Throughout the day we’ve been preparing for a rare PM-royalty showdown, as Boris is scheduled to meet with Prince Charles at CHOGM today after he briefed two papers he hates the government’s Rwanda deportation policy. In a pool interview the PM spoke bluntly of his plans to defend the policy in front of the Prince, despite it not “[coming] up so far”.
“People need to keep an open mind about the policy – the critics need to keep an open mind, I think a lot of people can see its obvious merits – and yeah of course if I’m seeing the prince tomorrow I’m going to make that point.
You’ll defend it if he raises it?
“Yeah I mean it hasn’t come up so far but of course.”
After this rather blunt statement on the usually private topic of Prime Ministerial discussions with the Royal Family, however, according to Chris Ship of ITV both camps are now pro-actively briefing that the Rwanda policy will not come up in tomorrow’s discussions.
NEW: Prince Charles and Boris Johnson trying to diffuse the growing row over the Rwanda asylum seeker plan.
— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) June 23, 2022
After the PM said this morning he would defend the plan in his face-to-face meeting with Charles on Friday - NOW both sides say the topic WON’T come up in their talks 🤔
Did Charles’s team finally realise that actually an unelected prince dictating government policy on a topic that probably doesn’t affect him or any of his rural idylls probably isn’t a good look for the Royals?
