The Duke of Sussex has told the BBC he \u201cwould love a reconciliation\u201d with the Royal Family, in an emotional interview in which he said he was \u201cdevastated\u201d at losing a legal challenge over his security in the UK.<\/p>\n
Prince Harry said the King \u201cwon\u2019t speak to me because of this security stuff\u201d, but that he did not want to fight any more and did \u201cnot know how much longer my father has\u201d.<\/p>\n
The prince spoke to BBC News in California after losing an appeal over the levels of security he and his family are entitled to while in the UK.<\/p>\n
Buckingham Palace said: \u201cAll of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Friday\u2019s court ruling, the prince said: \u201cI can\u2019t see a world in which I would bring my wife and children back to the UK at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been so many disagreements between myself and some of my family,\u201d he added, but had now \u201cforgiven\u201d them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love reconciliation with my family. There\u2019s no point continuing to fight any more, life is precious,\u201d said Prince Harry, who said the dispute over his security had \u201calways been the sticking point\u201d.<\/p>\n
The prince had wanted to overturn changes to his security that were introduced in 2020 as he stepped down as a working royal and moved to the United States.<\/p>\n
Saying that he felt \u201clet down\u201d, he described his court defeat as a \u201cgood old fashioned establishment stitch up\u201d and blamed the Royal Household for influencing the decision to reduce his security.<\/p>\n
Asked whether he had asked the King to intervene in the dispute over security, Prince Harry said: \u201cI never asked him to intervene \u2013 I asked him to step out of the way and let the experts do their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prince said his treatment during the process of deciding his security had \u201cuncovered my worst fears\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said of the decision: \u201cI\u2019m devastated \u2013 not so much as devastated with the loss that I am about the people behind the decision, feeling as though this is okay. Is it a win for them?\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cI\u2019m sure there are some people out there, probably most likely the people that wish me harm, [who] consider this a huge win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prince Harry said the decision to remove his automatic security entitlement impacts him \u201cevery single day\u201d, and has left him in a position where he can only safely return to the UK if invited by the Royal Family \u2013 as he would get sufficient security in those circumstances.<\/p>\n
The prince said changes to his security status in 2020 had impacted not just him, but his wife and, later, his children too.<\/p>\n
He went on to say: \u201cEverybody knew that they were putting us at risk in 2020 and they hoped that me knowing that risk would force us to come back.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then when you realise that didn\u2019t work, do you not want to keep us safe?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you\u2019re the government, the Royal Household, whether you\u2019re my dad, my family \u2013 despite all of our differences, do you not want to just ensure our safety?\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked whether he missed the UK, he added: \u201cI love my country, I always have done, despite what some people in that country have done\u2026 and I think that it\u2019s really quite sad that I won\u2019t be able to show my children my homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prince Harry said he would not be seeking a further legal challenge, saying Friday\u2019s ruling had \u201cproven that there was no way to win this through the courts\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish someone had told me that beforehand,\u201d he said, adding that the ruling had been a \u201csurprise\u201d.<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cThis, at the heart of it, is a family dispute, and it makes me really, really sad that we\u2019re sitting here today, five years later, where a decision that was made most likely, in fact I know, to keep us under the roof.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prince Harry spoke to the BBC shortly after losing his latest legal challenge against the UK government over the level of security he and his family are entitled to when visiting.<\/p>\n
The Court of Appeal dismissed the prince\u2019s case, which hinged on how an official committee made the decision to remove his eligibility for automatic, full-scale protection in line with what other senior royals receive.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the court ruled that Prince Harry had made \u201cpowerful\u201d arguments about the level of threat he and his family face, but said his \u201csense of grievance\u201d did not \u201ctranslate into a legal argument\u201d.<\/p>\n
His legal complaint centred around a committee called the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (Ravec), which authorises security for senior royals on behalf of the Home Office, and was chaired at the time by Sir Richard Mottram.<\/p>\n
Under the committee\u2019s regulations, Prince Harry argued, his case should have been put before Ravec\u2019s Risk Management Board (RMB), which would have assessed the threats to his and family\u2019s security \u2013 but that did not happen.<\/p>\n
On Friday, senior judges said the committee had diverged from policy when making its 2020 decision over the prince\u2019s security, but concluded it had been \u201csensible\u201d to do so because of the complexity of his circumstances.<\/p>\n
Prince Harry said his \u201cjaw hit the floor\u201d when he found out a representative of the Royal Household sat on the Ravec committee, and claimed Friday\u2019s ruling had proved its decision-making process was more influenced by the Royal Household than by legal constraints.<\/p>\n
He claimed there had been \u201cinterference\u201d by the Royal Household in the 2020 decision, which he said resulted in his status as the most at-risk royal being downgraded to the least at risk \u201covernight\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo one does question how that is even possible and also the motive behind that at the time,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Prince Harry called on UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to intervene in his security case, and to overhaul how the Ravec committee operates.<\/p>\n
In a statement released later on Friday, the prince said he would write to Cooper to \u201cask her to urgently examine the matter and review the Ravec process\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Duke of Sussex has told the BBC he \u201cwould love a reconciliation\u201d with the Royal Family, in an emotional interview in which he said he was \u201cdevastated\u201d at losing a legal challenge over his security in the UK. Prince Harry said the King \u201cwon\u2019t speak to me because of this security stuff\u201d, but that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}