The Establishment Are Undermining Democracy And What They’re Afraid Of (William Collins).

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