After a tumultuous few years, new reports have now suggested that Prince Harry is keen to build bridges with his royal relatives in the UK ahead of his 40th birthday and the impending US election. He has been on notoriously fraught terms with the royal family since he and his wife Meghan Markle stepped down as senior royals and moved to California in 2020.

In the years that followed, Prince Harry’s tense relationship with the royals has become an international talking point. Never more so than after the release of the couple’s Netflix series Harry & Meghan in 2022 and the prince’s memoir, Spare, which was published in January 2023.

However, with the US election in November looking like a close race between former president Donald Trump and the presumed Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, the prospect of another Trump presidency has reportedly forced the couple to reconsider their options. During a recent visit to the Trump International Golf Links in Scotland, Donald Trump’s son Eric called the Duke and Duchess of Sussex ‘spoiled apples’ and echoed his father’s claims that the couple could face deportation if the Republicans win. Eric said, ‘We might not want them anymore; it feels like they’re on an island of their own.’

Given that Meghan has publicly called Donald Trump ‘a misogynist’ in the past and described him as ‘divisive’ while she was an actress in Suits, the former president is not the couple’s biggest fan. He also said Prince Harry would not receive ‘special privileges’ if his visa application is called into question. In his memoir, the prince revealed that he has previously taken recreational drugs, which under US law would typically be grounds for a visa application to be rejected.

This, of course, puts the couple and their two children – Archie, five and Lilibet, three – in a difficult position given that they face a hostile situation in the UK as well. One that’s not helped by the fact Prince Harry called his flight to the US a ‘freedom flight’ in 2020 when his family first moved to California – something which featured in their 2022 Netflix series.

If Meghan and Harry are potentially at risk of deportation, the logical alternative would be for them to move back to the UK. It has now been reported by the Daily Mail that Prince Harry is thinking about offering his relatives an olive branch.

He also has a milestone birthday coming up on 15 September and is apparently set to receive $8.5m inheritance from a trust fund set up by his late great-grandmother, the Queen’s mother. According to author of The King, Christopher Andersen, the inheritance payout was reserved for Prince Harry’s 40th because his great grandmother thought he would be ‘young enough to appreciate it but also old enough, and hopefully wise enough, not to blow it’.

Since his great-grandmother was not privy to Prince Harry and Meghan’s fallout with the firm, questions have been raised as to whether he is deserving of the money. In theory, this provides another reason why he might want to make amends with his relatives and restore his reputation with much of the British public. His birthday inheritance may also ruffle feathers with Prince William who received a ‘ceremonial bell concert’ at Westminster Abbey when he turned 40. This is reportedly because Prince Harry is the ‘Spare’ and does not receive the same $30m annual salary as the heir to the throne.

Nevertheless, his birthday might be a good opportunity to get in touch. When Prince Harry returned to the UK in February to visit King Charles after hearing about his cancer diagnosis he said, ‘the fact that I was able to get on a plane and go to see him and spend any time with him, I’m grateful for that. […] Any illness, any sickness, brings families together.’ Further details about the brief time they spent together during the visit, or whether Harry is in regular contact with his brother, have not been disclosed.

It will be interesting, then, to see if King Charles publicly marks Prince Harry’s birthday in September, given that none of the senior royals did so for Meghan Markle’s 43rd on the 4 August, despite doing so routinely until 2022.

While there are plenty of reasons why Prince Harry might want to repair his relationship with his family, it’s evidently not a straightforward process. Prince Harry has said Britain is still too dangerous a destination for his wife and children to visit, because he fears a ‘knife or acid attack’ without state-funded personal security. So a formal return to the UK is likely to be something they have to give serious thought.

One option would be to reprise their roles as working royals, which they arguably seem keen to do. Their upcoming Colombia tour, for example, is set to resemble a royal visit despite having nothing to do with the Palace. And if their three-day visit to Nigeria last year was anything to go by, which was billed as a ‘private visit’ and ended up resembling a typical royal visit, then they may be treated like working royals in Colombia too.

Could formally returning to the UK quell tensions between Harry and his royal relatives? Or act as a jumping off point to becoming a working royal again? It’s too soon to tell, but it’s something the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are likely giving some serious thought ahead of the November election.