The Duchess of Sussex has posted a gentle, domestic video to her Instagram. A video so utterly normal that it’s bound to send half the commentariat into a full psychological tailspin. A few seconds of family life, a Union Flag emoji, a heart … The likes of Angela Levin and Jan Moir and Marina Hyde are bound to be clutching their pearls like someone’s just announced the abolition of tea. (Though Hyde will no doubt pretend she’s not really upset, just mocking them for giggles, and reframe “the Sussexes are liars!” as “the Sussexes are reality tv stars”, which is basically still saying everything’s a performance.) I’m almost scared to touch base with Facebook - the trolls won’t be pleased that two people who were supposed to be miserable look quite happy, actually.
If it was any other couple, the video wouldn’t get a mention in the papers. I mean, they’re just a happy family getting on with the business of living. And yet, in the strange theatre of British media culture, this is practically an act of rebellion. Because for years, the tabloids have insisted that Harry and Meghan despise Britain. Not dislike. Despise. As though the entire nation were a single entity they could unfollow.
But the truth, of course, is less soap-operatic. The Sussexes criticised the press. They criticised the institution. They criticised the racism, the cruelty, the absurdity of a system that still thinks “never complain, never explain” is a personality. What they never, ever criticised was Britain itself. The British press has spent years encouraging a chunk of the country to believe that not liking your private letters being published or racist headlines about you or being briefed against by the Leftover Royals means you hate England and everyone who flails in her.
So when Meghan posts a Union Flag emoji with a heart, it’s more than a symbol, it’s a sociological wink. A gentle reminder that Britishness is not the exclusive property of hacks and phone-hackers and racists and misogynists. Britishness can be diasporic, mixed, modern, and joyful. It can be claimed by a couple who has lived its contradictions, loved its people, and survived its newspapers.
As Harry himself once put it, “it’s the trolls I feel sorry for.” Nothing causes them more pain than the sight of Meghan Sussex looking happy and well. And here she is, with her whole mixed-race British family, living well and loving well.
For those of us who don’t take sadistic pleasure in imagining others’ suffering, it’s actually quite nice to see that the Sussexes have settled quite quickly into a British life that is … nice. Probably not perfect or saintly. Nice. Sunlight and children and laughter and wellies and the kind of ease that comes from choosing your family and your love.
To normal people like us, friends, the video isn’t a PR move or a provocation or even a statement. It’s simply a family showing that they’re fine and that Britain, for all its contradictions, can still be part of their story.