Prince Harry received a huge blow yesterday when he lost a High Court challenge against the Home Office over a decision to change the level of his personal security when he visits the UK and that will affect his reconciliation effort with the royals, according to a royal expert.
Harry is to seek to appeal against the latest ruling, with his lawyers saying he “hopes he will obtain justice”.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex had their security removed when they stepped down as working members of the Royal Family and moved to the US back in 2020.
The prince took legal action over the February 2020 decision of the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec) after being told he would no longer be given the “same degree” of publicly-funded protection when in the country.
But in a ruling yesterday, retired High Court judge Sir Peter Lane rejected the duke’s case and concluded Ravec’s approach was not irrational nor procedurally unfair.
Wednesday’s decision is thought to prove a challenge for the duke as he has previously said it is unsafe for him to bring his family over to the UK.
Now a royal expert has pinpointed the three key areas the ruling will affect – Prince Harry’s reconciliation efforts, Meghan Markle’s relationship with the royals and likelihood of UK return, and Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet’s relationship with the Firm.
Tessa Dunlop said Harry’s recent efforts to mend his rift with the royals could be impacted by the ruling. The duke made a dash back home earlier this month after King Charles’s cancer diagnosis was announced.
She told the Mirror: “With the Sussexes’ security concerns rejected by the court, more frequent reunions with the Prince and his young family now look less likely. If the King disapproves of Harry’s continuous litigation (the courts operate in His Majesty’s name after all!), there must be a small part of the ailing monarch that respects his youngest son’s tenacity. Harry’s loss in court is a reminder that the path he has chosen is not one for the fainthearted.”
She added: “Any hope that he may return to the fold even intermittently has been kyboshed by today’s High Court ruling that the Sussex family do not merit full royal protection. Why should the absent Prince put in more royal time if the UK government doesn’t consider him worthy of more than case-by-case royal protection? The King cannot control the courts nor the government that rules in his name, but whatever way you flip this verdict it is not good for future family relations.”
On Meghan’s likelihood to return to the UK, Dunlop said: “Let’s be candid; it was Harry who led the charge against the British government and his family’s right to full royal protection.
“But much of his fighting zeal was informed not only by his mother’s tragic death but also by the security issues surrounding his new wife […]” Given [yesterday’s] ruling, do not expect to see Meghan in Britain anytime soon. As a working royal the duchess didn’t feel secure in the UK, and back then she was the beneficiary of full royal protection.”
Meanwhile, another unlikely victim of the latest ruling would be the Sussexes’s children, according to the expert.
She explained: “It is impossible not to feel sad about the prospect of an ill, aged King who is unable to see his grandchildren. But sadly, happy family reunions look even less likely in the wake of [yesterday’s] High Court ruling. Charles, a loving man, has scarcely so much as glimpsed Archie and Lilibet, and despite warmer relations between father and son, once more the machinations of state affairs have got in the way.
“Harry is not the only royal who will feel distraught about the implications of today’s ruling. It is another reminder that the Windsor family’s domestic lives are governed by very different rules from the rest of us.”
