Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been officially snubbed. The palace has announced that only working members of the royal family will appear on the infamous Buckingham Palace balcony for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. However, within minutes of the palace’s statement, the Sussexes revealed that they still plan on attending the Jubilee, demonstrating that their desperation for relevance is growing.

During the first week of June, Queen Elizabeth II will celebrate her official birthday with the Trooping the Color, a parade that commemorates not only her life but her 70 glorious years on the throne. 

This will probably be the last major event that the Queen participates in as monarch, as it’s been publicly commented on multiple times that Her Majesty is struggling with her mobility. There are even questions about whether she’ll make it to the infamous Buckingham Palace balcony, where she first stood after her father’s coronation eight decades ago, or the Service of Thanksgiving in her honor.

But the bigger question people were wondering is how she would handle the more problematic members of her family, notably Prince Andrew and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

All three have been stripped of the use of HRH and removed from the roster as working royals within the last couple of years and have drawn the ire of both the palace and the public.

Putting the on the balcony at such a major and historic event is just asking for trouble, so Her Majesty has compromised and determined that only working members of the royal family will appear, along with the Cambridge children and Lady Louise and James, Viscount Severn. 

 In other words, Prince Harry and Meghan will not get a balcony appearance, as no one wanted the Queen to be on the receiving end of any booing while making what could be her final balcony moment.

What’s interesting is that once this announcement about the makeup of the balcony came from the palace, Harry and Meghan somewhat surprised everyone, including palace staffers, by stating their intention to attend with their children.

There could be many reasons for this, but one interesting theory is that the couple waited until they were officially booted off the balcony to finally agree to attend. Perhaps they were hoping that if they held their breath and plugged their ears long enough, while stomping around in Montecito, that Queen and palace would bend to their will. 

But no.

Though many are frustrated by their possible appearance, as most were hoping the couple would stay away to avoid pulling focus from the Queen, the Jubilee could also be a great opportunity to show Harry and Meghan their new place in the pecking order. 

Publicly sidelining them at some key events would deeply bruise Harry and Meghan’s already outsized egos, and it would go a long way in the palace demonstrating that the couple are still members of the family, but no longer needed to represent the monarchy.

This could also be a way of allowing Meghan and Harry to bury themselves in a sea of increasingly negative publicity, as the couple can’t help but put their foots in their mouths on any given occasion.

The palace courtiers are no fools, and Harry and Meghan would be wise to stop their general shenanigans and realize that regardless of endless PR companies, woke ideology and word salad nonsense, the house, or in this case the palace, always wins.

Always.