Prince Harry given ‘manly pep talk’ by Boris Johnson in bid to keep duke from leaving the UK

Officials from Buckingham Palace and Downing Street believed the last-minute intervention in January 2020 could have succeeded in talking Harry and Meghan out of their decision.

However, despite the former Prime Minister's efforts, the duke left for Canada the next day to be reunited with his wife and his son, Prince Archie.

Johnson said there was “a ridiculous business... when they made me try to persuade Harry to stay. Kind of manly pep talk. Totally hopeless.”

The disclosure will be revealed in his memoir, Unleashed, which is to be published on October 10.

Johnson writes that just weeks after his landslide election win, officials in both Downing Street and Buckingham Palace told him they believed he might be able to talk the duke out of his decision to walk away from his royal duties.

The meeting is known to have taken place on January 20, 2020, during a UK-Africa investment summit in London’s Docklands.

It was one of the duke’s final appearances as a working member of the Royal Family.

At the time, it was reported that the duke and Johnson had “an informal ‘catch-up’ chat behind closed doors”.

The night before, Prince Harry delivered a speech in front of guests at an evening event for Sentebale, his charity based in Lesotho.

In the speech, he claimed he had “no other option” but to step back from royal life and spoke of his sadness that it had “come to this”.

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The two men met for 20 minutes without aides as Johnson tried to persuade the father-of-two to reconsider.

A friend told The Mail, which is serialising the book, that Johnson praised Harry’s efforts with the Invictus Games as well as the Duchess of Sussex’s work promoting the education of women and girls in developing countries.

“He thought they were a great asset to UK plc and it was a real shame they were leaving when they were doing such great work,” the friend said.

“It was a man-to-man conversation, they were totally alone. But Harry wasn’t for turning – he was unpersuadable by that point. Boris succeeded in delivering Brexit but even he couldn’t stop Megxit.”