Ostensibly, the point of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s quasi-royal tour to Colombia is to highlight child online safety ahead of a national conference dedicated to ending violence against children in November. The couple have just launched their Parents’ Network which aims to tackle online harm and offers a 'safe and supportive community available to all caregivers navigating the complex digital world'.
Certainly their four-day trip, which includes tourist attractions in Cartagena, a cultural festival in Cali and social initiatives in Bogota, will offer colourful pictures and the opportunity for Meghan to use her fluent Spanish. But the question on everyone’s lips back at Buckingham Palace is ‘why are they going?’
The Sussexes and their spotlight will not be there on behalf of the British Government. They are not working members of the Royal family, they are not understood to be representing a particular charity (aside from their own non-profit The Archewell Foundation), nor do they have any public history or heritage in the country.
When they visited Nigeria in May, the focus was the Invictus Games, Harry’s tournament for service personnel and veterans which is about to celebrate its tenth year. Although they will meet the Colombian Invictus team, the reasoning for visiting Colombia is more opaque, aside from that they were invited by the country’s vice president Francia Marquez.
For the Colombian government, the incentive for a high-profile, high-impact visit from international celebrities is clear. The country will gain a whole new audience of potential tourists from photographs of ex-royals smiling at government-organised engagements, dancing at music festivals, and banging the drum for the vice president’s key causes.
Yet for the Sussexes, it is also somewhat risky. They don’t have the guard rails of Foreign Office advisers, whose briefings and guidance underpin all royal tours, nor diplomatic protection. And Harry has just lost his chief of staff Josh Kettler, who was expected to be an instrumental strategic ‘guide’ for the tour and for the much touted ‘next phase’ of the prince’s career, but suddenly quit after just three months (Team Sussex maintain he left by ‘mutual consent’ after a ‘trial phase’).
For many Colombians, this ‘royal visit’ is viewed as little more than a cynical attempt by a failing government to use the glamorous couple as 'political pawns' to divert attention from a series of corruption scandals.
Harry and Meghan’s reputation has also taken a bit of a hit in the US while the launch of Meghan’s lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard has still not been finalised. It was initially scheduled for this spring, then this autumn and now has reportedly been put back until next year to tie in with her new cooking show for Netflix and to iron out trademarking issues.
Other Sussex challenges include Donald Trump’s claims that Harry could be deported if he wins the presidential election (over potential visa issues), their ongoing rift with the Royal Family and the King’s refusal to take his younger son’s calls (apparently all Harry does is berate him about security).
So perhaps then, these tours offer Harry and Meghan another initiative to highlight: themselves. Earlier this year Harry suggested to his father that he could ‘help out’ with royal duties while Charles and the Princess of Wales were undergoing treatment for cancer.
This was rejected by Buckingham Palace, and subsequently Windsor eyebrows were somewhat raised to see Harry and Meghan effectively carving out an international platform for themselves with these royal-type tours.
With Harry celebrating his 40th birthday next month and ongoing courtroom battles in the UK, it does feel like a pivotal time for the Sussexes in their attempts to ‘look forward’.
The coverage of this trip has been tightly controlled to ensure it is glowing - one invited reporter from a hand-picked American magazine, with official photographers and videographers shooting material to be issued later (post Team Sussex approval).
The question, then, is what happens next? As the invitations from other countries in need of a little Sussex sparkle roll in, how will Harry and Meghan manage the risks of being ‘rogue royals’ without the safeguards of royal life? Only time will tell.