Face up to your racism demand Harry and Meghan

The couple have called on people to be more aware of bias and help right the wrongs of ‘hundreds of years gone by’ | WATCH

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in their conference call with young leaders from around the Commonwealth. Picture: The Queen's Commonwealth Trust.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have urged members of the Commonwealth to confront its “uncomfortable’’ history, including the legacy of the slave trade, warning however that such acknowledgment of the past was “not going to be easy’’.

In his latest public remarks about racism, Harry called on people to be more aware of “institutional racism” and to help right the wrongs of “hundreds of years gone by”.

The comments came in a conference call with young leaders of the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust, during which. Harry and Meghan bypassed usual protocol, to indirectly criticise the Royal Family and Britain’s colonial past.

The couple, who left the Royal family to set up their own independent lives in Los Angeles earlier this year, also urged the Black Lives Matter movement “to continue this momentum for as long as it takes’’.

In his latest remarks the 35-year-old prince, who also backs the Rugby Football review of singing of “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” at football matches said the issue had “come to a head” and people needed to face up to their own racial bias.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on the conference call with young Commonwealth leaders. Picture: Queen's Commonwealth Trust

“When it comes to institutional and systemic racism, it’s there and it stays there because someone somewhere is benefiting from it,” he said.

”We can’t deny or ignore the fact that all of us have been educated to see the world differently,” he said. ”However, once you start to realise that there is that bias there, then you need to acknowledge it, you need to do the work to become more aware … so that you can help stand up (against) something that is so wrong and should not be acceptable in our society today.”

But his more controversial statement referred to what the Queen considers to be one of her most important global achievements; the Commonwealth.

“When you look across the Commonwealth, there is no way that we can move forward unless we acknowledge the past,” he told the video conference.

“So many people have done such an amazing and incredible job of acknowledging the past and trying to right those wrongs, but I think we all acknowledge there is so much more still to do.

“It’s not going to be easy and in some cases it’s not going to be comfortable but it needs to be done, because guess what, everybody benefits.

“So I think there is a hell of lot to acknowledge.’’

Megan added: “We’re going to have to be a little uncomfortable right now, because it’s only in pushing through that discomfort that we get to the other side of this and find the place where a high tide raises all ships.

“Equality does not put anyone on the back foot, it puts us all on the same footing – which is a fundamental human right.

“And that’s what we are talking about here.’’

The comments directly confront Harry’s grandmother, the Queen, who heads the Commonwealth.

He has also put his father, Prince Charles, who will succeed the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth and who regularly liaises with Commonwealth countries including Australia, in an awkward position.

Meghan, 38, added that she had “obviously personal experience (of racism) as well’’ and insisted it was not enough to be a bystander and say “it wasn’t me”.

Harry, the sixth in line to the throne, was most famously pictured wearing a Nazi uniform in his early 20s and was also revealed to have used slurs during a 2006 military training video diary in relation to a colleague who was from Pakistan and another who was Muslim.

The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust has been hosting weekly seminars to discuss Black Lives Matter. The trust is an independent organisation, although the Queen is its patron, and it is designed for young people to share insights and advice.