When Prince Harry decided to step down as a senior royal, he made peace with losing the title of “His Royal Highness” and found relief in finally not having the obligation of performing his royal duties.
But the action also meant losing a significant chunk of the high-grade protection provided to senior royals by the U.K. government, and this is a problem for the prince. You see, while he, Meghan Markle, and their children now reside in L.A., they are still members of the Royal Family and have had to return to the U.K. a few times, like when they attended the late Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June 2022 and her funeral later that year. Harry has also made solo trips, including attending King Charles III’s coronation, meeting with his father after concerning health news was made public, and of course, fighting his legal battles against the many publications he has sued (which include the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, and the Sunday People).
But now that he is not a senior royal, he has to make the trips with a downgraded level of security ⏤ a decision he contested in the High Court, demanding proper police protection from the government when he and his family are in Britain, as he was clearly not happy with the “bespoke arrangements specifically tailored to him” that the Home Office had promised. Unfortunately, despite his strong will to get the decision scrapped and his lawyers’ assertion that it was unfair to start with, Harry has lost the security protection case, as reported by BBC.
The court found that it was “neither unlawful nor irrational” that Harry, given that he’s no longer a working royal, be provided with public-funded protection. Retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane said in his ruling that Harry’s lawyers had assumed “an inappropriate… interpretation” of his security level as a senior royal.
As expected, the prince has no plans to accept the latest ruling without a fight, and as shared by a legal spokesperson, he will be appealing the decision to “obtain justice,” which would make even more sense in case those rumors of Harry considering returning to his royal duties if his father asked him end up being true.
