The moment news broke that Harry, Meghan and their children would be spending an extended period in the UK, the British press, naturally, completely lost it.
The Sussexes were coming back. Their children were going to British schools. They would live in a private, non-royal home and remain non-working royals. These are, objectively, fairly straightforward facts.
So obviously the British media promptly transformed The Return into a sprawling national psychodrama involving summits, secret house-hunting, British beer, Love Island and, inevitably, chickens - perhaps the most British part of the whole story.
The Sussexes have chickens at their Montecito home. But, while their dogs, Mia and Pula, are coming to Britain, the chickens, we’re told, are not. The Sun devoted an entire article to the arrangement, explaining that household staff will look after the birds while the Sussexes are away. It also carefully established the chickens' backstory, including their rescue from a commercial farm and their appearance in the Sussexes' previous media projects. Elle Decor also decided that this was sufficiently important to warrant coverage … and suddenly the geopolitical significance of the Sussex return could be measured in poultry.
Then there was the house hunt.
The Sun reported that Harry and Meghan had secretly visited the Cotswolds during their previous UK trip while looking for a new home, with the Duchess reportedly having fallen in love with the area. Vanity Fair likewise reported speculation that the family could relocate to the Cotswolds, noting its proximity to Highgrove and its popularity among celebrities seeking privacy. Reports even suggested that Meghan had discreetly visited the Cotswolds while Harry was in Birmingham for Invictus Games-related events. One can only imagine what that’s done to house prices in the area, now that the Cotswolds might be a Sussex Location.
The house hunt stories soon became part of a wider genre: The Clues Were There All Along.
There were sensible versions of this (Omid Scobie). And then there was the Sun, which published a piece identifying supposed signs that Harry and Meghan had been preparing to return to Britain. This included an England football shirt worn by Archie, and Harry saying he has, in the past, watched Love Island. In case you think that’s a bit thin, there was also Harry's declaration that British beer is better than American beer and the fact that he ranked Harry Styles number one in a list of Harrys. (I don’t really get how that’s a clue, either, as all the Harrys he was asked to rank were British.)
While all this was happening, the Leftover Royals aka the Mountbatten-Windsors, were at Balmoral for their annual summer holiday. They go every year, but this year it became A Summit. Don’t get me wrong, I’m firmly in Harry and Meghan’s corner, but treating their return with the gravity of a post-war carve-up of Europe seems a tad OTT. Balmoral is not Yalta. And while I don’t exactly hold royalist reverence for Harry’s older brother, I wouldn’t call him Stalin.
And then someone (presumably someone who hates the English language) invented the word “REGREXIT”. Ugh. Again, Harry and Meghan are my jam, but if we’re going to use the word “regrexit” (and I really, really don’t think we should) perhaps we could apply it to the nation’s regret over our decision to leave the European Union. A decision that has a bigger effect on most people’s lives than where the Sussexes will be hanging out.
It’s kind of extraordinary that the actions of one, supposedly irrelevant, couple must be given a geopolitical meaning.
Sometimes a chicken is just a chicken.