Prince Harry: ‘My wife and I felt forced to step back from this role’

It’s good that the Sussex Squad hasn’t gotten their hopes up about Prince Harry’s court battle for royal protection. Harry has been waging this battle for more than two years, and the battle is simply about wanting high-level royal protection when he visits the UK and wanting to pay for the security himself, in effect “paying back” the police for their protection. The Windsors and the Ravec (the committee overseeing who gets protection) have blocked him completely. And guess what? Harry isn’t going to win. Even if his case makes good points, even if Harry is right on the law, Ravec will continue to block him from receiving police security in the UK regardless of who pays for it. That won’t change until Harry’s father decides to stop putting the Sussexes in mortal danger. That won’t change until Harry’s father cares about whether his son and grandchildren are safe and healthy. The problem is, King Charles doesn’t give a sh-t.

Prince Harry has said the UK is his home and he was forced to leave – as he wages a battle over his security. The Duke of Sussex is challenging the decision to downgrade his publicly-funded security detail after he quit as a working royal in 2020. The Royal and VIP Executive Committee (Ravec) decided he should no longer have the same level of security as senior royals. But his legal team say there was a lack of transparency, and the usual risk analysis was not applied.

In a statement read out in the High Court today, Harry said he felt forced to leave the UK after the security downgrade.

He said: “It was with great sadness to both of us that my wife and I felt forced to step back from this role and leave the country in 2020. The UK is my home. The UK is central to the heritage of my children and a place I want them to feel at home as much as where they live at the moment in the United States. That cannot happen if there is no possibility to keep them safe when they are on UK soil. I can’t put my wife in danger like that, and given my experiences in life I’m reluctant to unnecessarily put myself in harm’s way too.”

Harry was not in court, and the statement was read out on his behalf. At a hearing today, the duke’s barrister Shaheed Fatima KC said Harry did not accept that it was a “choice” for him to have stopped being a “full time working member of the royal family”.

Earlier the lawyer said Ravec should have considered the wider impact on the UK’s reputation should he be attacked. She said: “It failed to treat the claimant in the way it has treated others. It failed to tell the claimant how he was being treated and why.”

[From The Sun]

“I felt forced to step back from this role and leave the country in 2020” – one thing Harry did well in Spare is remind everyone that, in his mind, all options were on the table and there could have been a “half-in” solution, one where he and Meghan would have happily worked for the Firm part-time. That option was denied by Edward Young, QEII’s private secretary. The fix was in – the Sussexes were always going to be shoved out. Then Charles made sure to yank their protection and funding because Harry wouldn’t back down from his pursuit of Christian Jones and The Sun. The goal was never “protect Harry” or “treat the Sussexes like their lives matter.” The goal was control, humiliation, mortal danger. These really are some sadistic sh-theads.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.