#Meghan, Harry’s racism claims spark backlash in Commonwealth nations

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s bombshell racism claims have more than just shaken the royal family — it is potentially threatening the future of the Commonwealth.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s tell-all with Oprah Winfrey aired in the UK on Commonwealth Day, as Queen Elizabeth II praised “the spirit of unity” among the association of 54 countries.

It also marked one year since the couple’s last appearance as senior royals.

But after the explosive TV special aired, that unity was split by growing calls for member-nations to finally drop the queen as their head of state.

In Australia, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said it was finally time to sever constitutional ties to the British monarchy.

“After the end of the queen’s reign, that is the time for us to say: OK, we’ve passed that watershed,” Turnbull told Australian Broadcasting Corp. 

“Do we really want to have whoever happens to be the head of state, the king or queen of the UK, automatically our head of state?”

News Americas, which owns media outlets across the Caribbean, published an editorial calling on Commonwealth nations to “emancipate themselves from the mental slavery and the last shackle of colonialism.”

“If the Meghan/Harry tea spilling has revealed anything, it is the obvious racism that exists at the top of the so-called Royalist ticket,” the company wrote, noting that the local nations still in the Commonwealth are “where the majority of the population … are either black or brown.”

“Time to emancipate yourselves from mental slavery once and for all,” the editorial boldly stated of the Commonwealth, which is mostly made up of former British colonies.

In Uganda, newspaper columnist Nicholas Sengoba said the Sussexes’ interview “opens our eyes further” and questioned whether the heads of Commonwealth countries should still be “proud to eat dinner” with members of the British royal family.

Idayat Hassan, the head of the Centre for Democracy and Development in Nigeria — the Commonwealth’s most populous black nation — told The Times of London that Nigerians were “disappointed.”

“We are a proud nation and have always assumed the royal family were pro-African and we enjoyed the relationship,” he said.

“We assumed we stood at the same level as them, but it seems as though they have in fact looked down on us,” Hassan told the UK paper.

Asanda Ngoasheng, a South African activist on race, told the paper that he hoped the interview “makes us wake up and ask, do we need royalty?”

“The royal family led the colonialism/imperialism project. It should not be surprising to learn that they are racist,” Ngoasheng told the UK Times.

There were similar calls in Jamaica, a nation that has talked about becoming a republic for a number of years.

“Out of this — a black majority country having a monarchy as its head of state that is racist towards Meghan — comes the fact that we should honorably part with the monarchy in London,” Bert Samuels, a member of the Reparation Council of Jamaica, told the outlet.

“Harry and Meghan exposed the existence of entrenched racism against black people in the royal family and the wider British establishment.”

Retired Jamaican professor Carolyn Cooper also said that the interview proved “that we should jump up and get rid of the queen as the head of state.”

“It’s a disreputable institution. It’s responsible for the enslavement of millions of us who came here to work on plantations. It’s part of the whole legacy of colonialism and we need to get rid of it,” Cooper said.

Canadian opposition leader Jagmeet Singh said that “the systematic racism that we’ve seen” only confirms that the monarchy “is in no way beneficial to Canadians in terms of their everyday life.”

However, The Great White North is refusing to officially debate leaving the Commonwealth — at least for now.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau noted that many institutions in Canada are built around colonialism and systematic racism, including Parliament.

“The answer is not to suddenly toss out all the institutions and start over,” Trudeau said.

“I wish all the members of the royal family all the best … If people want to later talk about constitutional change and shifting our system of government that’s fine, and they can have those conversations, but right now I’m not having those conversations,” he said.

The Queen on Tuesday said that the couple’s allegations to Oprah, “particularly that of race,” were “concerning.”

“Whilst some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately,” the Queen said.

With Post wires