JAN MOIR: It beggars belief to suggest Harry's family implied that a non-white baby wouldn't be welcome

Just when the Royal Family must have thought they were cruising into the beginning of a peaceful and joyous festive season, hark the imperilled angels sing.

Two years after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex first opened up to Oprah Winfrey about ‘concerns’ some members of the Royal Family had over what colour baby Archie’s skin might be, the royal racist row has flared up again — in spectacular fashion.

After the names of the two royals in question were ‘accidentally’ leaked in Dutch copies of Omid Scobie ’s new royal book Endgame, both Piers Morgan on his TalkTV show and the New York Post went one step further and actually named the personages involved. I don’t blame them.

The identities of the mystery royals have been all over social media and the internet for days. The situation was becoming ridiculous. Millions could find out who they were at the click of a keyboard button — and once they did, what then? And then what?

Of course, some will think that King Charles and Catherine, Princess of Wales — formerly known as X and Y — only got what was coming. Yet surely most of us will sympathise with the plight of these two hapless senior royals.

Two years after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex first opened up to Oprah Winfrey about ‘concerns’ some members of the Royal Family had over what colour baby Archie’s skin might be, the royal racist row has flared up again — in spectacular fashion

After the names of the two royals in question were ‘accidentally’ leaked in Dutch copies of Omid Scobie’s new royal book Endgame, both Piers Morgan on his TalkTV show and the New York Post went one step further and actually named the personages involved

Their no doubt well-meaning enquiries as to the shade of baby Archie’s skin or the colour of his lovely hair, or whatever it was they said, have been weaponised into an international incident, first by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex themselves and now by faithful scribe Mr Scobie.

The author denies that the leaking of the names was deliberate or part of a giant publicity stunt but offers no explanation as to how the remarkable error happened.

‘I’m as frustrated as anyone else,’ he said, during an interview with This Morning (ITV) on Thursday. ‘But I wouldn’t say I am upset.’

Surely no one needs reminding that the Sussexes first aired the racism allegations to Oprah in 2021, as part of the victim narrative that characterised their showy splashdown in the U.S.

Yes, we were informed at length of the Sussexes’ hurt and the jumbo umbrage they took, but were never given the context in which the words were said.

Truly, it is hard to believe that the comments did not come from a place of love and were never intended to hurt, patronise nor cause division. And if Charles and Kate are guilty of a deadly gaucherie, then so are Harry and Meghan for enthusiastically embracing the most poisonous interpretation possible of the words; the implication that a baby who was not white was not welcome.

As if Harry’s own father and sister-in-law would ever think such a thing. It beggars belief.

Yet Harry and Meghan were so genuinely distressed over this private matter that they brought it to the world’s attention, along with a deep dive into the unconscious bias the Duchess felt she suffered as a not-very-merry Windsor wife.

The author denies that the leaking of the names was deliberate or part of a giant publicity stunt but offers no explanation as to how the remarkable error happened

But within months, both Harry and Meghan had recovered enough to accept a big American award for fighting racial injustice and institutionalised racism — and with it the inference that all these imprecations had been suffered within the royal establishment.

I was there in the New York ballroom the night they gleefully skipped on stage to accept the Ripple Of Hope award from the Kennedy family, a trophy that burnished their own humanitarian credentials while perma-tainting the Royals back home with allegations of intolerance and bigotry, smears which have stuck like mud to this day.

The Sussexes didn’t care then, and they don’t care now.

We know a ripple of hope can turn into a wave of change,’ they said back then, and how true that has turned out to be. All this is tricky territory to negotiate — and to even gingerly comment upon — if you are not a person of colour. If you are white, you are not supposed to have an opinion on sensitive matters of race relations, and if you do, it is the wrong one.

Before naming King Charles and the Princess of Wales, Piers Morgan stated he didn’t believe there was ‘any racial intent at all’ behind their words. For this, Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, the provocative commentator and a sometime guest on Morgan’s show, called him a ‘white privileged dog whistling fragile manbaby’. And this is only day one.

You would have to be far less cynical than me not to believe that the names of Charles and Kate were always going to come out, that there was indeed a steely determination that the names would come out and that it was only a matter of time before they did. And now that everyone knows — but for days also didn’t know — we are deep into the realms of a very black comedy indeed. Only I can’t say that in case someone gets offended, so let’s just settle with royal farce instead.